Finding myself 1,582 MQM short (and making it up)

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I mentioned all the way back in June that I was planning on making Delta Platinum Medallion this year thanks to the 200% MQM I'll earn on a First Class ticket operated by Alaska Airlines this Christmas. Oddly, while only "full fare" First and Business class tickets earn 200% MQM on Delta-operated flights, Alaska Airlines only has one First Class fare class, and that fare class earns 200% MQM on Delta, even when it's only trivially more expensive than Coach (as it was on this itinerary).

Then, the unthinkable happened: I decided to spend New Year's Eve in Portland, Oregon, instead of flying back to New England on December 30. Crucially, that meant my final first-class leg, PDX-BOS, would be credited to the 2014 program year, instead of the 2013 program year. That would leave me 1,582 Medallion Qualification Miles short of Delta Platinum Medallion, which is the best Delta Medallion status, since it gives you unlimited free award changes and redeposits, allowing you to grab low-level award seats as they become available.

I'm never one to shy away from a spontaneous vacation, but unfortunately I needed to fly on paid tickets in order to earn MQM, which meant I needed to think strategically. I thought I'd walk through my decision-making for my readers, in case they find themselves in a similar situation.

The Options

When trying to piece together a last minute mileage jaunt like this, you need to evaluate all the options. There are three important dimensions to look at right away.

  • Are one-way tickets more expensive than round-trip tickets? If not, you can use different methods to buy each ticket, as I ended up doing in this case.
  • Are first-class tickets (much) more expensive than economy tickets? I only needed 1,582 MQM, which thanks to the 500-mile minimum on Delta works out to 4 segments. If, however, I'd needed 2,582 MQM, then I could book my tickets in First Class and with the 50% class-of-service bonus those same 4 segments would earn 3,000 MQM.
  • What kinds of points do you have available? This is obviously key if we're trying to earn these miles as cheaply as possible.

The Solution

It turned out that for the flights I had in mind, one-way tickets were half the price of round-trip, with each direction costing about $180 in economy.

On the flights I was looking at, first-class tickets were only about $100 more in each direction.

Finally, I had about 16,000 ThankYou points left over after my last student loan rebate redemption, and those points can be used at full value (1 cent each) for travel reservations made through the ThankYou booking tool. I also had a $50 Delta transportation voucher from a broken reading lamp a few trips ago.

With all that in mind, here's what I ended up doing:

  • Ticket #1: Since I didn't have enough ThankYou points to cover the entire $180 ticket, I spent just 15,500 TY points, leaving me with $25 to pay with my Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard, which will allow me to redeem my Arrival miles against the purchase.
  • Ticket #2: I used my $50 transportation voucher against the $180 ticket and paid for the remaining $130 with my Arrival MasterCard.

After redeeming my Arrival miles against the purchases, my total cost for this roundtrip will be about $81.38: $23.75 for the ThankYou points and $57.63 for the Arrival miles (assuming I'm paying 0.75 cents per dollar in manufactured spend). That's a no-brainer for Platinum Medallion status, which also comes with a Medallion Choice Benefit (I picked the 20,000 bonus miles last year).

An Alternative

Interestingly, since First Class tickets were only slightly more expensive than Coach, there was another solution: I could redeem my Skymiles for 1 cent each against a First Class "pay with miles" ticket, which unlike economy redemptions do earn MQM and redeemable Skymiles. I have enough Skymiles that I could have redeemed them for the entire cost of one or both tickets. I considered doing this, but there are a few reasons why I decided not to go that route:

  • Delta transportation vouchers can't be used in conjunction with a "pay with miles" redemption, and just like miles and points, the least valuable travel voucher is the one you don't use;
  • ThankYou points are worth a maximum of 1 cent each, while Skymiles are worth a minimum of 1 cent each. I can use my Skymiles for premium-cabin international trips, while the best alternative use of my ThankYou points is for student loan rebate checks, where I'm also getting 1 cent in value per point.

And that's how I'm going to earn Platinum Medallion for (probably) the last time, before switching to Alaska Gold MVP+ at the end of next year and earning hyper-valuable Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles instead.

