19 Responses to "Barclaycard Arrival Plus World Elite Mastercard Sign-Up Bonus Redemption"

  1. I have this same card and I’m looking forward to redeeming miles for FinCon expenses. I really like that I can cover hotel and rental car. Also, the 10% redemption bonus is a pretty awesome perk. The annual fee was waived for the first year. I haven’t decided yet if the card is worth paying for next year.
    Addison @ Cashville Skyline recently posted..Getting Away Without Leaving the City Limits

    1. Emily says:

      I was thinking of signing up for the United card to pay for my FinCon14 flight, but I think I’ll end up using this card for the flight or the hotel, which should take up the remaining miles. You can’t play the “I want the redemption bonus” game forever! We’ll definitely ask for the fee to be waived and convert if not.

  2. Liz S says:

    I have the same card – for what it’s worth, when I called to cancel the card after a year and told the rep I didnt want to pay an annual fee, they waived the fee for the next 12 months. I got a new $99 companion certificate in the mail, 10,000 anniversary bonus miles, and an offer for 15,000 bonus miles for a minimum spend of $500 in each of June, July, and August. You can search for “retention offers” in the FlyerTalk forums to get a sense of what you’ll be offered to keep the card, but you can generally count on more rewards for at least another year.

    1. Liz S says:

      On second inspection, my card is actually a different Barclaycard rewards card…oops! Still worth investigating any rewards offers you may get when you try to cancel, though 🙂

      1. Emily says:

        Yeah, I was thinking “I didn’t get a companion pass…” Barclaycard has a lot of good offers out there! We will for sure try to get the annual fee waived before downgrading the card once the first year is up. Thanks for the tip about the forum.

  3. ervinshiznit says:

    So I’m a bit confused. Since Kyle is getting reimbursed for the trip, wouldn’t it have been better to book the flight using cash with the Barclay card, get the points for it, and then get reimbursed later?

    1. Emily says:

      Maybe I didn’t explain myself well. We already had accrued the bonus miles on this card last fall, so he booked his flight with the card, then used the bonus miles to get a statement credit for the amount of the flight. The reimbursement we get in a month or two will go into our Travel account instead of just paying for this flight. Does that make sense?

      1. ervinshiznit says:

        Ah so the reimbursement will be for the full flight value, but your bonus miles were applied as a statement credit. Makes sense now.

        1. Emily says:

          Oh, yeah. That’s one of the benefits of using this retroactive statement credit thing. The flight is still full price, unlike when you use airline miles to pay for one up front. The conference receipts will show the full flight cost so using this bonus is really just moving money around on our end.

  4. Leigh says:

    You actually have 120 days to redeem against a purchase now – they refreshed the card recently. They also expanded the options that you have to redeem against, so I can now use it for airport cabs for example.
    Leigh recently posted..Reflections on Home Ownership: 2 Years In

    1. Emily says:

      Hm, maybe we didn’t look closely at the # of days countdown on the redemption screen. Thanks for the info! I’ll update the post. I really like that they expanded the list of eligible travel options – too bad we always commute by car!

      1. Leigh says:

        I’m actually contemplating keeping this card after the first year is up. Even with the $89 annual fee, it’s looking like I would come out ahead (barely) over using my Fidelity Amex 2% card combined with a 1% visa because of the $ amount I spend that doesn’t accept Amex cards, plus the extra 0.22% back with this card. (The break-even point with my math is at just under $19,000/year in credit card spending, which I am definitely over.) I’m also finding it reasonably easy to redeem the “miles” now that I’ve figured it out.

        My perfect one-card system would be a card that meets the following:
        1) Visa/MasterCard
        2) Chip and PIN
        3) No foreign transaction fees
        4) 2% cashback on everything (no categories)
        5) Easily redeemable
        6) No annual fee
        7) No maximum on the earnings
        8) Free FICO score
        9) Trip cancellation insurance, baggage delay insurance, and supplementary rental car insurance
        10) Flexible automatic payments (Chase and my credit union both reduce the automatic payment if you make an extra payment)
        The Barclaycard Arrival World Elite Mastercard meets all of them except 6) and 10).

        I’ll probably still try to see if I can get the annual fee waived after it comes in and if I can, then I’ll definitely keep it and try to raise the credit limit to $20,000. I’m really against annual fees, so I’m quite surprised I’m even considering this! I still have ~5 more months to think it over though.
        Leigh recently posted..Reflections on Home Ownership: 2 Years In

        1. Emily says:

          You’ve put a good bit of thought into that ideal card! We generally don’t choose cards based on the fringe benefits but they are great when you can use them. I guess since this card is so close to ideal for you it might make sense to pay the annual fee. We certainly don’t spend enough to make it more worthwhile than some of the no-fee cards available. But it is a great one for long-term use if you travel even occasionally.

  5. There’s a lot to love about Arrival Plus, however no card is perfect for everyone. A better option is the Capital One Quicksilver Cash Rewards Credit Card. The Quicksilver earns 1.5% on all purchases and charges no annual fee. You can redeem your rewards for cash back in any amount, any time.

    1. Emily says:

      Definitely depends on what you are looking for. We really like cashback cards so the one you mentioned could be a good fit for everyday use. But we weren’t looking to add another card for long-term use, just wanted the sign-up bonus from the Arrival Plus. However, it’s also great for long-term rewards if you travel a lot.

  6. ervinshiznit says:

    I wouldn’t necessarily say the Capital One card is a better option. As you say, no card is perfect for everyone.

    For somebody who travels enough times in a year, travel rewards cards are generally better in terms of value of the tickets to required credit card spending ratio. However, one needs to travel often enough such that their points don’t get devalued by the time they go to try to use them (points are a fiat currency that periodically get devalued!)

    For somebody who isn’t looking to travel in the near future, then certainly, the capital one card is a great option. The Fidelity Amex is an even better option, giving you 2% cash back into a Fidelity cash management account, which is required but has no minimums nor fees.

    1. Emily says:

      If we sign up for another card for sustained use, it will be the Fidelity Amex. I don’t even know why we haven’t signed up for it yet – just procrastination!

  7. […] safety net of having the auto-payment on in case we forget to make our payment.  So this month, we redeemed the sign-up bonus on one of the cards.  We had a $334 charge for a flight and then got a $334 credit for the redemption.  When we made […]

  8. […] would my ideal single credit card look like? I explained this in a comment on Emily’s post a few weeks […]

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