Barclays Arrival Premier Review: Closed to New Applications
The Bottom Line
3.7
For existing cardholders who travel at least once a year and know they'll spend more than $25,000 on the card annually, this product may be worth keeping around.
Rates, fees and offers
Annual fee
$0 intro for the first year, then $150
Rewards rate
2 miles per dollar
Bonus offer
75,000 miles each year if you spend $25,000 on purchases
Intro APR
N/A
Ongoing APR
APR: 17.99%-24.99%, Variable
Cash Advance APR: 27.24%, Variable
Balance transfer fee
Either $5 or 3% of the amount of each transfer, whichever is greater
Foreign transaction fee
0% of each transaction in U.S. dollars
More details from Barclays
- 75,000 MILES EACH YEAR if you spend $25,000 on purchases
- After that, keep earning UNLIMITED 2X MILES on every purchase
- Global Entry – $100 automatic statement credit for the cost of one Global Entry application fee every five years
- Book the best travel deal, no airline, seat or hotel restrictions, and redeem your miles for travel statement credits
- Access to over 850 lounges worldwide with Mastercard® Airport Experience provided by LoungeKey, fees apply
- No foreign transaction fees
- International Chip and PIN for use at self-service chip terminals around the world
Pros and Cons
Pros
High rewards rate
No foreign transaction fee
Cons
Has annual fee
Detailed Review
» This card is no longer available
The Barclays Arrival® Premier World Elite Mastercard® is no longer accepting applications for new accounts. See our best travel credit cards for other options. Below is our review of the card from when it was still available.
• • •
With the Barclays Arrival® Premier World Elite Mastercard®, it pays to be loyal — literally.
It's no longer available, but for existing cardholders, this general travel credit card gives you an impressive 2 miles per dollar spent on all purchases.
However, unlike most of its competitors, it never offered a sign-up bonus. Instead, it allows you to earn loyalty bonuses each year for meeting certain spending thresholds. Because of this setup, the card can leapfrog the competition in long-term value for folks who can put $25,000 or more on it a year.
But for those who spend less, this card and its annual fee of $0 intro for the first year, then $150 probably aren't the best choice.
Barclays Arrival® Premier World Elite Mastercard®: Basics
Card type: Travel.
Sign-up bonus: None
Annual fee: $0 intro for the first year, then $150
Rewards: 2 miles per dollar spent on every purchase; miles worth 1 cent apiece
Loyalty bonuses:
Spend $15,000 in purchases in a cardmember year, and get 15,000 loyalty bonus miles after hitting that threshold
Spend $25,000 in purchases in a cardmember year, and get 10,000 loyalty bonus miles after hitting that threshold
If you meet that $25,000 threshold, you'd net a total of 75,000 miles (50,000 earned from your spending and another 25,000 earned in loyalty bonus miles), making this the highest loyalty bonus currently available on any credit card.
Other benefits:
Reimbursement for Global Entry application fee ($100) every five years.
Discounted airport lounge access via LoungeKey (you pay $27 per person per visit).
Chip-and-PIN enabled.
Miles transferrable to partner airlines (see below).
Miles can be redeemed for credit toward travel purchases, including flights, hotel stays and car rentals. Miles are worth 1 cent apiece when redeemed for travel. (For cash back or gift cards, miles are worth 0.5 cents apiece.) Because this is a general travel card not tied to any one airline or hotel chain, you have more flexibility: Book travel however you want, then use your miles to pay for it. The minimum amount you can redeem is 10,000 miles, or $100. If you don't have enough miles to cover a full purchase, you'll only be able to redeem within $25 increments between $100 and $2,000.
You can also transfer your miles to a handful of international airline partners. No major domestic carriers are among the partners. In most cases, the transfer value is 1.4-to-1. That means you would get 1,000 partner miles for every 1,400 miles transferred from the Barclays Arrival® Premier World Elite Mastercard®.
To see whether the rewards and bonuses you'd earn on the Barclays Arrival® Premier World Elite Mastercard® would make up for the annual fee of $0 intro for the first year, then $150 , use our calculator:
This card's sibling, the Barclaycard Arrival Plus® World Elite Mastercard®, also gives you 2 miles per dollar spent, but it offers a sizable sign-up bonus and has an annual fee of $0 intro for the first year, then $89 . To get a sense of how this card compares to that one, read our review of the Barclaycard Arrival Plus® World Elite Mastercard®.
Compare to Other Cards
Benefits and Perks
For folks who travel and prefer to use just one card for purchases, the Barclays Arrival® Premier World Elite Mastercard® could be a perfect pick.
