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The Barclaycard Arrival Plus® World Elite Mastercard® offers unique value for points and miles fans. While most travel-rewards cards focus on transfer partners, perks, and bonus earning categories to entice new cardholders, the Arrival Plus provides simplicity and flexibility with almost endless redemption options.
Let’s dive into the details and see what makes the Arrival Plus one of our favorite rewards-earning credit cards.
70,000-Mile Welcome Bonus
An attractive feature of the Arrival Plus is the signup bonus. New cardholders receive 70,000 bonus miles after spending $5,000 on purchases in the first 90 days of having the card. The welcome bonus on the Arrival Plus is good for $700 of travel rewards redeemed as statement credits against a wide array of travel expenses. In fact, after hitting the minimum spend, you'll earn another 10,000 miles, which increases the value to $800 and when you redeem those 80,000 points you'll get 5% back, which is another $40 in value (4,000 points).
Earn 2x Miles On All Purchases
Earn unlimited 2X miles on every purchase, in every category, all the time. No bonus categories to wrap your head around, and no limit to the number of miles you can earn.
Additionally, every time you redeem miles for travel rewards, you receive 5% of those miles back to use for future redemptions. For example, redeem 100,000 miles for travel rewards and you receive 5,000 of those miles back—so your 100,000-mile reward has a net cost of only 95,000 miles.
Another unique feature of the Arrival Plus is you will still earn points/miles and elite status credits on redemptions! For example, here's how you can stack rewards using your Arrival Plus:
- Purchase an airfare on Expedia via TopCashBack.com and receive cash back + Expedia Points
- Earn 2x Arrival Miles on the purchase price
- Earn elite status credits and miles after completing your flight
- If you're a member of a business rewards program like Delta SkyBonus you'll earn additional rewards in that program
- Redeem Arrival Miles for the fare as a statement credit at the end of your billing cycle
- Receive 5% of your Arrival Miles back for use on another redemption
That's a lot of value from a single transaction!
Barclaycard Arrival Miles do not expire as long as your account remains open, active, and in good standing.
0% Intro APR on Balance Transfers
The Arrival Plus also offers a 0% intro APR for first 12 billing cycles following each balance transfer that posts to your account within 45 days of account opening (then 18.24%, 22.24% or 25.24% variable APR based on creditworthiness), a handy feature if you are transferring a balance from another provider.
Ultimate Flexibility When Redeeming Miles
The Arrival Plus offers ultimate flexibility when redeeming Arrival Miles for travel. As per the card's T&C's:
“A travel redemption is defined as: airlines, hotels, motels, timeshares, campgrounds, car rental agencies, cruise lines, purchase and travel agencies, discount travel sites, trains, buses, taxis, limousines, and ferries as defined by the merchant category code.”
This makes the Arrival Plus the perfect companion card for a premium rewards card. Use your high-value flexible rewards cards & currencies for lounge access and to pay for flights and chain hotels, and your Arrival Miles for expenses they can't cover like Airbnb, ski lodges, chalets, bicycle hire, camping, and tours.
Arrival Miles are also fantastic if you find a mistake fare or heavily discounted ticket on a discount travel site. Book the fare using your Arrival Plus, and you can redeem the cost as a statement credit at the end of the month. No need to find award availability or transfer points to partners and you could save hundreds if not thousands of dollars!
You can start redeeming the miles with a balance as low as 10,000 miles for $100 toward all or a portion of your travel purchases of $100 or more made within the past 120 days.
To redeem your Arrival Plus miles, just use your card to book your travel reservations, and redeem Arrival Miles as a statement credit towards the cost at the end of your billing cycle.
There are multiple options for redeeming Arrival Miles outside of travel rewards, but we don't recommend them as you only receive half the value. When you use miles to get gift cards, merchandise, or statement credits, you're also not eligible for the 5% rebate.
The one caveat we'd add to Arrival Miles is that redemption options start at 10,000 miles ($100), so if your only purchase is a $99 taxi fare, best include a tip to get your expense over the line!
Fantastic Travel Benefits, Security, and Other Perks
The Arrival Plus is great for international travel since you incur no foreign transaction fees, and it has chip & signature technology with PIN support. Barclaycard is currently one of a few issuers that support Chip & PIN, which is becoming increasingly widespread overseas. While other banks may issue cards that support Chip + PIN, we haven't seen any linked to premium travel rewards cards.
In addition to a host of travel insurance and perks such as elite status with National Car Rental and Sixt Rent a Car, Barclaycard recently joined the list of rewards cards with Trip Delay insurance, adding a $300 Trip Delay policy that kicks in if you're delayed for more than 6 hours due to:
- Airline equipment malfunctions
- Bad weather
- Stolen or misplaced travel documents, including your passport.
See Barclaycard's Barclaycard Arrival Plus Guide to Benefits for the details or read our all-inclusive review for a comprehensive breakdown of Arrival Plus benefits.
Bonus Tip: All cards from Barclaycard will give you your free FICO credit score each month!
Conclusion
The Arrival Plus card is a fantastic rewards-earning credit card offering simplicity and ultra-flexible rewards. New cardholders receive 70,000 bonus miles after spending $5,000 on purchases in the first 90 days, earn 2x Arrival Miles on all purchases. To boot, the card has an affordable annual fee of $89 (waived first year).