Finding the limits of Barclaycard Arrival miles

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Barclays Bank Delaware is an odd institution. They offer a number of co-branded credit cards with second-tier travel providers (Lufthansa Miles & More, US Airways Mileage Plan, Wyndham hotels, etc.) and a flagship travel rewards product, the Arrival World MasterCard. I've written extensively about the Arrival card because – during the first, fee-free year – it functions as a 2.22% cash back card when you redeem your miles against travel purchases. If you can manufacture spending at 0.75 cents per dollar, then you're getting a 2/3 discount on paid, mile-and-point-earning travel purchases.

As an indicator of how seriously I take this card, since I signed up in April I've redeemed 114,600 Arrival miles (40,000 of which I earned as a signup bonus, of course), and I've got about 9,000 in the bank for more upcoming redemptions. That means I've spent about $42,000 on the card, which interesting puts me right above the level ($40,050) where this card is more lucrative than a 2% cash back Fidelity American Express card, after paying the annual fee (see this post for more info).

Over the course of those redemptions, I have run into a few problems that I thought would be useful to share with my readers.

Purchases Must be $25 or More

This is a simple one, but it's a "problem" I ran into almost immediately. Purchases that are otherwise eligible but are less than $25 won't be available for redemption in your Rewards tab. That means it can be useful to think strategically if you plan to redeem your Arrival miles. For example, instead of buying a $10 commuter rail ticket on the MBTA here in New England (not eligible), you can buy a "pack" of 10 $10 tickets for $100 (eligible). You won't save any money buying in bulk, but you can earn yourself a nice discount when you redeem your miles against the purchase. Likewise you can add value to a stored value subway card in increments of $25 in order to trigger award eligibility. Each redemption against a $25 purchase will get you 250 points closer to your next redemption, thanks to the 10% point rebate.

Eligible Purchases Not Available for Redemption

A few weeks ago I bought a bus ticket on Peter Pan Bus Lines, which conveniently came to just over $25. I waited a week or two for the purchase to appear as available for redemption, but it never did. Not being the "letting things go" kind, I called the number on the back of my card and asked what was going on. The customer service agent was extremely flustered and unprofessional, and almost before I could ask my question she blurted out "buses aren't eligible." This seemed wildly unlikely so I dug up my trusty copy of the Terms & Conditions for the card and found this useful passage:

You can use your miles to: (a) “pay for travel” (Airlines, Travel Agencies & Tour Operators, Hotels, Motels & Resorts, Cruise Lines, Passenger Railways and Car Rental Agencies) purchases made within the last 90 days as a statement credit, (b) redeem for cash back as a statement credit, (c) redeem for gift cards or (d) redeem for merchandise.

Conveniently, my Peter Pan bus ticket had been coded as "BUS LINES, CHARTERS, TOUR BUSES."

I tweeted @BarclaycardUS and over direct message they agreed to credit my account for the purchase, which I thought was nice of them, although they didn't promise to better train their front line phone staff, which would have been even better.

Travel Purchases not Eligible for Redemption

My favorite card to use for travel purchases below $25 is my Chase Sapphire Preferred, since it offers 2 super-valuable flexible Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent on travel (and dining). However, there's another category of travel expense that I'll be putting on that card in the future as well. Here's Chase's definition of travel purchases:

Merchants in the travel category include airlines, hotels, motels, timeshares, campgrounds, car rental agencies, cruise lines, travel agencies, discount travel sites (for example, Expedia® and Yahoo® Travel1), and operators of trains, buses, taxis, limousines, ferries, toll bridges and highways, and parking lots and garages. Please note that some merchants that provide transportation and travel-related services are not included in this category; for example, real estate agents, websites or owners that rent properties, in-flight goods and services, merchants within airports, and merchants that rent trailers, trucks, and other vehicles for the purpose of hauling.

As you can see, the definitions are pretty similar all the way through the word "trains." But then the Sapphire Preferred card suddenly gets wildly more generous! I don't ride in a lot of limousines, but considering both taxis and parking lots to be "travel" purchases is truly going above and beyond.

Most importantly for the purposes of this comparison, it's going above and beyond Barclaycard!