Robust ongoing rewards for big spenders
If you travel at least once a year and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you’ll spend more than $25,000 on a single card annually, this card is an excellent choice. That's because of how this card doles out loyalty bonuses:
Spend $15,000 in a cardmember year, and you'll get 15,000 loyalty bonus miles (worth $150 when redeemed to cover travel purchases) after hitting that threshold
Spend $25,000 in a year, and you'll get 10,000 more loyalty bonus miles (for a total of 25,000 bonus miles each cardmember year, worth $250 when redeemed to cover travel purchases) after hitting that threshold
The bonus at the $15,000 threshold — worth $150 — effectively wipes out the annual fee that kicks in after the first year. That puts the card roughly on par with other no-annual-fee cards with 2% rewards rates. But once you hit that $25,000 mark, the card pulls far ahead of the competition.
Chip-and-PIN-enabled with no foreign transaction fees
The Barclays Arrival® Premier World Elite Mastercard® is one of the few cards issued in the U.S. with chip-and-PIN enabled. This allows you to verify your purchases on the card with a keypad instead of a signature. (Chip-and-signature cards are more common in the U.S.) Because of this, you can use this card virtually anywhere — even at kiosks and parking meters abroad.
Like any good travel card, it also doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees. That saves you about 3% on every purchase made outside the U.S.
Global Entry reimbursement
With this card's Global Entry reimbursement, you can zip through airport security and customs at no extra cost. Use your card to cover the $100 application fee for Global Entry — which lasts for five years — and you'll get reimbursed for the full amount. This reimbursement becomes available every five years.
Drawbacks and Considerations
The ongoing rewards rate on the Barclays Arrival® Premier World Elite Mastercard® is compelling, but the other benefits on the card are less so.
If you’re looking for a card with similar benefits and a big sign-up bonus, check out the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card. This card offers travel rewards that are just as robust — 2 miles per dollar spent on most purchases — but unlike the Barclays Arrival® Premier World Elite Mastercard®, it also comes with a generous sign-up bonus: Enjoy a one-time bonus of 75,000 miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within 3 months from account opening, equal to $750 in travel.
Hard-to-attain loyalty bonuses
The loyalty bonuses on the Barclays Arrival® Premier World Elite Mastercard® are central to its overall value. But unless spending over $15,000 or $25,000 a year on a single credit card is like rolling off a log for you, these bonuses aren't easy to get.
For folks who spend less, the Citi Double Cash® Card would be a better option. It offers a similar rewards rate: You get 1% back on every dollar spent and 1% back on every dollar paid off. The annual fee is $0, making it a more cost-friendly choice for frugal cardholders.
Low-value lounge benefits and transfer partners
Most premium cards offer complimentary access to certain airport lounges, but the Barclays Arrival® Premier World Elite Mastercard® doesn’t. Instead, it offers the mass-market version of that perk: You can get into airport lounges in the LoungeKey network for a reduced price of $27 a person. You’d have to drink a lot of free booze to make that deal worthwhile.
Some of the card’s other side benefits are also relatively weak. You can transfer your miles to a handful of international airlines, for example, but at a rate that’s less favorable than a 1:1 ratio.
For better lounge benefits and transfer partners, try the Chase Sapphire Reserve® instead. Although it has an annual fee of $550, its travel credit of up to $300 effectively wipes out a chunk of that fee. It offers a tidy 3 points per dollar spent on travel and dining, and 1 point per dollar spent on all other purchases. This card offers access to plenty of 1:1 transfer partners and complimentary Priority Pass Select membership, which gets you into select lounges for free. Many of those lounges are the same as in the LoungeKey network.
How To Decide If It's Right For You
To unlock the most valuable benefits on the Barclays Arrival® Premier World Elite Mastercard®, you’ll need to use it regularly and do some pretty significant spending. If that sounds unrealistic, go with another offer.
Get 2 miles per dollar spent on travel and dining and 1 mile per dollar ensewhere. Points are worth 1.25 cents apiece when used to book travel through Chase, and you can also transfer them on a 1:1 basis to a dozen major airline and hotel programs. There's a big sign-up bonus, too. Annual fee: $95.
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Methodology
NerdWallet reviews credit cards with an eye toward both the quantitative and qualitative features of a card. Quantitative features are those that boil down to dollars and cents, such as fees, interest rates, rewards (including earning rates and redemption values) and the cash value of benefits and perks. Qualitative factors are those that affect how easy or difficult it is for a typical cardholder to get good value from the card. They include such things as the ease of application, simplicity of the rewards structure, the likelihood of using certain features, and whether a card is well-suited to everyday use or is best reserved for specific purchases. Our star ratings serve as a general gauge of how each card compares with others in its class, but star ratings are intended to be just one consideration when a consumer is choosing a credit card. Learn how NerdWallet rates credit cards.
