The new Barclaycard Arrival Plus(TM) World Elite MasterCard®

I was pleasantly surprised today when I found out that my Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard was being upgraded. When credit card features get refreshed, it’s usually a downgrade of the program.  In this case however, Barclaycard has refreshed and significantly upgraded their Arrival card.  The new card is now known as the Barclaycard Arrival Plus(TM) World Elite MasterCard®.

New improvements to the Arrival Plus card:

• The Arrival Plus card has a sleek and attractive new design that is cyan-colored, with chip technology.  The new card is supposedly more durable.  This is a great improvement in my opinion because I think the previous Arrival card really was quite ugly!
• There are now additional categories for travel redemption such as theme parks, museums, taxis, limos, buses, timeshares, ferries and tourist attractions.
• The previous 90 day limit for miles redemption has now been extended to 120 days.
• The card now has EMV Chip & Signature with PIN.

You can read more about the official Barclaycard announcement here.

Everything else with the Arrival card stays the same.  This includes the big sign up bonus of 40,000 bonus miles, which is easily attainable after $3,000 in purchases within the first 90 days from account opening.  With this card, you still earn 2x miles on every single purchase.  You still get 10% redeemed miles back when you redeem for travel.  Another great benefit of the Arrival Plus card is that you get free access to your online FICO® Score. 

The Arrival card is currently one of our most heavily used cards; this new upgrade makes the card even better.  My wife and I recently used our Arrival miles to pay for our free 7 day cruise vacation.  We are looking forward to receiving our new upgraded cards soon.  You can apply for your own Arrival Plus card here.