I just stumbled across this while I was browsing Google Flights, as you do. It looks like there's another no-frills low-cost carrier from Europe that will fly between Europe and the US/Canada for crazy low one-way prices.
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Tuesday, January 2, 2018
I have to buy tickets ASAP! What card should I get?
"I need to fly in three weeks, and you always know the best travel deals! What can I do???"
If I had a dollar for every time I heard that, I would have like at least $3.
When your date isn't flexible and your location isn't flexible and you can't wrangle with weird stopovers and you have checked bags, the only thing left to do is book with points. But if you don't have any points yet, the #1 card I would recommend applying for is the Barclaycard Arrival Plus Mastercard. It currently has a 40,000 point signup bonus, worth $400 cashback on travel purchases (fine print: you can only use them on a purchase of $100+, so it won't cover your Uber ride, but is perfect for large travel expenditures like flights). As with most cards of this caliber, you need to spend $3,000 within the first 90 days to get the signup bonus. It has an $89 annual fee, but this is waived the first year automatically, and you can easily cancel after 11 months if you want to avoid the fee.
The reason why this is my #1 recommended card for last-minute purchases (despite it not having any referral credit for me :( ) is that unlike most high-bonus travel rewards cards, the Barclaycard allows you to buy first and get cashback later. This means that as soon as you get your card in the mail (maybe 1-3 weeks after applying, depending) you can book your flight. (Most rewards cards require you to earn the points over the course of three months, so you can get more points over all, but you can't use points you haven't earned yet, so it only works if you plan ahead and order the card months before you need the points.)
Another feature that makes the Barclaycard Arrival Plus my go-to recommendation for last-minute purchases is that it allows you to get cashback on ANY travel purchase; it doesn't matter if you're booking from Expedia, Priceline, or the airline itself. This is really useful because there are often flight sales that you have to book through a third-party. Their website says that "travel" includes: airlines, hotels, motels, timeshares, campgrounds, car rental agencies, cruise lines, travel agencies, discount travel sites, trains, buses, taxis, limousines and ferries, as long as it costs $100+. Most rewards cards aren't flexible like this. (Caveat: Do not book through a weird third-party site that most Americans haven't heard of, because Barclaycard may not recognize it as a travel site. I got screwed by this when I booked a flight deal on the Asian Via.com.) You can use the travel credit on hotels, too, but I generally don't make hotel purchases that cost $100+, so I only really use it for flights. I believe you could buy Airbnb or hotel gift cards of $100 with it, and then write that off with the travel credit.
The last feature of the Arrival Plus (and any other Barclaycard) is actually so totally awesome and unique that I didn't even believe it at first. In a nutshell, any Barclaycard user can post paid blog posts reviewing your travels on Barclaycard's own Tripadvisor-like website. Each blog post of 100+ words earns you $1.50 in travel cashback, plus 10 cents more for each "like/kudo" you receive, plus 10 cents more for each location detail you add (like what else is around the place you're reviewing). So you're basically looking at $2ish per 100-word post, and you're allowed to post 100 per month. I maxed it out last month, earning over $200 in travel credits, which I can use to wipe out the flights I booked a couple months ago. How crazy awesome is that? You can live the dream as a paid blogger!
If I had a dollar for every time I heard that, I would have like at least $3.
When your date isn't flexible and your location isn't flexible and you can't wrangle with weird stopovers and you have checked bags, the only thing left to do is book with points. But if you don't have any points yet, the #1 card I would recommend applying for is the Barclaycard Arrival Plus Mastercard. It currently has a 40,000 point signup bonus, worth $400 cashback on travel purchases (fine print: you can only use them on a purchase of $100+, so it won't cover your Uber ride, but is perfect for large travel expenditures like flights). As with most cards of this caliber, you need to spend $3,000 within the first 90 days to get the signup bonus. It has an $89 annual fee, but this is waived the first year automatically, and you can easily cancel after 11 months if you want to avoid the fee.
The reason why this is my #1 recommended card for last-minute purchases (despite it not having any referral credit for me :( ) is that unlike most high-bonus travel rewards cards, the Barclaycard allows you to buy first and get cashback later. This means that as soon as you get your card in the mail (maybe 1-3 weeks after applying, depending) you can book your flight. (Most rewards cards require you to earn the points over the course of three months, so you can get more points over all, but you can't use points you haven't earned yet, so it only works if you plan ahead and order the card months before you need the points.)
Another feature that makes the Barclaycard Arrival Plus my go-to recommendation for last-minute purchases is that it allows you to get cashback on ANY travel purchase; it doesn't matter if you're booking from Expedia, Priceline, or the airline itself. This is really useful because there are often flight sales that you have to book through a third-party. Their website says that "travel" includes: airlines, hotels, motels, timeshares, campgrounds, car rental agencies, cruise lines, travel agencies, discount travel sites, trains, buses, taxis, limousines and ferries, as long as it costs $100+. Most rewards cards aren't flexible like this. (Caveat: Do not book through a weird third-party site that most Americans haven't heard of, because Barclaycard may not recognize it as a travel site. I got screwed by this when I booked a flight deal on the Asian Via.com.) You can use the travel credit on hotels, too, but I generally don't make hotel purchases that cost $100+, so I only really use it for flights. I believe you could buy Airbnb or hotel gift cards of $100 with it, and then write that off with the travel credit.
The last feature of the Arrival Plus (and any other Barclaycard) is actually so totally awesome and unique that I didn't even believe it at first. In a nutshell, any Barclaycard user can post paid blog posts reviewing your travels on Barclaycard's own Tripadvisor-like website. Each blog post of 100+ words earns you $1.50 in travel cashback, plus 10 cents more for each "like/kudo" you receive, plus 10 cents more for each location detail you add (like what else is around the place you're reviewing). So you're basically looking at $2ish per 100-word post, and you're allowed to post 100 per month. I maxed it out last month, earning over $200 in travel credits, which I can use to wipe out the flights I booked a couple months ago. How crazy awesome is that? You can live the dream as a paid blogger!
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