Barclays Entering Transferrable Points Game!?

The Barclaycard Arrival Plus mysteriously disappeared recently and many of us were stumped as to what’s going on. Then we learned that Barclaycard was undergoing a rebranding process in which they will be known as Barclays. With that rebranding, a new Barclays Arrival card will enter the market and it looks like it could potentially be a pretty solid travel rewards credit card.

Barclays Arrival Premiere

Via DOC, here are the perks of the card that will be known as the “Barclays Arrival Premiere.”

• Annual Fee: $150
• Global Entry credit
• Annual spend bonuses:
  • 15,000 points after $15,000 spend
  • 10,000 points after another $10,000 spend

It’s unclear what the sign-up bonus will entail. I’m hoping to see a bonus near 50,000 points but it’s hard to tell. With an annual fee of $150, I think Barclays has to come with something in the sign-up bonus department to justify the higher fee.

The annual spend bonuses are decent, too. Assuming 1X on non-bonuses categories, that’s like earning 2X on everything up to $25,000 and $15,000 is a pretty obtainable goal for many (and $25,000 isn’t that bad, either).

Transfer partners?

One HUGE additional fact of this card (via The Frequent Miler) is that it is supposed to include at least a half dozen transfer partners. 

Barclays already has relationships with several major airlines.

These include:

• American Airlines
• Frontier Airlines
• Hawaiian Airlines
• JetBlue
• Lufthansa

And they’ve had relationships with other airlines in the past such s Icelandair and China Airlines.

It makes sense that at least a few of those airlines would be among the transfer partners. It would absolutely be HUGE if AA were to become a transfer partner, though it would likely mean SAAver awards might be even tougher to come by. Rumors are that Citi was unable to secure AA as a transfer partner due to costs, so I’m not sure if Barclays would be able to seal the deal.

But I wouldn’t be surprised to see other airlines included in the transferrable list. Other contenders might be Virgin Atlantic or BA given the UK connection or Singapore or Flying Blue since they like to be partnered up with everyone.

And what about hotels? Wyndham is a partner and being able to transfer points over to them could potentially be worthwhile.

One also has to wonder what airlines or hotels might join in the future since new partners seem to be constantly being added to these programs.

Another question is what will these transfer ratios look like? Something tells me that we’re not going be seeing a 1:1 transfer across the board like Chase, especially if JetBlue is in the picture.

Final word

Overall, we still have to wait to find out more about the Barclays Arrival Premiere. If we end up seeing a sign-up bonus anywhere near 50,000 points this will potentially be a fantastic option. It will also be interesting to see how the details emerge regarding the travel partners.