Does anyone who has the Arrival card and has redeemed it for travel expenses know if it has the same loophole the Venture card doe or did ?

With the Venture card you could redeem the same travel expense more than once so you could in effect pay off any balance ( non travel) with points

For example if I spent $100 at a Marriott I was able to redeem points on the Venture Card to pay that same $100 charge multiple times.

This little trick made it much easier to redeem all my Venture points before the AF

You can only redeem once against any charge, regardless of how much you redeem.
The loophole you refer to will not work with this card.

Thanks, Do you have to have enough points to cover the full charge or can you make a partial points payment ?

For instance if you had a $100 bill and 8,000 points can you pay $80 of the bill ?

Yes, you can redeem for a partial credit. Depending on the amount, you may have the option to redeem in $10 or $25 increments, so in your example your only choice may be to redeem 5000 points for a $50 credit or 7500 points for a $75 credit.

Can you clarify as if someone can redeem in $10 increments , then shouldn't it be possible to redeem for the full 8000pts for $80 the poster had intended instead of only $75?

Depending on the amount of the charge, you will have the option to redeem in increments of either $10 (for smaller amounts) or 25 (for larger ones), or for the full amount. It's all easy and all online.

Now to figure out what's considered travel. I plan on using $300 or so at the hotel bar and for snacks around the pool. That bills out as Hilton so no problem.

Hopefully offsite airport parking is codes as travel also

I use my card 80% for business expenses and have never had anything questioned. That said, I've only had my card around 3 months.

Be cautious. Not all hotel-related charges are coded as hotels. Some hotels have separate merchant accounts in their F+B areas and those could very well be coded as restaurant instead of travel. When in doubt, I suggest you buy a hotel gift card at the front desk and redeem in the restaurant/bar. Of course if you are staying at the hotel just charge to your room.

Same thing with amusement parks like Disneyland. The hotel is rebatable, but not the theme park. As such, you should first buy Disney dollars at the hotel, then use those to redeem at the park. Or buy a package deal through the hotel, then everything is all good.

I have no experience with airport parking charges, but parking is not specifically enumerated in the definition of "travel" within the T&C's so I would not count on it.

Gas is definitely NOT considered travel.

I will be charging everything to my room and over 8 days it should go well over $400

Can I just buy xxx amount of Hilton gift cards as soon as the points post and then use them at the hotel ? Seems it might be easier that way

I can't remember if I was able to pay the airport parking with the Venture card, not that it would matter, different card

Basically it's just hotels, airfare and perhaps rental cars (I haven't rented one yet with this card.)

Even a whale watching tour purchased online didn't count because of the way the company was classified.

Giving up all the hotel and airfare purchases to this card is enough to get me back to Ultimate Rewards cards with maybe a Chase Club card for non-bonus spend.

Seems your car rental should be good. I always rent with Amex as I like the $25 per rental PRIMARY zero deductible insurance they offer.

A travel purchase and redemption is defined as: Airlines, Travel Agencies & Tour Operators, Hotels, Motels & Resorts, Cruise Lines, Passenger Railways and Car Rental Agencies as defined by the merchant category code. Purchases made at merchants that do not process transactions under these terms or that use incorrect MasterCard merchant category codes will not qualify. Barclaycard is not responsible for incorrectly coded purchases.


Worst comes to worst I'll just redeem the ~ $400 for a flight if they don't let me redeem the hotel expenses..
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I'm going to buy a $25 Hilton Gift card after the points post and see what happens.

Does anyone know if you get the 20K no annual fee version of the Arrival card if the point stack into one account or are they kept separate ?

I applied for this about 7 weeks ago and was denied for too many inquiries and also because I had a USAir card and cancelled it and got another one. I still have the USAir card now. If I cancel the USAir card or lower the credit limit, do you guys think I will have a chance to get automatically approved before going to recon?

I have 2 open US air cards, the last one being approved 6 weeks before my Arrival card so the US air card ( or even 2) does not break the deal.

The United cards still have the free primary coverage. I can't see using Barclays for a rental.