Arrival card
From Travel Strategies
Barclays Credit Cards
Barclays Webpage
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Annual Fee
$89, waived first year
Current Offer
70,000 "miles". ($5,000 initial spend)
($710 net value, .14/$)Typical Signup Offer
40,000 Arrival "miles"
$3,000 initial spend
($380 net value, .13/$)
Signup Bonus ChartBonus Categories
None
No Foreign Transaction Fee
The Arrival Card is not available for new signups. However, Barclays may be re-releasing it (or a similar card) sometime soon.
This Arrival+ Card is primarily interesting for its signup bonus, particularly when a 50-60,000 "mile" offer is available. There are better credit cards to use, on an ongoing basis, for your everyday purchases.. Get a Great General Purpose Reward Card and Use It for All of Your Spending
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Introduction to Arrival Points
Arrival points are used to offset the cost of travel purchases on your Arrival card.
- You'll receive a 5% rebate, whenever you use your points. For example, if you make a travel purchase for $250, you can use 25,000 Arrival points to offset the charge on your credit card bill, and you'll get 1,250 points back for a future purchase. As a result, you are really getting a little over 1.05 cents in value per point.
- Redeeming for travel isn't your only option, but it is your best option. You'll get 1 cent per point when you use your points to offset travel charges, plus the 5% rebate. If you redeem for cash, or gift cards, you'll only get .5 cents per point.
- You can only redeem your points for transactions you made in the last 120 days.
- There is a $100 redemption minimum. Unfortunately, the minimum amount of a point redemption is 10,000 points, although it can be spread across multiple transactions that you've already made. Once you're redeeming for above the minimum, you can redeem any amount of points. For example, if you have a charge of $189.92, you can redeem exactly 18,992 points.
- Use your points before you cancel the card. Otherwise, you'll lose them. If you don't have a natural opportunity to use them, you can purchase a Southwest Airline ticket or an Alaska Airlines ticket (for a date more than 60 days away), and use your remaining points. You can then cancel the tickets to get a travel credit on Southwest or Alaska, that you can use at a later date, rather than receiving your points back in your Barclay account. Because of the 5% rebate, it is essentially impossible to use up every last point in your account—just use most of them.
- Optimize your point redemption to empty out your account. When it is time to get rid of your card, you don't want to be stuck with a bunch of remaining points in your account, but not enough to make the minimum redemption of 10,000 points To avoid this, you can efficiently structure your final points redemptions. Your goal is to make your second-to-last redemption, so that it leaves you as close to 10,000 points in your account, as possible, without going under, factoring in the 5% points rebate. For example, if you have 30,000 points in your account, you would try to redeem around 21,050 points, to wind up with an account balance of 10,003 points. Then, you'll make one final redemption for the full amount of your remaining balance, which will leave you with just over 500 points in your account (the 5% rebate on your final redemption).
An alternative is to convert the card to a no-annual-fee version. However, you'll need to wait till after your first year anniversary.
Collecting the Signup Bonus
- It is worth signing up for the card, just to collect the signup bonus. The normal bonus is 40,000 "miles", valued at $420. Offers of 50-60,000 points are often available. Miles can be used to offset any of your travel purchases.
- It is possible to get this bonus multiple times. Barclays has no real limit on the number of times you can get the bonus. You can cancel the card towards the end of your first year, wait a few months, and then reapply. However, if you have been actively signing up for credit cards, it can sometimes be hard to get approved for new cards from Barclay, so you might not get reapproved.
Other Notable Benefits
- Elite car rental status. As with all World Elite MasterCards, you get free National Emerald Club Executive and Sixt Platinum status. Instant Car Rental Elite Status.
- Access to Mastercard's luxury hotel program. Another benefit of high-end MasterCards is access to MasterCard's luxury hotel program. When you use the program to book one of the participating hotels, you'll get a number of valuable benefits, like free breakfast, a $100 hotel credit, a room upgrade, and late checkout.Take Advantage of Luxury Hotel Programs for Valuable Extra Perks.
- Free ShopRunner membership. Like all World Elite MasterCards, your card entitles you to a complimentary ShopRunner membership, which provides free two-day and return shipping from around 150 of the largest online retailers. ShopRunner.
- DoorDash and Hello Fresh discounts. Cardmembers who have a DoorDash membership get $5 off their first two orders each month when paid for by their Mastercard. If you don't have a free membership from Chase, you can get your first three months membership for free through Mastercard. You also get a 5% credit back on each HelloFresh purchase.
- Some additional discounts. If you pay for at least 3 Lyft rides each calendar month with your Mastercard, you'll receive a $5 Lyft credit good for the following month (once you enroll in the Lyft app). You also receive double Fandango points, a 5% reward rebate at Boxed, and $5 off every Postmates order of $25 or more.
Bonus Categories
- None. The card earns 2 "miles" on every purchase, and each mile is worth 1.05 cents (because of the refund).
- You don't want to use this card for your everyday spending. You'll earn higher rewards from a good general-purpose reward card. Get a Great General Purpose Reward Card and Use It for All of Your Spending.