I have mentioned before that credit card companies (among other retailers) will attempt to reach you with “offers” through e-mail from time to time. As I mentioned, most of the time if they are trying to get you to sign-up for an offer, it is probably good for the retailer and not that good for you. Every so often, however, you get an e-mail that has a good offer attached.
My wife and I each have the US Airways Mastercard from Barclay’s Bank. I have written about this card before – it is an excellent deal. After your first purchase, you will receive 40,000 US Airways miles. However, it has a problem for the issuer since there is not any great incentive for you to continue using the card after your first purchase (for which reason many banks are starting to require higher spending thresholds to get the sign-up bonus). I will use an airline card sporadically after I have received the bonus so I build a reputation with the bank that I am trying to be a good customer. Anyway, my wife received an offer today in her e-mail that I did not. It is a targeted offer, but, if you have this card, you may have received this offer as well, so check your e-mail!
US Airways spending offer
This offer is for the targeted individual to earn 15,000 bonus US Airways miles after spending $750 each month for three months, starting September 1st. If you spend only $700 one month and $900 the other two months, you will not get it. It has to be a minimum of $750 each month. Also, you cannot count purchase amounts towards that total that you return. This is a very solid offer and an incentive offer that I wish more card issuers would follow after. Maybe they will, who knows?!
This amount kind of crowds into my required spending on some of the cards I am planning on getting (such as the American Express Starwood Preferred card), but I don’t think I want to let it pass either. It also includes a portion of time when I will be out of the country, so I will be needing to do some online purchasing with it as well. I will make the spending requirement because 15,000 US Airways Dividend miles are not chump change. For the holder of the US Airways Mastercard, you only need 20,000 miles for a trip within the 48 states. This is just shy of that amount – in fact, after you factor in the spending that is required along with the bonus, it leaves the bearer only 2,750 miles away from that award.
So, CHECK YOUR E-MAIL! If you did not get this offer, and you have the card, here are a couple of things that might work for next time they offer something similar to this (keeping in mind that my wife received the offer and I did not):
- I use my card – my wife has not used her card since the original purchase
- I have held the card for 4 years – my wife just applied a couple of months ago
- I do not currently have any miles in my account – my wife has all of her bonus miles in the account
This is by no means an exhaustive sampling, but it would appear based on our two cases that the offer was made to the one who has recently received the card and has not done any other spending on it. So, if you do get this card, try making just your first purchase and then sit on the card for a few months. I normally do that and then begin to spend a little more after 6 months have passed (if I want to get a retention bonus in place of canceling the card). Let me know if you got it or if you have any success! This card just became a 55,000 mile card application for my wife, did it become that for you?
Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by American Express. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of American Express, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by American Express. This site may be compensated through American Express Affiliate Program.
