There’s been much speculation over the last few months, but today Barclays is finally sending out e-mails with official dates for the conversion of their current US Airways Dividend Miles MasterCards to new AAdvantage Aviator cards. According to the e-mail, current cardmembers will receive new cards in the mail between April 1st and July 15th.
Almost everyone has assumed this changeover would happen sometime in the second quarter, so it’s not a surprise that those guesses are now officially confirmed. However, this also likely means the end of any applications for new US Airways Dividend Mastercards by the end of March at the very latest, if not much sooner. If you’re planning to apply for this card and grab its 50,000 mile signup bonus while it still exists, now is the time, as Citibank will be the exclusive issuer of American Airlines credit cards going forward. Get this one now or you’ll be out of luck.
The Barclays e-mail also noted the 50% bonus offer that’s been trickling out to pretty much all US Airways card members in the last week or so…
If you checked your account earlier for this targeted bonus and didn’t find it, check again. I noticed that when I first looked, the bonus was available on one of my cards but not the other. But when I checked back a few days later, it appeared on both. So if you didn’t find it the first time, it’s worth taking a second glance.
Earlier today Chasing The Points covered new information previously shared by jolesch on the Travel Codex forums that there will actually be four different versions of the new American Aviator card — Red, Blue, Silver, and… nothing (meaning just plain American Aviator). Speculation on FlyerTalk is that the four different flavors might correspond to the varying types of US Airways credit card portfolios that Barclays has acquired over the years. That does seem logical, though we’ll have to see how it unfolds. As you can see from my e-mail above, I’ll be receiving an Aviator Red, which would correspond correctly to the speculation since I currently have a US Airways Dividend Miles World Elite card.
And finally, if you’ve already got a US Airways Mastercard… you might be able to still get a second one. For tips on that front, check out my post over at Frequent Miler.
