This seems to be the time of year that credit card issuers have taken to roll out new cards! Last year, we had the new US Bank Altitude Reserve card which offered the typical premium card benefits with some twists with their points.
An Interesting New Rewards Credit Card to Launch Soon – The Barclays Arrival Premier
Sources: The initial coverage on this new Barclays Arrival Premier was broken by Doctor of Credit with additional information revealed to Frequent Miler regarding the confirmation of transfer partners and the name of the card.
Now, it appears that Barclay is preparing to issue a card in the middle premium card arena – The Barclays Arrival Premier. Some of the benefits are not that exciting but there appears to be a rumor that has been confirmed by other sources that indicate that Barclaycard (soon to be just “Barclays”) will finally have point transfers to partners!
Barclays Arrival Premier – Transfer Partners
That is great news since one of their co-branded partners happens to be American Airlines. To this point, AA’s other partner (Citi) has not offered/been able to offer point transfers to AA from the Citi ThankYou points. It could be that Barclays will be the first to negotiate that, though not clue at this point as to what transfer rate that may be (if AA is among the transfer partners). We had heard something about Barclays getting into the transferable points game back when they introduced the Uber card.
Barclays current lineup of co-branded partners with airlines are:
- American Airlines
- Frontier Airlines
- Hawaiian Airlines
- JetBlue Airways
- Lufthansa
Of course, they may not be limited to just those airlines as other airlines (like Flying Blue and Singapore). Also, Barclays has partnerships with hotels (Wyndham and Choice) so they could be working them into the transferrable pool of partners as well.
According to the Frequent Miler, the Barclays Arrival Premier will be announced with at least 6 airline transfer partners. In the past, Barclays has partnered with other airlines so they may be on this list as well.
What Is Known about the Barclays Arrival Premier Card
According to Doctor of Credit, here is what first came about this card (note that no sign-up bonus amount has been confirmed yet but it should be at least 50,000 points):
- Annual fee of $150
- Global entry credit
- Annual spending bonuses of
- 15,000 bonus points after $15,000 in spend
- Additional 10,000 bonus points after an additional $10,000 in annual spend (so a total of 25,000 bonus points each year with $25,000 in spending)
Thoughts on the New Barclays Arrival Premier
Similar in Structure to the AAdvantage Aviator Silver Card?
This definitely puts it squarely in that somewhat sparse mid-premium credit card space, most notably because of the $150 annual fee and the Global Entry credit. To be honest, it seems that Barclays may be taking a page out of their own credit card book with the AAdvantage Aviator Silver card. That card has a somewhat similar annual fee and spending bonuses for elite qualifying dollars and elite qualifying miles. It also comes with a Global Entry credit and a $99 companion ticket (which is not something new since it was offered under the old US Airways card).
What Else Will Come With this Card?
My guess would be that Barclays is going to have to pull out some stops to make this card a thoroughly interesting card for customers. The spending bonuses do not necessarily make this card a lock for the annual fee, especially after the Global Entry credit has been used. I would imagine that we may see some creative bonus categories on the list eventually also, maybe taking after the Uber card. That card has no annual fee and some very interesting benefits, as well as 4% on dining.
I think the Barclays Arrival Premier could be a winner if it went with that 4 points per dollar on dining and maybe even some attractive point transfer ratios. At any rate, we may not need to wait long as customer service reps indicate this card could be available as soon as April 1.
