In July of last year Barclaycard introduced a lot of negative changes to their Barclaycard Arivval card. They are as follows:
- Redemption bonus will be lowered from 10% to 5% (basically making the Plus a 2.105% travel card instead of 2.22%)
- Redemption bonus will be applied to other redemption options (cash, gift cards & merchandise)
- When redeeming against travel expenses, the minimum threshold will be increased to 10,000 points from 5,000
- When redeeming for cash, the minimum threshold will be increased to 5,000 points from 2,500 points
- TripIt Pro will no longer be included on the Barclaycard Arrival Plus card
- Tourist attractions will no longer be a travel category
If you applied for the card before September 30th, 2014 then they went into effect on November 1st, 2015. If you applied on or after October 1st, 2014 the changes were supposed to go into effect on August 1st, 2016. Barclaycard has sent another e-mail out stating these changes will go into effect on August 16th, 2016.
The two biggest changes for me are the redemption bonus being lowered and the redemption threshold being increased. Because there are so many credit cards that earn 2% cash back on all purchases without an annual fee, the amount you need to spend on this card to make up for the annual fee increases to $84,550 and even then you need to worry about the 10,000 point threshold bonus (remembering these points are only worth 1¢ when redeeming against travel expenses, meaning you won’t be able to apply them against small travel charges).
If you’re really spending more than $84,550 to make this card worth holding, you might want to consider the Discover it Miles card that earns 3% cash back on all purchases for the first year ($84,550 in spend would earn you ($2536.5 vs $1775.55 with the Barclaycard Arrival Plus). At this stage I really think your best bet is to sign up for the Arrival for the $400 sign up bonus and then ditch the card. The Barclaycard Arrival Plus is still not accepting new applicants on their official page (but you can go through affiliate channels to get the deal), so more changes might be a foot.
Hat tip to displayblock on /r/churning
