Arrival Plus Spending to Justify AF

[MCHammerFan]

The Barclay Arrival Plus looks like the best choice for me for a travel credit card. The added perks of FICO Score monitoring and flexibility over the CSP won me over. Before I apply annual spending of $4500 nullifies the AF cost and anything else is considered the true reward, if I spend around 8-10k yearly is it worth keeping it the 2nd year or should I just downgrade/consider a lower card like Capital One Venture?

[E150GT]

seems like you could do better with a discover or freedom since the barclay "miles"  basically only redeem at 1%.

[longtimelurker]

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@MCHammerFan wrote:
The Barclay Arrival Plus looks like the best choice for me for a travel credit card. The added perks of FICO Score monitoring and flexibility over the CSP won me over. Before I apply annual spending of $4500 nullifies the AF cost and anything else is considered the true reward, if I spend around 8-10k yearly is it worth keeping it the 2nd year or should I just downgrade/consider a lower card like Capital One Venture?

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To give again an example I gave recently (maybe start spamming it till people get it!)  breaking even is NOT the test!

As a valued customer, LongTimeLurker Bank can offer you a card that pays 0.5% ON EVERY purchase, and has an annual fee of just $5.

So if you spend just $1,000 a year, you will break even, and anything extra is the true reward.

Should you get this card (well, if it existed!)?   No, of course not, because there are many cards without an AF that pay 1% or more.  You need to compare against other cards that are equally easy to get.

Similarly with the Arrival.  This card IS worth getting for the bonus and first year free.    But compared to the Fidelity Amex, you would need to spend ~ $45K a year for the extra 0.2% on the Arrival to overcome the AF.   (And while the Fidelity card has a small FTF, you aren't restricted to redeem for travel, so they are at least roughly equal).

So unless your spend is that high, or you shop at lots of places that don't take Amex, probably not worth paying the arrival AF if you can get the Amex.

[nachoslibres]

longtimelurker is correct.  Even a Quicksilver card at 1.5% cash back will give you a better return on $10k spend than the Arrival with the $89 AF.  But the Fidelity card would be an even better card for the amount of spend you are wanting to do.

[MCHammerFan]

Thank you all for the replies. I do a lot of ordering overseas and I've used my old capital one platinum since they do not have a FTF.

I was looking for a card to succeed the cap one platinum in rewards and no forex. I already have my Amex BCE and Discover IT for domestic dealings.

I didn't think of the Quicksilver, I might just do that instead.