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【7/6 Update】This card now waives the $150 annual fee for the first year, so you can try it out and see whether it suits you. Its biggest feature is that points can also be transferred to miles, with some airlines at 1.4:1 and others at 1.7:1. Combined with 2x on all spending and the big-spend bonus, earning 3x on all spending is still pretty solid. It’s still unclear whether this card can be converted to the recently reissued Arrival Plus card or the no-annual-fee Arrival.

【6/20 Update】

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Barclays Arrival Premier Credit Card Overview

Application Link

None

Key Features

  • Sign-up bonus: None
  • Earning rate: 2x on all purchases
  • Redemption: 1 point = 1c toward travel purchases, 2 miles = 1c cash redemption, with a 5% redemption bonus; points can be converted to airline miles at certain ratios
  • No FTF foreign transaction fee
  • $150 annual fee, not waived the first year

Highlights

  • 2x earning: This card earns 2x on all purchases. If you redeem everything for travel purchases, it works out to a 2% cash-back card. With the extra 5% redemption bonus, it is effectively a little better than 2% cash back. In addition, points can be transferred to airline miles at certain ratios, so if you know the transfer partners well, that can be a good option too.
  • Big-spend bonus: Spend $10,000 in a year and you get an extra 10,000-point bonus; spend another $15,000 and you get another 15,000-point bonus. If your spending happens to land at $10,000 or $25,000, this card is effectively a 3x points card on all spending.
  • Global Entry reimbursement: Every five years, it reimburses the $100 application fee for Global Entry. Since Global Entry is valid for five years after approval, this is a perk you can enjoy for a long time.
  • Free FICO score every month: You can keep track of your credit score; see: Free credit score comparison
  • LoungeKey airport lounges: Entry costs $27 each time. For details, see airport.mastercard.com.

Drawbacks

  • No sign-up bonus

Arrival Premier Points Overview

  • These points can be redeemed at 1 mile = 1c to offset travel purchases directly, including airfare, car rentals, hotels, cruises, and more, so the range is broad. After making eligible travel purchases with this card, choose to redeem points and then select the purchase you want to cover (minimum redemption is $100). Cash redemptions cut the value in half (1 mile = 0.5c), so that is not worth considering.
  • Points can also be transferred at 1.4:1 to Aeromexico, Air France/KLM Flying Blue, China Eastern, Etihad, EVA Air, Jet Airways, Malaysia Airlines, and Qantas miles (14,000 points for 10,000 miles); and at 1.7:1 to Japan Airlines (JAL) miles (17,000 points for 10,000 miles).

This card has added a new airline transfer partner for Air Canada (AC), namely Aeroplan miles. The transfer ratio is 1.7:1, which means 8,500 Arrival points for 5,000 Aeroplan miles. This card already earns 2x on all spending, and with the big-spend bonus it becomes a 3x points card on all spending. If you convert that into AC miles, that works out to 1.76 miles/$, which is still a bit better than a typical credit card. AC miles are similar to UA miles, and the award tickets you can book are also very similar, though they usually cost slightly more miles. One highlight is that infant tickets only require a fixed $50/$100, so booking business class can be very worthwhile.

My Thoughts

The advantage of this card is that if your spending lands at $10,000 or $25,000, it effectively becomes 3% cash back on all spending. If you have a fairly large amount of spending and it doesn’t fall into the usual credit card bonus categories (such as groceries, gas, or travel), then the return from this card is still quite a bit better than a standard 1% cash-back card. The points are also fairly easy to redeem: once you have 10,000 or more, you can simply redeem them all for travel purchases at once. Also, 3x points is equivalent to 2.14x or 1.76x airline miles, so this is a card that helps you build miles fairly quickly.

However, the biggest drawback is that there are no extra perks to offset the $150 annual fee. Once you factor in the $150 fee, spending $10,000 doesn’t even beat simply using a 2% cash-back card, and spending $25,000 only gives you $100 more cash back, which is not really worth the effort. Of course, if you use the points to transfer to airline miles and redeem them for business or first-class tickets (for example, JAL or Etihad), then the fast earning rate this card offers can still be useful. For building JAL miles alone, it is about as good as the SPG credit card.

I hope this card adds some stronger airline partners in the future; if AA is added, its usefulness would increase a lot. Adding hotel partners such as Wyndham or Choice Hotels would also make it much more competitive. Based on the current situation, it has neither a sign-up bonus nor earning power that is far ahead of the pack, so it still isn’t especially tempting.

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Application Link

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