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royc's question has been appended to the thread discussing Barclays Arrival card. Reviewing the preceding posts will clarify that the "miles" are actually "points" with a fixed monetary value.

Barclaycard "Arrival" Offer Good Deal
 

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.

Was the annual fee waived for first year? My wife got an offer today for 40,000 for 1000 spend in 3 months with first year fee of $89 waived.

Got a no-fee 40K points after $500 spend offer. Seriously considering this.

Thanks for that. GF got a targeted offer of $1k spend for 40k points (no annual fee version), may not bite if this isn't like the NFL card that the statement credit can be applied to anything... although for anyone looking to get some gift cards from AA or some other airline/travel partner that codes their transactions correctly this could be a good deal... or just do artificial spend and wait for a good use of the points later on...

That specific offer is http://barclaycardarrival.com/1816 since others mentioned the code can be 'reused' within different offers.

I would totally take that offer. I am waiting for a similar offer form them...

Does anyone have a link for this one? I have an offer code I'd like to use on this one.

Also does anyone know if I apply for this and then the Barclays US Airways on the same day will it result in one or 2 credit pulls? I'm referring to this card:
http://www.mostmiles.com/apply/Landi...cellNumber=163

http://barclaycardarrival.com/1829
The above link is the target offer for no annual fee version, 40,000 miles after $500 spending in 90 days. Anyone cares to share the 50,000 miles with $1000 spending target link?

What you're looking for came in my mail today...

50,000 bonus for $1,000 in 90 days / $89 AF waived first year
2X all purchases

http://barclaycardarrival.com/4911

Thanks. But sadly I can no longer use my personal ID for this offer because I've already used it to apply for the 40K miles/no annual fee targeted offer. I got the following error message:

The Personal ID entered is already in use. Please re-enter your Personal ID as it appears on the offer you received in the mail.

It seems like that if you did not use your personal ID, you'd be able to apply the same personal ID for a better offer. But you can't use the same ID twice. Well, maybe when I receive my card and call to activate, I can try talk them to match this offer?

YES. This worked for me.

Super-smooth approval with a score in the high 700s.

I hope it's easy to downgrade once the first year is up. Anyone have experience doing product conversions with Barclays? Actually it looks like there are two different reward programs sharing the same card. I hope that makes the process simpler.

Also, I wasn't able to get the application page showing 50k after $1k spend to print correctly. I did however save the terms page. If you're able to print the application page (blank of course), please PM me.

I was interested in this card but don't think I have a personal ID code. How do I get one?

I did not print the 50K offer application page because my personal ID expired and would not let me pass the landing page. However, I got my 40K bonus only 2 days after I spent $500 on the card. No problems at all. So I assume it would go just as smoothly with your bonus miles.

I hope you get the downgrade or fee waiver next year. Please report back. I wanted to ask the CSR to match the 50K offer but the whole activation process was automatic and quick. Then I was being too lazy to call back. Considering the one phone call to match offer and another one next year to downgrade, I might need a bigger incentive than 10K miles...

I wanted to add that I posted an update regarding my experience with the Barclaycard Arrival to my blog [remove blog link]

The gist of it that if points are redeemed for statement credit (essentially cash), they are worth half a cent. If the points are assigned to specific travel charges of greater than $25 on your statement, you can receive the full $400 value.

Another benefit is that hotel and rental car charges on Priceline and Hotwire qualify as travel expenses which earn 2x points and for which statement credits are allowed. I don't know of another card that offers redemptions on Priceline reservations.

This card sounds like a copy of the Amex Blue Sky where you spend $500 in 90 days and get a $400 statement credit toward any spends that are travel related. The Amex BS has no annual fee so its a good card to keep to up your AAoA. Both my wife and I got this card and it has worked out well.

Ps...Anyone who has successfully gotten this Barclay card already have 2 US Air cards?