@disdreamin wrote:I'll start by saying that my experience with Barclay has been overwhelming positive - they caught fraduluent charges immediately on my A+ card and straightened it out with a bare minimum of time and hassle on my end. They've been responsive when I've needed assistance or information. When it comes to customer service, they've consistently delivered. Their web interface is decent (far better than some, perhaps not quite as nice as others).
That said, I've had the Arrival+ for just under two years, and I'm planning on closing the card this month before the annual fee posts. The first year was great, with the opening bonus being well worth opening the account, and the 10% bonus on all reward redemptions being quite generous. However, the lowered bonus on redemptions (now only 5%) makes the A+ a wash with DC and many other cards unless you care about things like FTF and such.
In the years I've had the card, I've run a fair amount through it as it was our go-to card for everything that could be charged, except gas and groceries which went on the Sallie Mae or AmEv BCP. I never saw a CLI on the A+ card in that time, although Barclays was very generous with my credit line when I opened the SM. So as far as I can tell, Barclay is hard to get CLI out of.
The reason I kept the card a second year was international expenditures. I was planning a trip around renewal time and the math worked out that the annual fee was essentially a wash with what foreign transaction fees would have run on a different card. Since going foward I don't anticipate much international travel, it simply isn't worth the expense of keeping this particular card.
tl; dr - no issues with A+ card, but cannot justify fee
There are plenty of no-fee cards which have no foreign transaction fees. E.g. Barclay Ring, Barclay JetBlue, PenFed Promise, Capital One Venture One, Capital One Quicksilver, Discover IT, NFCU Platinum, to name a few.
