Barclays Arrival Premier Card Transferable Currencies
It has been awhile since we have seen a new premium card hit that market. For a long time the space was dominated by Amex, but then in 2016 Chase hit it out of the ballpark with their Sapphire Reserve card which sort of shook up the market. Sapphire Reserve’s success lead to Citi and American Express adding new perks to their premium products. Then U.S. Bank got into the market with the Altitude Reserve, a card which has some nice potential, but is hampered by its rather uninspired points system.
Now, another bank looks to be throwing their hat into the ring and they may just be doing it right. According to Doctor of Credit, Barclays will be launching a new card called the Arrival Premier. The Arrival Plus is currently their flagship travel card which earns 2X everywhere, so this is an evolution of that brand.
While we don’t know everything about Barclays new Arrival Premier card, we do know a few exciting tidbits.
Arrival Premier Card Features
Here is what we know about the new Barclays Arrival Premier based on the info gathered by DoC.
- Annual Fee: $150
- Credits: Global Entry
- Annual Big Spend Bonuses: 15K points after $15K spend, and another 10K points after another $10K spend
Ok, so there is still a lot to fill in including how this card will earn points and if it will have bonus categories, etc. But we can assume it will earn at least 2X on everyday spend if you hit those big spend bonuses (1X regular plus 1X bonus). Cards in this premium space all tend to have category bonuses as well, so it will be interesting to see if Barclays adds any other incentives. Or maybe this will be a straight 2X card like the Arrival Plus.
The biggest news though isn’t anything which is mentioned above. Frequent Miler has reported from a unnamed source that the card will have transfer partners.
Barclays Arrival Premier Transfer Partners
Frequent Miler wasn’t able to confirm which partners Barclays will have at launch, however they were able to confirm Barclays will have AT LEAST six airline partners at launch. That is huge news.
As a reminder, Barclays currently has the following co-brand card relationships with airlines:
- American Airlines
- Frontier Airlines
- Hawaiian Airlines
- JetBlue
- Lufthansa
This news doesn’t mean that those airlines will be the transfer partners, but I’m certain we’ll see at least some of them. Also remember that many other airlines such as Air France, Singapore Airlines and British Airways partner with multiple credit card currencies despite not having a co-branded relationship.
Barclays Arrival Premier Thoughts
While we still don’t know the exact earning structure, sign-up bonus or whether or not the card will be metal (because that’s important 🙂 ), the Barclays Arrival Premier is still a card to get excited about in my opinion. It isn’t everyday that a bank launches a new transferable currency, so this is fun news for us miles/points geeks. Of course the overall success of this new currency will be decided by the partners (cough American) Barclays is able to sign.
We’ll cover all the details of the new Barclays Arrival Premier when they are announced and I have a feeling at least a couple members of our team will have it high on their applications list.
What do you think about this new card? Is this exciting for you or will you continue to focus on your relationships with other banks?
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The Chase Sapphire Reserve fee is effectively $150 as the first $300 in travel expenses each year are reimbursed.
I don’t see this Barclays card with at $150 annual fee competing with Chase Saphire that has an annual fee of $450.
I highly doubt AA will be a transfer partner.. Citi couldn’t even secure such partnership for TYP customers.
Hoping AA will be a transfer partner. With Barclay already an AA issuer with the Aviator Silver and Aviator Red person and business cards, I think there is a really good chance.
I’ll probably go for it, but I’d like to know what the points are worth and how they can be used. I guess we’ll see in the next week or so.