I received a targeted offer for this card and applied.

The offer was for 40,000 miles/points upon spending $500 in first 3 months with no annual fee. No foreign transaction fees either.

As others have reported, travel expenses and restaurants earn 2 points. Travel includes rail, airplane, hotel, and car rental. Everything else earns 1 point.

The agency I talked to said that Priceline and Hotwire expenses would count as travel. I am skeptical -- we will see.

Points can be redeemed for statement credit and 10% of points are rebated back into the account if credited toward travel expenses.

This seemed too good to be true -- the bank is giving away $400 after spending $500 in 3 months and there is no annual fee -- ever??

Once my account was approved I learned the details of the redemption program.

If points are redeemed (in $25 increments) for statement credit, they are worth 0.5 cents -- so the 40,000 miles/points is worth $200. Not $400 as I had been led to believe. The points can also be redeemed for various dining, retail, or travel gift cards at the same value.

To receive the full $400 value, the points must be assigned to specific travel charges on your statement.

Still, not a bad deal considering.

If you spend the full $500 initial spend requirement on travel or restaurants, you would have $41,000 miles/points.

These could be applied to repay travel expenses on the card for about $400 worth of expenses. With a 10 percent rebate in points, you would still have 4000 + 1000 = 5000 points in the account. This would be enough for another $50 statement credit toward travel expenses. And you would be awarded 500 points back into your account.

The points don't expire as long as you keep the account open -- and since there is no annual fee, there is no reason to close the account.

So, the initial bonus might possibly be valued at as much as $455 worth of travel.

I am sure points redemption will not be completely straightforward; this example is the best case scenario. Even if the value falls far short -- still not a bad deal.

I have no prior experience dealing with this Barclays Bank or their credit products.