After paying for a few cabs last week, once again I didn't see the transactions appear in the Rewards tab of my online account. I assumed that I was running into the "Peter Pan problem" again, so I sent another Twitter direct message to the @AskBarclaycardUS account:

Now on the one hand, I understand that it would be a bit much to expect a bank to just hand out statement credits to every customer who asks. That's not really the line of business they're in. In principle, they've got me on this one, since they enumerate eligible "travel" purchases and taxis aren't enumerated.

On the other hand, I want my readers (and Barclaycard!) to know that if this is their premium credit card product, they've got a lot of work to do before it'll be worth paying an $89 annual fee, let alone be able to compete with a product as great as the Chase Sapphire Preferred.

Tis the season: $5,000+ in free* spend

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I mentioned last week before my trip to Chicago that I was planning on exploring the technique outlined in this Flyertalk thread. As a holiday promotion, the American Automobile Association is offering no-fee gift cards. While they sell both American Express and Visa prepaid gift cards, the Visa cards are most interesting because (like virtually all Visa and MasterCard gift cards) they are PIN-enabled. That means you can use them with any of our favorite liquidation techniques: Walmart and grocery store money orders, bill payments at Walmart, Gobank loads, Bluebird loads, and others. They probably will not work with postal money orders, since those purchases are coded differently.

The Deal

Here’s what you need to know:

  • You need to have a AAA membership;
  • AAA is regionally organized, and not all regional branches are participating in the no-fee promotion;
  • Even among those that are participating, not all branches sell the Visa gift cards which can be PIN-enabled – some only sell the less useful Amex cards. These cards aren't useless, in case you want to front-load your spend in order to meet a minimum spending requirement or bonus spend threshold, but they can't be liquidated as easily or cheaply;
  • There are many reports of people being unable to purchase additional gift cards after about $5,000 in purchases. Since the gift cards are registered to your AAA membership, it’s easy for the issuing bank (in this case Metabank) to know who is purchasing the cards. However, the more family members you have, the more you can take advantage of this promotion;
  • To enable the PIN functionality, you need to call the number on the back of the card. You don't need to login to their website to register the card; it's already registered. You only need to call in, follow the prompts, and set your card's PIN number.

My Experience

While I was in Chicago, I went into the AAA location on North Michigan Ave. I asked if their location was participating in the no-fee gift card promotion. When she confirmed that they were, I asked to purchase 4 Visa gift cards for $500 each. She then took my AAA membership card and spent 4-6 minutes filling out a number of forms on her computer terminal. She then asked me for my form of payment, and I handed her my Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard, since it's my most lucrative card for unbonused spend categories.

The purchase went through for exactly $2,000 (no purchase fees), and the points have since posted to my Barclaycard account. In fact, they've even been redeemed for a travel charge that was about to roll off my account.

I liquidated the 4 Visa gift cards by purchasing 2 Walmart money orders for $0.70 each (doing a split transaction to use 2 of my 4 gift cards for each money order), meaning I paid $1.40 for $44.44 in value.

I won't tell you that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: in fact, opportunities like this come up fairly regularly, as my readers know. However, it is a great opportunity to get closer to your travel goals (or just earn 2% cash back) at virtually no cost to you.

What's next: product changes

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Since my April round of applications, I haven't applied for any new credit cards (although I have done a few product changes, which – usually – don't involve a "hard pull" of your credit report). That's been for a few reasons. I've already got the two most lucrative credit cards for hassle-free manufactured spend: the Citi ThankYou Preferred card with 5 ThankYou points per dollar spent at drug stores (no longer available online, and in-branch applications have reported a high failure rate), and the Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard, which earns 2.22 cents in value per dollar spent. Using just those two cards, I'm able to pay off student loans at pennies on the dollar (made even better using my favorite hack, now featuring Plink), and pay for hotels and airline tickets at about a 65% discount (while earning points for those paid flights and stays). Add in my Delta Business Platinum American Express card, which earns 1.4 Skymiles per dollar at the $25,000 and $50,000 spend levels, and that accounts for just about all of my manufactured spend budget (although I can't resist maintaining a 50,000 Club Carlson point balance, good for two free nights at any Club Carlson property in the world).

While it's still true that you'll never earn more points per dollar than you do meeting a minimum spending requirement, I have no interest in scoring every single signup bonus before I'm 30. That's why I focus on putting spending on the wildly lucrative cards I already have, instead of applying for 3-4 new cards every 91 days.

