Update: Barclaycard ended up launching their luxury cards: Titanium, Black & Gold. You can read our review here.
The Barclaycard Visa Black card’s website http://www.blackcard.com now automatically redirects to http://www.luxurycard.com. When you go to the new site you’re informed that Barclaycard are no longer accepting applications for the Black Card and that they’ll be launching the Luxury Card with “NEW PRODUCTS. MORE BENEFITS. ENHANCED VALUE.”.
The Black Card has always been an interesting, but rather useless product. It had a high annual fee of $495 and the following benefits:
- Annual fee of $495
- Sign up bonus of 25,000 points after $1,500 in spend within first three months
- VIP treatment at 3,000 hotels
- Priority Pass membership
- Card earns 1x points on all purchases (worth 2¢ towards airfare)
Presumably it was supposed compete with other premium cards such as the Citi Prestige & American Express Platinum, whilst trying to emulate the exclusiveness of the American Express Centurion & J.P Morgan Chase Palladium cards. Unfortunately it wasn’t at all competitive with the Prestige/Platinum in terms of benefits (inferior lounge access & benefits and lower earning rates compared to the Prestige) and as almost anybody with good credit could be approved it wasn’t in the same league as Centurion/Palladium.
Here’s hoping the Luxury Card is a better offering and not more of the same. It looks like Barclaycard is doing a refresh or their own branded credit cards, with significant negative changes also coming to the Barclaycard Arrival card.
