I’ve had a troubled relationship with the Barclays AAdvantage Aviator lineup of credit cards. My relationship with the Barclays Aviator card began in late 2017 when I opened the Aviator Red card. At the time the card was offering 60,000 AAdvantage miles after making a single purchase. Thanks to the increased sign-up offer from Barclays I ultimately decided to open the card.
Beyond the elevated sign-up bonus, I decided to open the card because of one of the card’s key benefits. That is, the Aviator Red card offers card holders $3,000 Elite Qualifying Dollars (EQD) after putting $25,000 of spend on the card annually. Considering I need EQD to earn elite status I thought this was a great deal in 2017. Beyond this benefit I didn’t see any other reason to open the card.
A few months after opening the Aviator Red card I received an offer to upgrade to the Aviator Silver card. At first I laughed at the offer as I saw absolutely no point in paying a higher annual fee. However, a short while later I started to fall behind on my annual Elite Qualifying Miles and ultimately decided to upgrade. I upgraded because the Aviator Silver card offer card holders 5,000 Elite Qualifying Miles (EQM) after putting $20,000 of spend on the card annually. So, given that I was already putting $25,000 on the card, I figured I’d earn some EQM while I was at it.
A Few Issues With The Aviator Red And Silver Cards
While I appreciated the EQD and EQM earning potential from the Aviator cards, I kept running into a few significant issues which ultimately led me to close my account.
The first issue was the $25,000 of annual spend. It wasn’t that I didn’t spend $25,000 annually, but rather that I was forced to put it all on one card. See, because I needed to earn the $3,000 Elite Qualifying Dollars I had to put all of my ancillary spend on this one card. Given my budget I had no room for error and couldn’t put spend on other cards. This meant that I missed out on the Chase Freedom Quarterly 5X categories and multiple credit card sign-up offers. Ultimately, I just couldn’t stand the lack of flexibility I had given that I needed to put so much spend on one card.
The second issue was the card’s benefits. Either card offers a ton of bespoke benefits when traveling with American, but they are all benefits I already receive from elite status. If I flew American a few times a year and didn’t have elite status I’d definitely appreciate the benefits offered from either card. However, since I maintain top-tier elite status with American there are no benefits that I don’t already receive.
Finally, the major issue with both cards came late last year when Barclays and American changed the EQD benefits offered by Aviator cards. Going forward, you will only be able to earn EQD from the Aviator Silver card. However, you will have to spend $50,000 annually to earn $3,000 EQD!
I Decided To Cancel My Aviator Silver Card
Given the absurd new EQD spend requirement I simply couldn’t see a reason to keep either card open in the future. Ultimately, I decided to close my Aviator Silver card account. I rarely close credit cards, but I simply couldn’t see a reason to keep this account open. Additionally, I didn’t see any value in downgrading to either the Blue or White Aviator cards. So, right after the New Year I called up Barclays to close my account.
Believe it or not I’ve never closed a credit card before so I wasn’t sure what to expect when I called. The phone agent I ended up speaking with was extremely pleasant, but did provided a list of reasons why I should reconsider closing my account. I told her to proceed with the account closer due to the recent change in benefits.
Just prior to closing my account the phone agent was able to provide a retention offer. Prior to explaining the offer she mentioned that this offer was unique to me based on my card usage. Keep in mind my card usage was $25,000 for all of 2018. Ultimately the offer was 5,000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles after spending $1,000 in 90 days. As you can guess, I denied to offer and proceeded with the account closure.
Final Thoughts
Prior to closing my account I made sure to cancel all recurring charges and paid off my entire account balance. This is key whenever you close a credit card because you don’t want a closed account showing a past due balance. Upon closing my account Barclays refunded my $195 annual fee which had posted to the account within in the past 30 days. If you miss the 30 day deadline you may be partially or wholly responsible for paying the fee.
After closing my account my card instantly became inactive, but I do maintain online access to my account for 6 months. Over the next few months I will monitor my account page to make sure my balance remains at $0. After that I will never had to check my Barclays account again and honestly will never look back.
Closing the Aviator card is a bit of a relief. From the beginning I never really liked either card. I’m not sure how else to explain it. Both are fine cards, but I never felt good about carrying either. The whole time I carried the cards I kept feeling this burden of “having” to put annual spend on the card to earn the extra EQD. Going into 2019 without either card I can now diversify that spend and earn more valuable points currencies.
