PackingIt

If in fact my benefits will continue until August 2016, and since my subscription date for TripIt Pro is February, I'll be curious to see if it in fact gets renewed, especially since all mention of it is now gone on the Barclaycard site. I love the excuse they give for getting rid of it: 'it wasn't getting used much'.

josephstern

I'm pretty sure they'll have it very soon:

Because if they don't, they're potentially on the hook for a lot of fraud.

from:

http://usa.visa.com/download/merchan...ness-guide.pdf

GetawaysRus

My annual fee should post in mid-July. I've got a FIA Fidelity 2% AmEx, so I am seriously considering canceling the Arrival +. If necessary (because AmEx isn't accepted everywhere), it should be pretty easy to pick up a Citi DoubleCash card. For expenses abroad, I'll just bring a Chase card with no forex fees (Ink Plus, Sapphire Preferred).

I agree with the math mentioned above - it would now take over 89K in annual spend on the Arrival + to make it worthwhile to keep the card compared to a no-fee 2% cashback card. We spend heavily on the Arrival +, but I doubt that it's over 89K.

I am curious: if anyone has called to cancel the card, are they offering anything to try to retain you as a customer? Barclays should have anticipated a wave of cancellations and hopefully made some plans to retain customers.

I'll probably call next week to see if there is anything I can do to make keeping the card worthwhile. If not, sayonara. Annual fees are a major expense that I need to keep under control.

kesco

Last when I called (prob 6 months ago) they wouldn't waive the annual fee. But this is before all of the changes noted here.

This time however, there is no point in me sticking with this card .. it goes "bye-bye" due to these changes the next time the AF hits. Either they make an offer to waive the AF, give serious points to offset the loss of TripIt Pro (which I do use), the 10% going down to 5%, or .. I'm gone and won't look back.

tmiw

All adding EMV does is shift liability away from them and towards businesses that haven't upgraded yet. Barclay could keep magstripe forever and they would still be liable (but it is in their interest to take advantage of the cost savings).

josephstern

Shifting liability away from them is pretty major. Not trivial.

JEFFJAGUAR

...but let's not forget that all through 2013, they were promising the arrival non plus card would be emv compliant by 4th quarter 2913. Whatever happened to that deadline?

Phantom707

Considering that that deadline is s almost 900 years from now, I'd say they have some time before they have to worry.

Blueskyheaven

For those of us who had this card before Sep 2014, better to redeem miles now and stop putting any spending if you are canceling anyway? I have 43,471 miles. When I book travel, Should I book for $434? Or I should do more than that since I am getting 10% miles back?

JEFFJAGUAR

typo, typo, typo. Good catch.

jj

skitch23

I haven't been paying any attention to this thread for a while. WTH!! Looks like I'll be maxxing this card out thru October and then tossing it in the shredder. I already have a double cash and plenty of other cards with no FTF. The only thing I'll miss is trip it pro.... but not enuf to pay for it on its own.

RIP Arrival+

patrick.barnes

If it keeps the same benefits until August 2016, then I don't really care?

I'm not sure what my account creation date was, I applied Sep 29 but only received the approval email in October...

It's still worth using at 2.1% for me since the difference between the FX rate on the A+ vs the CSP is around 1%.

This card filled a niche for those of us with a lot of non-US spend in non bonus categories.

josephstern

I'm hoping TripIt will offer us discounts to renew.

Happy

There are better alternatives than A+, also with 0% forex fee only if you look around and do some serious math instead of just pigeon holed yourself with a fixed mindset.

You actually have a Citi card that earns 50% more than A+, 0 forex fee with similar AF which Citi is often very good to waive or offer incentives to offset the bulk of it while Barclays seems hardly gives you a break on the AF.

For those of you who have large overseas spend, you may want to give a good look of the new earning schedule of the Citi Pemier card.

Citi Premier earns 3 pts on Travel - A very broadly defined category including Gas and Taxi among other usual suspects. At a minimum, 1 TYP = 1 penny, and right there is better than your A+ because 3 cents on Travel sure is better than 2.1 cents on Travel (with a far less generous definition).

Restaurant spend earns 2x, so as Tourist Attractions which include theme parks that A+ gets rid of as being eligible travel expenses to redeem. Restaurant spend obvious do not get you the 2.1% on A+ redemption.

On top of that, TYPs worth more than 0.01 per point when used to purchase US/AA flights - it becomes 0.0125 per pt. That means $1 spent on Travel earns you 3pts x 0.0125 = 0.0376 versus the 0.021 on A+.

