Barclays Arrival® Premier World Elite Mastercard® is finally here as DoC reports. I already covered the card before when rumors starting coming out, but now the card is available for signups. On July 6th, they started waiving the annual fee for the first year. Here’s my Barclays Arrival Premier review.

Bonus

Barclays Arrival Premier World Elite Mastercard does not have a signup bonus. Yup, this is a premier card that will not have any bonus initially at least. There is however two annual spending bonuses.

• Earn up to 25,000 loyalty bonus miles each cardmembership year
  • Spend $15,000 on purchases, get 15,000 miles.
  • Spend an additional $10,000 on purchases, get an additional 10,000 miles.

That’s 75,000 miles each year if you spend $25,000 on purchases.

Earning and Redeeming Miles

• Unlimited 2X miles on every purchase
• Miles don’t expire as long as your account is open, active and in good standing
• Redeem your miles for travel or cash back statement credits, gift cards and merchandise. Redeeming miles for travel statement credits offers the best value.
  • Redeem your miles for
    • Travel statement credits, starting at 10,000 miles for $100 toward all or a portion of your qualifying travel purchase of $100 or more made within the last 120 days.
    • Cash back statement credits starting at 5,000 miles for $25.
    • A variety of gift cards from national retailers to dining establishments starting at 5,000 miles for $25.
  • Transfer rate is 1.7 arrival miles = 1 mile for Japan airlines and 1.4 arrival miles = 1 mile for:
    • Aeromexico
    • Air France/KLM Flying Blue
    • China Eastern
    • Etihad
    • EVA Air
    • Jet Airways
    • Malaysia Airlines
    • Qantas

As you can see the transfer rate for travel partners is terrible. You do earn 2X miles on every purchase but that value is diminished when transferring them to eligible airlines.

Other Benefits

• $100 automatic statement credit for the cost of one Global Entry application fee every five years.
• No foreign transaction fees on purchases made while traveling abroad.
• International Chip and PIN provides maximum global acceptance with chip and PIN capability for use at self-service chip terminals around the world.
• Complimentary online FICO® score access

Annual Fee

$150 Annual Fee, not waived.

Update: The annual fee is now waived the first year.

Applying for the Card

Barclays Arrival® Premier World Elite Mastercard®

Barclay will usually only approve you for a card every 6 months. If you have a Barclay card, is bet to put some spend on it before applying for another card. They don’t like dormant cardholders. There’s no real limit on the number of cards you can have with Barclay.

Guru’s Wrap-Up

The lack of a signup bonus is the first issue that will turn almost anyone away. But Barclays did make a change to attract more applicants, and now the $150 annual fee is waived the first year. Even if you get passed that, there’s not much value on the card, compared to what many readers could already get from some of the cards they already have. Transfer rates to travel partners are terrible also. But on the plus side, the card earns 2X on all purchases and if you maximize it by spending $25,000 a year, you would get a total of 75,000 miles. But that’s a lot of spend, and not everyone can manage it.

I expected better from Barclays when they first announced this Premier card. Maybe we’ve been spoiled with Premier cards lately and continuously expect new products to get better and better.