Barclays Infinite Credit Card?

Marchitiello

Ben8282 wrote: »

I think the $7,500 initial fee you mention above refers to a special US version of the card where the physical card is made of Titanium. The UK issued card is plastic.
The UK card does not require the annual spend, income or net worth you suggest above.
The 'no limits' bit is a myth. Amex say 'You are free to spend what you have shown us you can afford' or words to that effect. Amex will determine the limit for this charge card the same way as they determine the limit for any other charge card, based on the payment history and previous spending pattern.

I have actually recently worked with a consultant who in his previous role has worked for the company that emboss Amex, including the Amex Black centurion, and it is indeed made of Titanium in its current version.
According to him, the majority of the names embossed were very important people known to be high worth individuals and there was an understanding that the limits were extremely high.
The "limits" are in the millions, so even if it is technically not unlimited, there is very few things that a seller will accept a card for that will cost more then that. I think ITV recently interviewed a U.K. Business man that bought a £1m house with this card (not sure who the seller was but evidently they accepted cards, maybe Harrods Real Estate??) and earned enough Rewards miles to fly return to Sydney, first class just with that transaction.

AlexPF

You might be a little confused, your initial post said you wanted to get one not just that you wanted to find info about it. Re-read your post.

Never stated that I wanted a Centurion card (referring to what you are quoting). It's Centurion, by the way.
From what concerns you, I may or may not already have one.

and annual income of about £1m a year and net worth of over $16m

I don't know where you get your info from, but I can ensure to you that it is not the case. As @Ben8282 mentioned, the criteria is around your history with Amex and annual card spend.

If you want one, the $250k spend is roughly right, they have however recently started raising the minimum spend. Just call them up and ask them to add your name to the list of individuals interested in receiving an invitation. It works.
An alternative route is to ask your private banker to get you one (and this works with Barclays, HSBC and others, subject to financial history).

Again, if you put business expenses on your platinum, in the range of that requirement, it's easy.

Also ill informed, the card has no limit beyond a possible pre-authorisation, a Chinese businessman bought a painting costing $170m on that card and purchases over $1m are recorded.

There is a limit in place, as with any charge card. Such limit depends on your history with Amex. Hence the "no pre-set spending limits".

You asked for information about an invite only card which most of the staff at the bank have not heard of. You seem to think it's some mysterious special card, 5 seconds on google found the welcome brochure for one and the details of the account - £50,000 balance in cash/investments, £300 a year fee, as well as a sample letter for the application

The first two links are referring to the version of the card issued to Barclays Private bank client and that card has been available for a long time. It has a different APR and fees, along with different benefits.
As I stated in my first post:

(and i'' not referring to the barclays wealth version)

If you notice, these links sit on the Barclays Wealth website.
Barclays Private Wealth infinite as been around for a long while, the one I refer to has been released in July.

You however managed to spot the sample provided by the person contracted to write the copy of the invitation e-mail, which is useful. It's unlikely that I would have spotted that, as it was published 6 days ago. The phone number referred on the application screen is not active, however.

I can tell you that the requirements for this card are around £25k saved with Barclays and £150 annual fee, significantly less than the Wealth version.

I'm going to book an appointment with a relationship manager next week (not really much time to go to the branch unfortunately, this sort of things is always tricky) in order to apply. Will update, if the meeting is worth.

and it is indeed made of Titanium in its current version

That's correct, actually they are issuing the same identical cards now, one made of metal and one made of plastic, as some ATM do not recognise/accept the metal version.

Yes, they target a particular audience, and yes, the whole environment is built around wealth and business (£1000 discount for a Victor jet with the latest issue of the magazine, for example, which is a decent perk), but that does not mean that it is reserved to the rich and famous, not since many years. It's all about how much money they can make out of you (and if you happen to put business expenses on the card, that can be significant, but it does not mean that you, as an individual, are actually extremely rich). Finally, in regards to the fees, they can be legitimately treated as business expenses, hence reducing significantly the effective cost.



I don't get why there is this aversion to any topic referring to anything better than a credit rebuilding credit card. It's a personal finance forum, we are allowed to discuss whatever we want, without necessarily having to be

Joe Bloggs who has to ask on a forum about getting one

as, you may have noticed, news tend to come on here faster than communications from financial institutions (see the recent rate cuts from Santander/Lloyds/TSB etc).

book12

AlexPF wrote: »

I can tell you that the requirements for this card are around £25k saved with Barclays and £150 annual fee, significantly less than the Wealth version.

I'm going to book an appointment with a relationship manager next week (not really much time to go to the branch unfortunately, this sort of things is always tricky) in order to apply. Will update, if the meeting is worth.

