I signed up for a JetBlue credit card, which is issued by Barclaycard, sat the start of January. Official approval date was January 8th and the minimum spend is just $1,000 to receive 60,000 TrueBlue points (which I had planned to use for a March trip in MINT).
The plan, then, was to make sure I spent the $1,000 within the first billing cycle so that I would earn the bonus points by end of Feb / early March at the latest.
Except for one thing I hadn’t counted on. Barclaycard closed my first statement after just 18 days, on January 26th (at which points I’d spent about $750 of the $1,000). I called in to ask why it would close after barely more than half a month and I was told it was a system problem affecting many customers, but there is nothing they can do. At this point, my bonus will not be completed until the Feb 26th statement close and transfer to JetBlue 4-6 weeks after that – sometime in April.
The lesson in all this? If you are hoping to get a bonus in a certain amount of time, be sure to call or message the issuer and confirm your first statement close date.
Ever had your best-laid plans thwarted by an early statement close date? Let me know here, on Twitter, or in the private MilesTalk Facebook group.
New to all of this? My new “introduction to miles and points” book, MilesTalk: Live Your Wildest Travel Dreams Using Miles and Points is available now.
