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The other day, Doctor of Credit released some intel which Frequent Miler later expanded on that a new card called the Barclays Arrival Premier is on the way.
The key card benefits are said to be:
- Annual spend bonuses:
- 15,000 bonus points after $15,000 in spend
- Additional 10,000 bonus points after an additional $10,000 in yearly spend
- $150 annual fee
- Global Entry fee rebate
- TRANSFER PARTNERS
Frequent Miler claims to have confirmed there will be at least 6 airline or hotel transfer partners.
The speculation is that it could include some or all of the following partners:
Current Barclaycard partner: American Airlines, Frontier, Hawaiian Airlines, JetBlue, Lufthansa, Choice Hotels
Other programs that participate in several transferable currencies: i.e. Air France, Singapore, Virgin Atlantic, Cathay Pacific, Etihad, and British Airways.
Wyndham Hotels would be another possibility given an existing relationship.
My take:
- If this new card will, in fact, have transfer partners, that elevates the Arrival point to me to the status of “real point.” That would also bring the number of transferable currencies to 5 from 4 today. I currently have no Arrival cards in my wallet and never have. If I can’t transfer a point, I don’t want it. I consistently preach in my book the value of point diversification. The more programs you can transfer from and to, the better chance you’ll have snagging just the flight you want for miles. So if this is the case and there is at least one partner not in my other card’s programs, I’m in.
- If they can get American Airlines as a partner when even Citi has not been able to make ThankYou points transferable, that would be huge for Barclay. The only reason people get AA credit cards now is that there are few ways to earn AA miles from credit card spending otherwise.
- Currently Hawaiian is only an Amex partner and Lufthansa only SPG – so that would be big as well. Hawaiian is a great option from the US to the South Pacific / Australasia.
- Wyndham would be awesome because they have a hidden gem with their Go Fast awards and fixed 15,000 a night redemptions regardless of price.
- I think there probably needs to be more features to this card besides what we see to justify a $150 annual fee, but I think a lot of this card is too unconfirmed to judge at this time.
So, let’s wait and see. Could be quite an exciting new product!
What are your thoughts? Let me know here, on Twitter, or in the private MilesTalk Facebook group.
New to all of this? My new “introduction to miles and points” book, MilesTalk: Live Your Wildest Travel Dreams Using Miles and Points is available now.
