Barclays Choice Privileges Credit Card: "32,000 Welcome Bonus"

Barclays Choice Privilege Credit Card Review

Benefits

• Elite Gold Status: Cardholders automatically receive Choice Elite Gold Status, which earns an extra 10% points on stays.
• Annual Spending Bonus: Spend $10,000 in a calendar year and earn an extra 8,000 Choice Hotel points.
• Free Monthly FICO Score: You can keep track of your credit score. See also: Comparison of Free Credit Scores
• No Foreign Transaction Fee (FTF): Most cards with no foreign transaction fee come with an annual fee, so it’s nice that this one has no annual fee. See also: FTF Guide

Drawbacks

• This card does not waive Foreign Transaction Fees, so it can be inconvenient to use abroad.

Introduction to Choice Hotel Points

• Point value: The average value is about 0.6 c/p, so 100 Choice points = $0.6 (Point Values & Analysis). In other words, a hotel stay worth $60 would require about 10k Choice Hotel points.
• Redeeming for hotels: You can search for eligible hotels directly on the Choice Hotel website. There is no fixed award chart, and the number of points required fluctuates with the cash price. Awards start at just 6,000 points, usually top out at 35,000 points, and some hotels in Oceania can go as high as 75,000 points. You can also use Cash + Points, which usually costs 6,000 points plus $35–$180 in cash, but it is not always a good deal compared with booking entirely with points.
• Transfer to miles: 5,000 points can be transferred into 1,000 miles with programs including AS, UA, AA, AC, Spirit, Czech Airlines OK, AeroMexico, and more. This can be useful when you only need a small top-off for miles in a major airline program.
• Point expiration: Points expire after 8 months with no activity; if there is account activity, the expiration is automatically extended by 18 months. If your points are about to expire, you can also consider transferring in 1,000 MR points to extend their validity.
• My take: Choice Hotel points are often a good value for booking hotels in Europe or major US cities. If you have a specific stay in mind, it is worth checking whether your target hotel offers solid redemption value. Their transfer-to-miles feature also creates some interesting opportunities, especially when combined with promotions to buy Choice points cheaply and transfer bonus offers.
• Related credit cards: Wells Fargo Choice Privileges 、 Wells Fargo Choice Privileges Select
• Detailed analysis: Introduction to Choice Privilege Points

My Take

This card offers a 75,000-point welcome bonus, worth about $400 by our valuation, which is pretty decent for a no-annual-fee card. The earning rates are average. The application page also advertises 15x, but that is actually 5x from the credit card plus 10x from Choice Hotel elite membership, which is somewhat misleading. Choice Hotels is not a luxury hotel chain, but it offers especially strong value in Europe. If you can find the right hotel redemptions, you can still get very good value. The points are also fairly flexible: you can redeem them for hotel stays or transfer them to miles. It’s best to wait for a promotion before using them that way—for example, there was previously an option to redeem 5,000 points for 3250UA.

Application

• Since this is a Choice Hotel co-branded card, it’s best to enter your Choice frequent guest number when applying. Otherwise, a new account may be created automatically.

Barclays Application Guide

• Check Barclays credit card application status
• Barclays credit card applications generally pull TransUnion (TU), and HPs on the same day can be combined
• If you already have another Barclays card and your new application is not approved, there will usually be no hard pull
• You can call the reconsideration line (866-408-4064) to speed up credit card approval or request another review of a denied application. They may verify your identity and address, ask why you want the card, and review your employment and repayment situation, so be prepared. You may need to move credit limit from an existing card to get approved.
• More on applying for Barclays credit cards

Application Link

• Barclays Choice Privilege Credit Card