FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Barclays Arrival Plus, now 70K w/$5k spend
Old Jul 13, 2015 | 9:34 pm
  #2646  
tmiw
FlyerTalk Evangelist
All eyes on you!
10 Years on Site
 
Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: San Diego, CA
Programs: GE, Marriott Platinum
Posts: 15,742
Originally Posted by moops380
sounds like a good plan going forward. 2.1% is not attractive with AF when 2.0 (or 3.0 for first year with disc or 3.0 with that other japenese card) for no AF.

Chip+pin with A+ has been good for...

1. kiosks (train stations)
2. tolls in france, etc.

Hope the new aviator card by barclays will continue its generous AF waiver forever. The 5-10 times per year I reload my oyster card or train stations elsewhere in the world is not really worth the AF if I had to pay.

With new regulations in the USA for chip cards starting oct 1, I'm sure we'll see some no-AF products with full chip capacity sometime in the next year or so. All the banks will be like "wow that 10 billions dollars per year we saved from fraud prevention with chip+pin was a really good idea."
2.1% isn't worthwhile after the first year but with the first year's AF being waived, that 0.1% is free for the first year. Discover and JCB, while earning more, also have the issue of not being accepted nearly as many places outside the US as Visa, MasterCard or possibly even AmEx.

BTW chip and signature is all they need to do to be considered a "full chip implementation".
tmiw is offline