Now that my credit card total has reached a quarter century, I’m always on the lookout for the latest and greatest deals. Since I’ve already applied for a lot of the major cards, it takes a little more creativity these days to get the big spending bonuses but they’re definitely still out there. I recently did a small credit card churn for my fiancee and the Barclay Arrival was one of the first cards I did for her. I actually haven’t done this card myself because I’ve taken a short break from the credit card churning in order to boost up my credit for a potential real estate deal. Since I might be applying for a mortgage, I want my credit score to be as high as possible and even after 25+ cards, I still have close to a 775 FICO score(so I don’t want to mess that up).
Barclay is known to be among the most strict credit card companies though so I’d make sure your score is in the 700+ range and you don’t have too many recent inquiries. You might get approved with a lower score but 700+ is what I recommend. I usually do Barclay cards first whenever I’m applying for multiple cards in order to give myself the best chance of instant approval.
I really like this card though because the points are very easy to redeem. With a lot of branded credit cards like the Chase Hyatt Visa or the Citi American Airlines Mastercard you might get 50,000 points but you have to redeem them at a Hyatt hotel or on an AA flight. If you’re just a casual user who only signs up for a few cards a year, you’re best served going for cards like this that allow very flexible redemption options.
Barclaycard Arrival Terms and Conditions
When you spend $1,000$3,000(as of 3/14) in 90 days, you’ll receive 40,000 points which can be redeemed as statement credits on any travel related purchases. And since you earn 2 points per dollar spent(on any purchase) you’ll get a grand total of 42,000 points after you meet the spend requirements. In addition, you’ll also get a 10% bonus on all points that you redeem. The annual fee is $89 but it’s waived for the first year. I suggest canceling the card after a year or downgrading to their no fee version.
The other nice benefit of this card is that there are no foreign transaction fees so it’s a great card to use abroad.
2.2% Cash Back
Since you get 2x points back on all purchases and a 10% redemption bonus you’re effectively getting 2.2% cash back on all purchases.
Let’s say you go out and spend $5,000. You’d get 10,000 points deposited into your account and once you redeem those points for a $100 statement credit you’d get an additional 1,000 point bonus. So effectively, you’re getting $110/$5,000 = 2.2% Cash Back
The only catch with this card is that you have to redeem your points on travel – airlines, hotels, rental cars, etc. That should be pretty easy though for most of us since if you take only one vacation a year you can use this card to pay for part or all of it and then redeem your points for a statement credit.
There aren’t many cards that will get you 2.2% cash back on ALL your purchases. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to use this card on an every day basis but I would definitely use it for purchases that weren’t double or triple points back on my other cards. The bottom line is: the Barclaycard Arrival will give you $440 for spending $1,000$3,000(as of 3/14) in 90 days. If there’s an easier way to make $440, I’d love to hear about it.
If you’d like to sign up, please click here to apply for the Barclaycard Arrival World Mastercard.
Readers, do you think it’s worth your time to sign up for this card for $440 tax free? Most cash back sign-up bonuses are much lower than this card so I almost always sign up for a $400 cash back or more offer.
-Harry @ PF Pro
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Personal Capital lets you see all of your accounts in one convenient place. Sign up now for free.Note: The links in this article are referral links so if you sign up and get approved for the card, I will receive a small commission. As always though, I only promote products which I myself use and this card is actually sitting in my wallet right now(even though it has my fiancee’s name on it! haha).
I already got my $400, but I stupidly redeemed it against a very large transaction and now I can’t redeem against that transaction again. So don’t redeem against a very large transaction unless it’s just before the 90 days or you don’t think you’ll be able to use the rest of the points. Honestly, the points seem a bit finicky to use, so I’ll probably only use it at places that don’t take my Fidelity Amex and aren’t a restaurant and then a travel transaction that will be enough to use the rest of the points. I thought it was pretty cool though that the points posted immediately rather than after the statement!
Ah gotcha, I haven’t tried to redeem the points yet but that is usually how these types of cards work. There is another good deal for the Capital One card going on right now with a 50k bonus and the points can be redeemed for travel type purchases but you can’t do partial redemptions. Yea this card is still pretty solid and you can cancel or downgrade after a year and you’ve made a cool $500 for very little work.
I’m planning on doing this card next but I’m going to wait a bit after doing the Sapphire Preferred Card as I still like to churn my Platinum Delta Amex yearly as I get a free 10,000 miles if I spend 25k in a year (which I use Amazon Payments to significantly help out with).
The car rental prices were fabulous with the Sapphire Preferred card like you said. Thanks for telling me about that!
No problem Tara, I’m glad I could save you some money. If you couldn’t tell I really love racking up miles and points for doing nothing. Citi also has some really good car rental rates if you have any of those points lying around.
Barclay is very picky when it comes to applications so just make sure you don’t have too many recent inquiries and high CS and you should be good to go.