Why It Makes Sense to Get the Barclaycard Arrival Plus Right Before a Big Trip

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Those that are good at planning ahead with their miles of reap big rewards. But the truth is many people see the value in earning miles for free travel, get excited about all the possibilities, plan to get a credit card or two, but never get around to it until it’s too late. With summer travel season approaching, I suddenly have many friends and acquaintances emailing me “I want to take a trip next month. What do I do? How do I get the miles and get a good deal?” Well, the truth is, it’s usually too late at this point if you want to go somewhere next month and are just starting from scratch. With most credit cards, you need to sign up, get the credit card, meet the spending requirement, wait for the miles to post and then look for award availability to use your miles. That is, you need the miles ahead of time… waaay ahead of time.

However, one of few exceptions is the Barclaycard Arrival Plus World Elite MasterCard®. It comes with a $440 travel credit as a sign-up bonus and you get 90 days to meet the $3000 spending requirement. This travel credit can be used for any travel expense you put on your card (hotels, hotel incidentals, train tickets, plane tickets, etc) by going online and redeeming it as a statement credit. The best part is you don’t actually need to wait until your sign-up bonus posts to use it. You can redeem for up to 120 days later retroactively. That is, you can book your ticket or hotel or car or  cruise as soon as you get the card and redeem your points up to four months later after you actually meet the spending and they post.

The annual fee of $89 is also waived the first year and, after a year of owning the card, you can downgrade to the regular Barclaycard Arrival (not Plus) without the annual fee.

So here’s what you can actually do:

1. Sign up for the Barclaycard Arrival and you can charge your travel expenses to the card immediately. If you want to buy a plane ticket somewhere, you can do it as soon as you get the card.
2. Within 90 days, meet the $3000 minimum spending requirement and receive a $440 travel credit.
3. Redeem the $440 travel credit toward the expenses you charged at the beginning.

This is going to be a pretty good solution for those that waited too long and want to offset costs for an upcoming trip and many of my friends actually liked this idea.

A Good Credit Card for International Travel

In fact, if you’re heading on a big trip internationally, it’s actually a very good card to bring with you on your trip for the following reasons:

• The Barclaycard Arrival has no foreign transaction fees. Many cards will charge a 3% foreign transaction fee when you use the card out of the country, but the Barclaycard does not. There is no transaction fee at all.
• The card now has Chip + PIN technology. When traveling to foreign destinations such as Europe, Chip + PIN technology allows you to enter a PIN for using your card at machines that require it. As an example, many European train stations that sell tickets require you to enter a PIN and make it far more difficult if you need to physically run the card.
• The spending you do on your trip will count toward the minimum spending requirement. We definitely spend way more while on vacation than we do in our everyday lives. If we bring this card on vacation, then the spending we do there will actually count toward the minimum spending and brings us that much closer to the $440 credit.
• You will earn 2.2% cash back on all your spending. I carry the Barclaycard around and use it on a regular basis for my base spending anyhow. The 2.2% travel credit I earn is, in my opinion, more rewarding than most cards that just earn one mile per dollar.

How Can You Use Your Barclaycard Arrival Miles On Your Trip?

Barclaycard Arrival miles are pretty flexible. To use your travel credit, you just have to make a purchase that is coded as Travel. There’s a ton of things that it works for and here are just a few examples:

1. Buying flights directly through the airline or on the website (e.g. United, American Airlines, Delta, British Airways, Southwest, Cayman Airways, Air Asia, etc).
2. Booking hotels directly through the hotel or on the website (e.g. Hilton, Hyatt, Starwood, Marriot, Priority Club, Kimpton, Four Seasons, etc)
3. Paying for car rentals directly or through the website (e.g. Avis, Enterprise, Dollar, Budget Car Rental)
4. Booking flights, hotels, car rentals or vacation packages through third-party travel websites such as Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, etc
5. Paying for cruises on Celebrity, Crystal, Holland America or booked through a third-party travel website or travel agent.
6. Award fees and taxes when booking with miles (these can add up to over $100 on more complex itineraries.)
7. Incidentals on hotel stays charged to your credit card (resort fees, room service, on-site incidentals, breakfast, dinner, internet, etc).
8. Airline incidentals (change fees, checked bag fees, in-flight meals)
9. Travel tour operators. Just make sure the operators is coded as travel.
10. Train tickets on Amtrak, RailEurope, TGV, etc.