I’ve written about how the Barclaycard Arrival Plus World Elite Mastercard is 1 of my favorite cards because you earn 2X miles on every purchase.
If you redeem miles for statement credits towards regular purchases, you get 1% cash back. But when you redeem for travel expenses, you get 2.1% back when you consider the 5% rebate you get for travel redemptions. That’s a very good deal.
What’s the Barclaycard Arrival Plus?
Link: Barclaycard Arrival Plus® World Elite Mastercard®
Link: My review of the Barclaycard Arrival Plus™ World Elite MasterCard®
The 40,000 mile sign-up bonus on the Barclaycard Arrival Plus card is worth $400 if you redeem for travel expenses.
But you get an extra 5% of your miles back after every travel redemption. So you’ll get another 2,000 points ($20) back after you redeem your 40,000 miles for travel.
Barclaycard defines travel as:
Airlines, hotels, motels, timeshares, campgrounds, car rental agencies, cruise lines, travel agencies, tourist attractions, discount travel sites, trains, buses, taxis, limousines, and ferries as defined by the merchant category code. Purchases made at merchants that do not process transactions under these terms or that use incorrect merchant category codes will not qualify.
However, if you use your miles for non-travel expenses, you’ll only get 0.5 cents per mile, which isn’t very good.
Redeeming Miles for Travel Expenses
Million Mile Secrets readers have asked how to use Barclaycard Arrival Plus miles for travel expenses. It’s actually quite straightforward.
1. Log Into Your Barclaycard Account
Log in and select your Barclaycard Arrival Plus card (if you have more than 1 Barclaycard account).
Then click on the “Rewards” tab on the right side of the page.
Under “Pay Yourself Back For Travel”, click the “Redeem Now” button.
2. Select Your Travel Expense
The minimum number of miles you can use to reduce a travel expense is 2,500 miles or $25. The minimum is travel expense is now $100.
From the “Purchases Available For Redemption” list, select the travel expense you wish to use miles for.
You’ll be prompted to redeem either the minimum number of miles (2,500 or $25) $100 for the purchase, or the actual number of miles for the total cost of the purchase (in the example below, 2,800 miles or $28).
Select the redemption you want. Once you click on redeem, you’ll get a statement credit for the amount you selected. And you can’t come back and redeem more miles for that purchase again.
3. Continue Redeeming or Save Your Miles for Later
If you have the miles, you can redeem for as many travel purchases as appear on your list. However, you don’t have to use your miles right away (or even use them towards travel expenses).
That said, redeeming for non-travel expenses is not a very good value (0.5 cents per mile or 1% cash back).
Once you’ve made a travel purchase, you have 120 days to use your miles to pay for it. The list of purchases available for redemption shows how many days you have left to redeem miles for each transaction.
Remember, once you’ve redeemed miles towards a travel purchase, you’ll get a 5% rebate on the miles you’ve used. For example, if you redeem 10,000 miles ($100) you’ll get 500 miles ($5) deposited back to your account.
Bottom Line
It’s easy to redeem Barclaycard Arrival Plus miles towards travel expenses to get 2.1% back in statement credits.
You can select from a list of your travel purchases and redeem miles against them individually. But they’ll only be on the list for 120 days after the transaction date, and you can only credit miles towards each transaction once.
Using Barclaycard Arrival Plus miles is a great way to pay yourself back for travel spending you can’t normally use miles and points for.
What expenses have you redeemed your Barclaycard Arrival Plus miles for?