The card has some fantastic benefits and you can redeem Arrival Miles earned with your Arrival Plus for almost any travel expense of $100 or more, including Airbnb rentals, discount airfares like transatlantic bargains from Norwegian, or a trip on a cruise liner, giving you options outside of traditional redemptions.
If you're not currently a cardholder, apply for the Arrival Plus and you could be 70,000 miles closer to your next travel experience.
The comments on this page are not provided, reviewed, or otherwise approved by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
I’m looking at this card to offset surf/spanish lessons on an upcoming trip. What does the transaction need to post as for Barclay to allow me to use the credit? Is it just “travel”? I’ll ask the organization I’m working with what they post as.
Also, anyone have experience using plastiq to pay mortgage with this card?
“travel” is what you need.
I like the 0% APR balance transfer for 12 months, but if there is a % fee to transfer it ruins it practically.
60,000 is a pretty good bonus for this card.
May have to revisit Barclays.
The annual fee seems reasonable. The problem is that I don’t think that I can make the spend requirement right now.
nice benefits, wish the minimum spend wasnt so high.
I haven’t had much interest in this card so far, but now I am considering getting it. 🙂
What changed your thought process?
There are a lot more credit cards out there with no first year annual fee and bigger bonuses. I would think that one should only get this card after exhausting other credit cards. I also heard that it is harder to qualify with Barclays.
I also love Barclays. I have the Silver AA card and love it.
This is an awesome signup bonus and I read that they waive the first year annual fee. This offer is $200 better than the old offer that I got in late 2017. Yes, the $100 or more travel credit is something you need to wrap your head around but there’s ways to work it (spend $100 or more on any travel expense such as airbnb, car rentals, airline tix or even airline points or like we did – restaurant that was part of the Hyatt hotel (counts as travel).
The annual fee is not waived.
The email I got from award wallet on July 6th announcing this offer with all the details said the first year annual fee was waived.
In the bullet list, it has the annual fee. Sorry about that! You’ll definitely pay the $89 on it, but with the bonus increased to 60,000 bonus miles it covers that fee.
This card is tempting for all the reasons that are stated in the article. The simplicity and flexibility of using the rewards are useful and the 5% back means that the redemption rate is a tiny bit better than 1 cent per point. The chip and pin functionality is definitely useful to have as an alternative since I have heard a few stories of some situations in Europe where the only option was Chip and Pin so most of our US cards would not have worked. The fact that it is a Master Card is also significant because there are some countries where that is the most easily accepted credit card. The $100 minimum for redemptions is definitely annoying. I would love to see a head-to-head comparison of this card with the Capital One Venture cards as they seem so similar.
I can certainly confirm instances of both of these:
– “The chip and pin functionality is definitely useful to have as an alternative since I have heard a few stories of some situations in Europe where the only option was Chip and Pin so most of our US cards would not have worked.”
– “The fact that it is a Master Card is also significant because there are some countries where that is the most easily accepted credit card.”
Sorry please explain – it seems to me that this is a cash back card that can be redeemed for travel expenses and does not accrue miles like the AA credit cards. Am I correct?
That is mostly correct. It is like a cash back card — the points have a fixed value when redeemed for travel, but it is not a cash back card.
Two miles per dollar for everything is quite good actually.
Very interesting. Sounds like they are preparing to end their partnership with American Airlines.
Why would you think they’re ending their relationship with AA?
My guess is that AA is going to end their relationship with Barclay. I have seen a lot of good offers for the Citi than the Barclays Card. It is just a guess and my gut feeling.
I wouldn’t be surprised for the relationship to stay. Unless Citi pays up, I don’t see why AA would want to end either relationship. Competition is a win for AA and us as consumers. Gary calls out who has what rights on where to sell products here: https://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2018/06/14/new-aggressive-pitch-for-onboard-credit-card-signup-get-both-for-big-bonuses/
I have been happy with this and my other Barclay credit cards.
Love the 60000 miles
I have another Barclay card and l like getting Miles rather than Barclay points so I’m going to pass on this one
Not bad, but I have seen better offers in my opinion.
Such as?
This is the highest bonus ever offered for this card, which is great. My only criticism is the ‘over-$100’ limitation on redemptions. Although a marginal issue, it would be more appealing if one could wipe away any travel charge.
It is an incredibly annoying “feature”. Its the only reason I’d direct someone to a cash back card versus this one — small travel charges area waste to put on this card.
Looking to pick this one up to help off set the cost of a cruise out of Dublin for next year.
This along with the CSR was my first card. When you’re first starting out this one seems nice and simple to dip your toes into. Even after all my experience and help trying to tell my sister to get a slightly more advanced card for her first time, she still went with this one.
A few years ago when the older Arrival cc was the new “It” card I learned a thing or three about the value of a flexible points program. I highly recommend them.
Good to see the return of the card with a good sign up bonus.
Hard to complain a bonus like this specially on a 2x card.
But the “miles” are only worth $.01 each.
Barclays’ getting stricter to get cards. Last time I signed up they are asking for a copy of my SSN card!
Although there is an increase in the approved bonus for new accounts, the Chase Sapphire Preferred is still better and even has the first year annual fee waived unlike this particular credit card.
The sign-up bonus is great. After earning that, though, I’d rather put unbonused spend on a 2% cash back card…
Agreed