However, my year of manning the mint with Citi ends with my January statement, and my first Barclaycard annual fee is due in April, so naturally I've turned my mind towards the future. In this occasional series I'll share my thoughts on my next moves. Today's edition: product changes!

American Express Hilton HHonors Surpass

This is a card I've been eyeing since I finally found PIN-enabled Visa gift cards at a local supermarket. Earning 6 HHonors points per dollar spent at grocery stores, and 50,000 HHonors points for upgrading my current, no-annual-fee version of the card, seems like a great value proposition, even at $75 for the first year.

To illustrate this, take a property I love in a city I love, the Hilton Prague Old Town (the Hilton Prague hotel is even more spectacular, but slightly less convenient), which in June (high season) goes for 50,000 points per night. Obviously I'll earn one free night just for upgrading, which makes that night cost about $75, or a little less (depending on whether you decide to prorate the $75 annual fee over all the additional points you earn, or just over the upgrade bonus – the latter is slightly more accurate but much more complicated). The advance purchase rate in June is around $250 after taxes, so you're paying about 30 cents on the dollar.

If I were able to aggressively manufacture spend on the Surpass card at grocery stores, I could earn additional nights after every $8,333 in spend. If that takes the form of Visa gift cards at a cost of $5.95 per $500 card, I'd be paying around $101.15 per night, or $80.92 if I redeem my points in batches of 5 nights, with the 5th night free, a 60-68% discount. In other words, it's a good workhorse of a card (for the first year), but not one that offers incredibly outsized value.

Unfortunately, recently my local supermarket...stopped allowing gift card sales to credit cards. Until I find a more reliable source, I'm shelving the upgrade.

Citi Dividend Platinum Select

While this card does typically offer a small signup bonus of $100 in Dividend Dollars for new applicants (although it has also reached as high as $300), I'm more interested in the rotating 5% cash back categories. Unlike the Chase Freedom and Discover More/it, the Dividend Platinum Select's cap on bonused earnings is annual, instead of quarterly, meaning that a single lucrative quarter (2013 offered drug stores in Quarter 1) allows you to max out $300 in Dividend Dollars. Since I won't be using my ThankYou Preferred card after mid-January, it's an obvious candidate for a product change.

Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard - No Annual Fee

I currently have the $89 annual fee version of this card, which I've explained before is only worth carrying for the first, fee-free year. Barclaycard does have a reputation for offering annual fee waivers (or statement credits for their cards' annual fees) to good customers, so my intention is to call in April to ask if they'll offer me an $89 statement credit. After all, I am a VERY good customer. If not, then I'll call back and ask for a product change to the no-annual-fee version of the card, keeping my credit history with Barclaycard and any points I've stockpiled. Since the redemption structure is actually identical for the $89 and fee-free cards, I won't lose any of my points' value when I make the product change.

In future installments in this series I'll be discussing the cards I'll be canceling outright and the new cards I'll be applying for in the new year.

Curiosity satisfied: multiple partial Barclaycard Arrival redemptions

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One of my favorite things about the Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard, which I applied for in my April application cycle is the ability to make partial redemptions. This means you never need to worry about "orphaned" points, since you can always buy a gift card for the exact value of your remaining points before you cancel or downgrade the card when your first $89 annual fee is due (although you'll still orphan your 10% points rebate – they keep dragging you back in!).  You should be able to redeem your points against any purchase made directly with an airline or hotel, so Delta, American Airlines, and Marriott gift cards should all be eligible purchases.

When I last wrote about this card a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I planned to investigate whether multiple partial redemptions were possible against the same travel purchase. If that were possible, you would always want to make 2,500 mile, $25 redemptions, since you'd earn 250 miles back with each redemption. That would be a major exploit which would increase the value of this card even further.

I can now report, much to my regret, that it's not possible to make multiple partial redemptions against a single purchase. Here's the test I ran today:

First, I redeemed 7,500 miles against a $175 Alaska Airlines purchase (this was a great test case for me since I didn't think I'd earn another 10,000 miles before the purchase rolled off my "available purchase" list in 42 days):

Here's the confirmation page showing my 10% rebate, which is immediately available for further redemptions (if I had 2,500 miles, the minimum redemption amount): 

Unfortunately, the remaining $100 wasn't available for an additional redemption. It disappeared immediately from my list of eligible transactions:

What it Means

Readers may be scratching their heads about now, asking who cares? Barclaycard identified an obvious exploit and made sure to eliminate it.  Good for them. Since Arrival miles are worth one cent each, it shouldn't matter the order they're redeemed in.