Further more, TYP can be transferred to SQ at 1 to 1, and to HHonors at 1 to 1.5, with occasional bonus to make it 1 to 2. (I know many think HHonors pts worthless but again, you should take some hard look on your travel needs - we have found HHonors pts save us over over a thousand dollars in the 2 trips this year.)

I know some of you are only aimed at cash - but even just use the TYPs as "cash" - you get a better value than A+ due to the earning on a broadly Travel category is superior.

Personally I never like the convoluted scheme of A+ redemption that you dont get a straight cash back but must used on Travel expenses which have a 120 days expiration, and now has a much higher threshold - which essentially makes people to use creative ways just so they can redeem if a lot of their travel expenses are below $100.

No such issue with the CapOne QS which despite its 1.5% only, it is a no fee card with 0% forex fee and CapOne does not pass along the Visa network fee like Chase CSP.

For those who think their overseas spending are high enough to justify A+, you should do some HARD CALCULATION to determine if it really worth it.

Case in point -

The difference on the QS 1.5% and the A+ 2.1% is only 0.6%, which on $10,000 spending is a paltry $60. It would take $15,000 spending overseas to just BREAKEVEN with the $89 fee charged by A+. On top of that, you do NOT need to wait for any threshold nor any category expenses to be able to redeem your earning on QS. You redeem as you go, straightly as statement credit, for as little as a few bucks if you so wish.

So, you only earn incremental value AFTER the first $15,000 overseas spend, and only at a paltry 0.6% additional.

Now please tell me, other than the PIN Capability, what else advantage A+ has?

I would say CapOne's QS is definitely worthwhile to have. However, their credit cards DONT have the recon process like other banks that you know of. And they do pull all 3 credit bureau for their card applications. I am just glad we do not cancel the Venture cards after getting the $1100 sign up bonus 3 or 4 years ago but downgraded to the no-fee product of the Mastercard Reward to avoid the AF. Eventually it was converted to QS Visa.

As for those who worry about CapOne custumer services, I can only say from our own experiences that they are all US-based reps with better services than Barclays, Chase and Citi - especially their Social Media Team is truly empowered to resolve issues, not just pass along information to the "dept that deals with this." Both their banking side and their card side customer services are good.

Right now the Citi Premier card is clearly better but of course you may not like TYP despite it is far more versatile than the A+ cash, on top of a far higher return at 3% versus 2.1%.

A+ barely makes sense in its prior state. The primary usage for us is the PIN capability but then I found we only used such function EXACTLY ONCE - on each of our previous 3 trips to Europe. And for each of such usages, we could easily use cash and hardly lose any earning as each time the amount was below 20 euros.

It is also very true that many parts of the world prefer cash - not just in Asia but we found even in some cities in Germany, even at the chain restaurants - they are cash only. All supermarkets in Amsterdam only take cash or the debit cards from their own country. Buying public transportation tickets with CC, chip or otherwise, involves a surcharge!

Unless you live overseas for many months a year, you really dont need to worry about the forex too much as many cards are 0% forex fee.

Even if you live overseas for many months a year, there is better card than A+ after factoring everything.

So yes, I totally agree with you, for many folks the A+ barely is useful in the past and far less useful now with the new structures and the annual fee.

There is a 2015 Shut Down thread in the MS forum - there are reports of A+ shut downs reported on that thread together with other shut downs. There are other reported cases on other websites.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/manuf...wn-thread.html

My thought is, the raise of the $100 redemption threshold is the worst thing of this "enhancement". Of course there are already posted ways to counter-react to this. It has been working in the past, not sure if it would work in the future when the new threshold puts in effect.

Mountain Trader

Some Flyer Talk "Evangelists" flit about, dropping meaningless bon mots in 20, 30, 40 posts a day, apparently to simultaneously boost their post total and their egos.

Lucky for us we have Happy (and others such as Mia and guv1976, to name just two) who make a real contribution to the communal knowledge. The quoted post above is a great example.

There are several cash back alternatives, and with the A+ changes, it it time to compare the Citi Premier and others. For some, the pin is important, though not worth $89 a year, if that's what it comes down to.

As I wrote, it is important to really consider what use the card will be put to. Some travelers spend a lot of time overseas, some just buy gift cards down the street. It all depends, and you can't really measure until you run the numbers based on your expected use.

I for one am not surprised that Barclays changed the game a bit here. At 2% cash back, there could not have been much, if anything, left for their bottom line.