Right, but do the miles expire? Given that we don't actually have any trips planned I don't want to end up with a ton of points I'm not prepared to use. Also a little hesitant to carry TWO annual fee cards.
I got the Barclay Arrival Card a few months ago, and have been really happy with it. The points don't expire, as long as you keep the card active and in good standing (keep using it, keep paying the bill) - although of course all points programs are subject to the company changing them at any point. We use it for everything - and between the signing bonus ( effectively $440) and regular points we've got about $700 back already, and we've only had it since May. There are two options - a no-fee option that only offers 2 points on dining and travel, and an annual fee option that offers 2 points back on everything. When you redeem for a statement credit on any travel purchase, you get 10% of the points back, so it's effectively 2.2% back on all your purchases. We don't spend a lot on dining, and only do occasional travel, so being able to get the 2.2% back on the other purchases made the annual fee worth it (and it's waived for the first year, of course).
Barclay determines what counts as travel by the credit card code that the merchant uses, so we actually found that when we purchases a case of wine at a vineyard near us, it was coded as travel, and we were able to get the travel statement credit back on that. In addition, all the regular travel purchases (airline tickets, baggage fees, hotel, rental car, taxis, and a whale watch) on our recent trip counted as travel, and we can use the statement credit for them. You have 120 days from the day of purchase to redeem a statement credit against a travel purchase - so we're continuing the redeem against the trip we took in June.
A couple other features that I like - free TripIt Pro subscription - I thought this was silly, but I used it for a trip we took last month, and it was actually super nice - you forward all your travel related emails to the TripIt email address, and it makes an itinerary for you, and throughout your trip, it emails or texts you reminders and information at the appropriate time (you just landed, and it emails you the gate information for your connecting flight and tells you how much time you have to make the connection, or you have a hotel reservation - it emails you the confirmation number at check-in time). I wouldn't pay the full retail price ($49), but since it's free with the card, I thought it was a nice perk.
Free FICO score - seems like a lot of card companies have started offering this now, but it's nice to have.
They upgraded our card to a chip card for free as well, which will be nice the next time we travel to Europe - should mean that we can use our cards much more widely there - last time we were there (without chip cards), only some places would accept our non-chip cards.
You can also earn more points by posting short travel stories and travel photos on their community. For the time it takes, it's probably not worth it, but is handy if you're trying to get the last few points to get yourself to the 2,500 points you need to cash in a $25 credit. And, like most credit cards, you can earn extra points by doing your online shopping through their portal.
So - in summary, we're really happy with the Barclaycard, and since we don't spend much on restaurants, and only travel occasionally, we'll get more out of it than the other options out there.