But that's not quite right. In fact, it pays to actively manage your list of purchases available for redemption, because it will usually be more lucrative to make two redemptions than one, since your first redemption gets you closer to a redemption threshold for your next purchase, while reducing the number of "orphaned" points in your account.

Imagine the following stylized case: you have 19,000 Arrival miles, and two eligible purchases: one $100 purchase and one $200 purchase. What's your best move?

The obvious solution is to redeem 10,000 miles against your $100 purchase, then use the 1,000 mile rebate to redeem another 10,000 miles against your $200 purchase. In this case, you'd be left with 1,000 orphaned Arrival miles.

Alternatively, you could spend $750 on your Arrival World MasterCard and earn an additional 1,500 miles. Then, redeem 20,000 miles against your $200 purchase. After your 2,000 mile rebate, you'll have just enough miles to redeem for $25 against your $100 purchase, and you'll be left with just 250 orphaned miles. Essentially, you've received a $25 rebate on $750 in spend. If you manufacture that $750 at 0.5 cents per dollar, you've spent $3.75 to earn $25 – not bad!

Remember: you're staring down the barrel of an $89 annual fee, and your objective is to have as few points in your account as possible when month 12 rolls around.

 

Barclaycard Arrival redemption follow-up

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One of the most frustrating things about having multiple rewards-earning credit cards is the fact that each rewards currency is redeemed in a totally different way, and it's not always clear from a card's promotional material what the redemption process consists of. 

That's why last month I walked through a redemption of Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard miles, so readers could know exactly what they were getting into. But one thing bothered me: in this, the 4th screenshot in that blog post:

There are 4 redemptions options: the last 4 $25 intervals.

I've subsequently redeemed more points using this card, and discovered that when you don't have enough miles to redeem for the full amount of a charge, only three redemption options are available: the last 3 $25 intervals. 

I don't know exactly what the logic behind this is, but my suspicion is that the 4th redemption "slot" is reserved for redeeming miles for the complete value of a purchase. While partial redemptions are only allowed in 2,500 miles, $25 increments, "complete" redemptions are available in 100 mile, $1 increments:

Does this have much of a practical impact? Not really, since Arrival miles are worth 1 cent each, so it doesn't make much of a difference in which combination or order they're redeemed.

Except...the next question I intend to investigate is whether after making a partial redemption it's possible to make another redemption for the remaining amount of the same transaction. Since Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard redemptions have a 10% rebate of points used to make travel redemptions, It might be possible to redeem 100,000 points for a $1,000 statement credit, then use the 10,000 point rebate to make an additional $100 redemption against the same $1,100 transaction.

Does anyone have any experience making two redemptions against the same transaction?

 

Who should use Travelocity's co-branded credit card?

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[edit 7:37 pm: searching around a bit more I found this offer for the $39 annual fee card for 10,000 points after first purchase and 10,000 points after $500 in spend within 3 months. I also edited the application links below.] 

[edit 6/18/13: see the comments for one data point applying through the 20,000 point link. I'm surprised that Barclaycard would deny an application just because an offer was expired, but that was reader Paul's experience (no credit pull, though).]

In the comments to a post last month, reader travel well asked whether I had any experience with the Travelocity Rewards co-branded American Express card. I hadn't heard of the card, but did some research, and want to share what I found with readers.

There are two versions of the Travelocity Rewards Amex: a $39 annual fee version and a no annual fee version.

Earning

  • The $39 annual fee version earns 5 points per dollar spent at Travelocity, 2 points per dollar spent at your choice of either gas stations, grocery stores, or restaurants, and 1 point per dollar spent everywhere else. The link I found offers 7,500 bonus points after your first purchase [edit: see above].
  • The no annual fee version earns 3 points per dollar spent at Travelocity and 1 point per dollar spent everywhere else. It offers 5,000 bonus points after first purchase.

