Sometime over the last few days Barclaycard pulled the application for the Arrival Plus Card and Arrival Card through their website. Currently the only way to apply for the cards is through 3rd party websites, like this one.
The Arrival Plus Card has long been a great card option for earning travel rewards that can be redeemed for any king of travel you want. The card earns 2X miles on all purchases and offered incredible flexibility when redeeming the miles for a statement credit on travel purchases.
Applications Pulled, But Not Everywhere
It appears that applications through the Barclaycard website are no longer available and shows a "Check back later to apply" button vs. the normal "Apply now" button.
However, oddly enough it's still possible to apply for for the 40,000 bonus mile offer on the Barclaycard Arrival Plus World Elite MasterCard through 3rd party websites.
Changes Coming to Barclays Arrival Plus card?
This is not the first time Barclaycard has pulled the application from their website and made changes to the cards benefits. In the past the changes were mostly negative, including a decrease in the mileage refund from 10% to 5%, raising the minimum redemption amount to 10,000 miles, nixing the free subscription to TripIt Pro.
If changes are coming to the Arrival Plus card I'd presume, like most major changes made to travel rewards cards and programs over time, that they are not positive changes to the card's travel benefits.
Until official changes have been announced form Barclaycard I'd wait and see how things unfold. In the meantime here are some possibilities that could happen:
- A lower welcome bonus - the 40k welcome bonus is marketed as a limited time offer
- Changes to what counts as a travel purchase - Barclaycard has never defined what counts and what doesn't
- Change to mileage rebate benefit (again) - the mileage rebate could be nixed altogether.
- Change to the card's mileage earning - the Arrival+ card's 2X earning could be altered, but since it's in line with other competing cards on the market I would doubt this occurs.
The Bottom Line
Until we hear official news from Barclaycard we won't know what's taking place with the Arrival Plus and Arrival Card. When the application for the Arrival+ card was pulled in the past the changes to cards' benefits were not positive, let's hope this is not the case this time around!
Hat Tip: Reddit
