Barclaycard Arrival: $440 Sign-Up Bonus After Spending $3000 Within 3 Months

It’s no secret the Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard is one of my favorite credit cards, especially after it raised its sign-up bonus to 40,000 miles last year. It was named the “Best Travel Reward Card” by Money Magazine and I consider it one of the best credit cards for beginners. The 40,000 mile sign-up bonus is among the most flexible point currencies you can have. The Barclaycard miles nearly equate to cash for travel expenses; they can be used to pay for any travel expense by putting it on the card and then redeeming the points for a statement credit. You also receive a 10% rebate on points redeemed to be used again.

Update: As of this afternoon, the spending requirement for the sign-up bonus is now $3000 within 3 months. Even with the increased sign-up bonus, I am still happy to recommend the card. 

The sign-up bonus is worth $440 towards any travel expense. As this card earns 2 miles for every dollar spent, it’s always in my wallet. I am essentially earning 2.2% cash back on all my base spending to be used toward any travel expense. I bring out other cards occasionally for bonus categories, but 2.2% is higher than I value 1 point earned on any of my other cards.

While the $440 sign-up bonus can be used to pay for standard travel expenses like plane tickets, hotels, etc, I prefer to save these points for those expenses where I can’t redeem miles. Most of my family and friends have this card now and we’ve used the card to pay for:

• Airline tickets and hotels.
• Train tickets in Europe.
• Taxes and fuel surcharges on award tickets.
• All-inclusive vacation packages to Mexico.
• Meals and hotel incidentals 
• Short flights on vacations within Asia, Europe, etc.
• Car rentals.
• Taxi rides.
• Cruises to the Caribbean.

The list goes on and we all agree having these miles is pretty awesome and easy to use. The spending requirement was $1000 within 3 months of account opening. It has been confirmed that the minimum spending requirement will be going up to $3000 spending required within the first 3 months of account opening.

This, of course, comes as no surprise as banks will typically raise spending requirement after they’ve entered the market. There’s only so long a great deal can go on. The $3000 requirement may not be a big deal to many, especially those who take advantage of Vanilla Reloads to pay their bills. I am among those people and I do frequently bring my Barclaycard Arrival to buy the Vanilla Reloads simply because the base spending cash back is so good.

Here are, of course, the full offer details (updated to reflect new spending requirement):

• Earn 40,000 bonus miles when you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first 90 days – that’s enough to redeem for a $400 travel statement credit
• 0% intro APR for 12 months for each Balance Transfer made within 45 days of account opening. After that, a variable APR currently 14.99% or 18.99%, depending on your creditworthiness.
• Earn 2X miles on all purchases – Miles don’t expire as long as your account is open, active and in good standing
• Chip card for increased confidence and convenience to pay abroad as easily as you do at home
• Redeem your miles for travel statement credits – redemptions start at 2,500 miles for $25 toward travel purchases made in the last 120 days
• Get 10% miles back to use toward your next redemption every time you redeem for travel statement credits
• No foreign transaction fees on anything you buy while in another country
• Complimentary online FICO® Credit Score access for Barclaycard Arrivalcardmembers

Appli­ca­tion Link:  Barclaycard Arrival™ World MasterCard® – Earn 2x on All Purchases

$89 annual fee – waived first year.

The card does have an $89 annual fee, but it is waived the first year. For those who prefer to avoid the annual fee, it is possible to downgrade the card to the no annual fee version after a year although this will only earn 1 point per dollar on all spending.