Redemption

Like the US Bank Flexperks Travel Rewards Signature Visa, the Travelocity Rewards points earned by this card can be redeemed in fixed-value tiers. The value in turn depends on the redemption tier. From the Travelocity website:

As that list illustrates, points are worth 1 cent each until you reach the 20,000 point level, when the value jumps to 2 cents each. Then each subsequent point is worth an additional cent, until you reach the 40,000 point level, when the value jumps back up to 2 cents each. This means that the most lucrative redemptions are always in intervals of 20,000 points.

Fortunately, the Travelocity Rewards card does allow partial redemptions, and indeed as far as I can tell allows redemptions only in the tiers specified. Redemptions are made directly through the Travelocity website, for reservations made with Travelocity. After selecting your flights, hotels, or rental cars, select the Travelocity Rewards American Express as your method of payment, and you'll see the option to redeem points for part of your purchase. As the above analysis makes clear, whenever possible you should redeem them in blocks of 20,000 points. When you do so, you'll earn a full 10% rebate on all your purchases made at Travelocity with the $39 annual fee card and 6% rebate with the no annual fee card. After selecting your redemption amount, complete your purchase and you'll receive a statement credit for the amount of your redemption.

Who should use the Travelocity American Express card?

This card looks great on paper: a 10% rebate on Travelocity bookings, which can be paired with 2 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar when you click through to Travelocity through the Ultimate Rewards Mall. Still, there are two drawbacks that I think are serious enough to keep me from getting the card personally.

First, the more lucrative card has a $39 annual fee. Admittedly, that won't break the bank – if I were able to redeem my points regularly at the 20,000 point level, then the 5-6 cent edge this card has over a card like the Chase Sapphire Preferred (for double points on travel) would be justified. That's especially true if carrying this card allowed me to cancel my Sapphire Preferred, which carries a hefty $95 annual fee.

However, the second problem is that 20,000 point threshold. To earn those 20,000 points, I'd need to spend $4,000 on Travelocity, which isn't realistic for me personally: I purchase travel using my Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard (for a 65% discount on paid travel after manufacturing spend), I redeem US Bank Flexpoints for paid travel (for a 74%-80% discount on paid travel), and of course I redeem airline miles for award travel. Even more importantly, sometimes Travelocity doesn't have the best price on airline tickets, or doesn't offer itineraries that are available elsewhere, in which case I use other online travel agencies instead or book directly through the airline. All that would add up to paying multiple $39 annual fees while I waited to hit the 20,000 point sweet spot.

All that said, if you already spend a lot of money on paid travel through Travelocity, enough to hit that 20,000 point threshold at least once a year, then this is a card with terrific earning potential. I would probably pair it with a Chase Ink card in order to continue to earn double Ultimate Rewards points through direct hotel bookings (and have access to the Ultimate Rewards Mall) while still earning hotel loyalty points and credit for nights and stays towards elite status.

 

 

The Barclaycard Extra Points NFL card

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In the comments section of my walkthrough on redeeming Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard "miles" for statement credits against travel purchases, reader .net replied:

Geez, all the blather about the Arrival card when the even better NFL card is ignored? I guess the affiliate bonuses are higher?
NFL card is essentially a $600 cb card as almost everyone gets the additional 20000 point offer if you spend $500 per month for 3 months. You can use points to pay down your balance, which is far better than being forced to use only on travel.

To be honest, I had forgotten about the NFL card since it's not a travel rewards credit card and it only earns 1% cash back on all purchases (except NFL purchases - not a high-spend category for me).

Extra Points NFL vs. Arrival World

s my readers know, the Arrival World MasterCard has no annual fee the first year, and has a signup bonus of 40,000 "miles" after spending $1,000 on the card within 90 days. Those 40,000 miles can be redeemed for up to $444 in statement credits against travel purchases. After the first year, the annual fee is $89, which is only worth paying if you plan on spending more than $40,050 on the card, since there are no-annual-fee credits cards which offer 2% cash back on all purchases, while the Arrival World MasterCard offers a "true" earning rate of 2.22% cash back, because of the 10% rebate for statement credits against travel purchases.

