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Cannot Redeem Barclays Arrival Miles for Eligible Travel Purchase? Call Barclays for Help

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Good morning everyone, I hope you had a great weekend.  Last week, I helped my brother keep his American Airlines miles from expiring.  In today’s episode of managing my family’s miles & points, my dad told me he had 11,026 Barclays Arrival Miles in his account and wanted to close his Barclays Arrival Plus Credit Card.  I told him that he should redeem his Barclays Arrival Miles before he closes his credit card.  I told him to buy an airline eGC and then redeem Barclays Arrival Miles for that travel purchase.

He didn’t have any upcoming travel plans, so I told him I would help him out.  I would make a purchase on his Barclays Arrival Plus Credit Card, redeem the Barclays Arrival Miles for the purchase, and then pay him back for the purchase.  Since I live and work in the San Francisco Bay Area, I use my Clipper Card to take public transportation (BART, SMART, Ferry, CalTrain, etc.) around the Bay and to SFO and OAK.  I go through $200-$300 a month in Clipper Card charges, so I knew I could use up $110.26 pretty quickly, so I loaded $110.26 to my Clipper Card with my dad’s Barclays Arrival Plus Credit Card.  I normally use my Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card for the 3x travel rewards for Clipper Card charges, but I wouldn’t lose sleep over the missing points.

a screenshot of a credit card

The Clipper Card charge posted to his credit card the next day and I logged into his Barclays account to redeem Barclays Arrival Miles for the purchase.  I wanted to ask my dad a question before I redeemed the Barclays Arrival Miles, but it was late, so I decided to wait until the morning and call him.  Everything was fine when I took this screenshot on Tuesday evening…

a screenshot of a travel statement

But by Wednesday morning, the $110.26 Clipper Card charge was not showing as being eligible for a travel statement credit.  I tried logging out and back in a few times since maybe it was a glitch.  I ended up calling my dad and conference calling Barclays for help.

a screenshot of a travel statement

When the rep answered the phone, I said, “Hello, my name is Grant Thomas and my dad’s name is Stephen Thomas.  I am helping him redeem his Barclays Arrival Miles for a travel statement credit, but the Clipper Card charge does not show up there.  Can you help us?”  The rep said that Clipper Card was not an eligible travel purchase.  I was surprised to hear that, so I told her that Clipper Card was public transportation and should qualify as travel.  She looked into the transaction details and said, yes, that is correct.  She then said that she would create a support ticket to pass on to the Barclays Arrival Miles team.  I told her that we wanted to redeem 11,026 Barclays Arrival Miles for the $110.26 Clipper Card charge.  She said that we would receive an email from the support team in the next 1-2 days.  No email from Barclays ever arrived.  But a few days later, I logged back into my dad’s Barclays account and saw that Barclays successfully redeemed 11,026 Barclays Arrival Miles to offset the $110.26 Clipper Card charge.  Success!

a screenshot of a website

I looked into the transaction section and it looks like this was a MacGyver type workaround.  The transaction was coded as “REDEEM 11026 PTS” and showed as a $110.26 credit.

a screenshot of a computer screen

But under the Rewards Activity section, I do not see any transactions under Rewards Redemption History.  Oh well, it’s not pretty, but it gets the job done.

a screenshot of a credit card

Now that most of my dad’s Barclays Arrival Miles were redeemed, he can close his Barclays Arrival Plus Credit Card.  You need a minimum of 2,500 Barclays Arrival Miles for a $25 travel statement credit, so we cannot do anything with those 771 Barclays Arrival Miles.  If you have any questions about redeeming Barclays Arrival Miles for a travel purchase, please leave a comment below.  Have a great day everyone!


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8 thoughts on “Cannot Redeem Barclays Arrival Miles for Eligible Travel Purchase? Call Barclays for Help

      1. JL

        -Travel statement credit redemptions start at 10,000 miles for $100 toward a qualifying travel purchase of $100 or more made within the last 120 days.

        -The minimum for account annual fee redemptions within the travel statement credit category is 2,500 miles for $25.

        -Cash back statement credit and gift card redemptions start at 5,000 miles for $25.

        Reply
        1. Grant Post author

          That info is not correct for travel statement credits. Based on the second screenshot, it says that travel statement credit redemptions start at 2,500 miles for $25.

          Reply
          1. JL

            interesting, i grabbed that off of the card’s benefits page, which must’ve not been updated.

            Barclays seems to have gone back and forth, a few years ago it used to be $25 (great), then changed to $100 (boo, slightly harder to redeem), and now back to $25?

  1. Jeffrey@MillionMileGuy

    A word of caution though about calling Barclays to redeem. If you MS on your card, you’re asking someone at Barclays to look at your transaction history to make the redemption. One transaction is probably just fine, but several (on a trip for example) will need a request/ticket to get that done. And that definitely puts eyes on the account. It’s how my account was shutdown.

    Reply
    1. Grant Post author

      Yikes, I’m sorry your Barclays CC was shut down. Anytime you MS, you have to be careful who will look at your account. Did you get a check for the value of your Barclays Arrival Miles?

      Reply

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