The requirements for the Infinite card for £25K with the bank is generous compared to the others, which is higher. Reading the features of that card on the website another user posted in this thread, I don't think I would use it, so won't be applying for it. Not a Premier customer by the way. Can a non-Premier customer who have £25K apply for it do you think? I'm not applying for it, but just curious.

Good luck on getting the card. Tell us how you get on.

theburningcat

On the subject of the Centurion card, I don't have any inside knowledge, but I do know that the requirements vary from year to year and from country to country. In the US, for example, it's not that uncommon to see them.

Djene

It seams odd that their criteria for the Infinite card would be £25,000 held with Barclays, considering the criteria for Premier is £100,000 held with Barclays. From memory Wealth criteria is £500,000 saved. But the wealth site doesn't seam to promote any credit/charge cards anymore.

Visa Infinite cards seam to be very rare in the UK. Could only find ones from Barclays, Societe Generale, Brown Shipley & ADIB UK.

I'm guessing the criteria to bank with/get an infinite card from these providers run on the assumption if you need to ask for the eligibility criteria, your not really their sort of client.

JGUK

My friend had an i24 - has now been issued a Barclays Infinite.

The labelling isn't Visa Infinite, its Barclays Infinite with the Visa logo at the bottom.

Don't know if thats relevant.

It is definitely a credit card for him, with a limit just below £20,000

Ben8282

Marchitiello wrote: »

I have actually recently worked with a consultant who in his previous role has worked for the company that emboss Amex, including the Amex Black centurion, and it is indeed made of Titanium in its current version.
According to him, the majority of the names embossed were very important people known to be high worth individuals and there was an understanding that the limits were extremely high.
The "limits" are in the millions, so even if it is technically not unlimited, there is very few things that a seller will accept a card for that will cost more then that. I think ITV recently interviewed a U.K. Business man that bought a £1m house with this card (not sure who the seller was but evidently they accepted cards, maybe Harrods Real Estate??) and earned enough Rewards miles to fly return to Sydney, first class just with that transaction.

The company which embosses the card would have no idea whatsoever of how much Amex would allow to be outstanding on a particular card account at any one time. A there is no formal credit limit on any Amex charge card he can't have seen the letters to which the cards were attached stating the limit as there is no such thing.


Not saying I don't believe the story about the £1M house. However, using a charge card to buy a house is an very unusual way of making the payment. Who accepted the card and paid the commission to Amex? The seller? The sellers solicitor? The buyers solicitor? The estate agent? He may well have got enough rewards for a First class round-trip to Australia but somebody somewhere paid commission to Amex which exceeded the value of the rewards.


Having a card made from precious metal is madness. What if it was lost, stolen or taken by an ATM?

Marchitiello

Ben8282 wrote: »

The company which embosses the card would have no idea whatsoever of how much Amex would allow to be outstanding on a particular card account at any one time. A there is no formal credit limit on any Amex charge card he can't have seen the letters to which the cards were attached stating the limit as there is no such thing.


Not saying I don't believe the story about the £1M house. However, using a charge card to buy a house is an very unusual way of making the payment. Who accepted the card and paid the commission to Amex? The seller? The sellers solicitor? The buyers solicitor? The estate agent? He may well have got enough rewards for a First class round-trip to Australia but somebody somewhere paid commission to Amex which exceeded the value of the rewards.


Having a card made from precious metal is madness. What if it was lost, stolen or taken by an ATM?

I should have made it clear that the guy only told me about the card being titanium and the sort of client name list they saw when programming the embossing.

The next part, about the limit and the ITV programme was me.

Edit to add: I would not consider titanium as a precious metal. Palladium is (used by JP Morgan). You shoul look into the Aurea card: that is proper crazy, gold and diamonds...

Marchitiello

Regarding this "new" Barclaycard Infinite, they are obviously replacing the i24 card with this (https://henrytapper.com/2016/07/11/what-rights-do-banking-customers-still-have/). It looks to be carrying less benefits then the i24 and therefore slightly less then the Amex Reward Platinum .
In my opinion this declassification of qualifying criteria will diluite the prestige of the card, the same way it has happened with Gold cards first, and Platinum later.

However, the Barclaycard T&Co refers to this card as a chargecard, the same way as the Barclays Wealth version

notafan

AlexPF wrote: »

Never stated that I wanted a Centurion card (referring to what you are quoting). It's Centurion, by the way.
From what concerns you, I may or may not already have one.

AlexPF wrote: »

Hey, thanks for the suggestion, unfortunately that does not seem to be the case, I would have expected the same however! (I'm a premier costumer myself)

It's customer, by the way...just saying!