How does the Extra Points NFL card compare? The stated signup bonus is somewhat smaller, with a higher minimum spending requirement: 40,000 points, which can be redeemed for $400 in statement credits (instead of $444), after spending $2,500 (instead of $1,000) within 90 days. On the other hand, the NFL statement credits can be against any purchase, for example, a $400 Amazon Payments transaction, making it as good as cash, while you might prefer to put your travel purchases on a credit card that gives bonuses for spending on travel, like the Chase Sapphire Preferred (all travel), Ink Bold or Ink Plus (hotels), or American Express Premier Rewards Gold or Business Gold Rewards (airfare) cards.

As .net pointed out, there are also reports of Extra Points NFL cardholders receiving an offer from Barclaycard of 20,000 additional points for spending $500 on the card every month for 3 months. While .net claims "almost everyone" gets this offer, I personally travel hack quite conservatively, and certainly wouldn't count on receiving this additional offer, although I'd obviously be pleased if I did.

ow to decide

If, like me, you value the ability to get a 64.5% discount on paid travel, for example in order to earn airline elite status and hotel stay and night credits as well as hotel points, then the Arrival World MasterCard allows you to do so, by manufacturing 2.22 cents in travel redemptions at a cost of 0.79 cents during the first, fee-free year.

If you conserve your manufactured spend budget in order to hit high spend bonuses on cards like the American Express Delta Platinum and Reserve cards, or even medium spend bonuses on cards like the Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve card, which I wrote about earlier this week, then you may be better off applying for the Extra Points NFL card, redeeming the signup bonus, and forgetting about it.

Finally, if you can manufacture essentially unlimited spend at a low, fixed cost, then there's no reason not to apply for both cards in two application cycles, at least 91 days apart. Use the Extra Points NFL card to earn an easy $400, and use the Arrival World MasterCard to earn 2.22% cash back on your manufactured spend the first, fee-free year.

 

 

 

Redeeming Barclaycard Arrival World miles

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've written quite a bit recently about the Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard because of its unusually lucrative signup bonus for a fixed-value rewards credit card, worth $444 when used for statement credits against travel purchases made with the card.

Back in February I explained how the card earns a "true" rate of 2.22% cash back because of the 10% rebate you get every time you redeem points against travel purchases, but cautioned that the $89 annual fee is only worth paying if you spend more than $40,050 on the card after the first, fee-free year. Then in March I gave some tips on maximizing fixed-value travel rewards points by redeeming for statement credits against hotel reservations made directly with the hotel, in order to earn hotel loyalty points and stay and night credits towards elite status. Finally last month I included the Arrival World MasterCard in my April credit card application cycle, when I was immediately approved for the card.

After paying $7.90 to meet the $1,000 minimum spending requirement to earn the 40,000 mile signup bonus and waiting for my first statement to close, was sitting on 42,016 Arrival World miles, and was itching to start redeeming them. Since the details vary between various fixed-value rewards currencies, I want to share with my readers the ins and outs of the redemption process.

When you log into your Barclaycard account, you'll see your rewards balance at the top of the page, on the right:

When you click on "Manage rewards," you'll see this page, showing the various points redemption options:

We're interested in the section "Pay yourself back for travel." If you click "Redeem now," you'll see a list of all your eligible purchases. In my experience ​purchases appear on this list one day after they clear from pending status:

When you select "Redeem"​ next to a purchase, you'll see a list of eligible redemption amounts. I was surprised by this since Barclaycard doesn't advertise that partial redemptions are possible. However, it appears that at least for larger purchases, it is possible to redeem your miles for part of the purchase price, if you choose:

​After selecting your desired purchases and amounts, just click "Checkout:"

And then "Place your order:"​

On the confirmation page you'll even see the 10% redemption rebate applied to travel redemptions. In my experience those points were immediately redeposited into my account, and available for the next redemption.

One thing to keep in mind when charging travel purchases to the Arrival World MasterCard is that the minimum redemption amount is 2,500 points for a statement credit of $25. I forgot this and charged a $7 in-flight drink to my card, which was ineligible for redemption!​

I'll need to do more experimenting to determine what purchases allow partial redemptions, which will be a great way to redeem as many miles as possible, leaving as few as possible left over in your account when you cancel the card before the first annual fee is due.​

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