Barclaycard Travel Community: Earn Miles To Redeem for Travel

The Barclaycard Travel Community enables you to link your Barclaycard Arrival Plus™ World Elite MasterCard to it to earn “miles” (better thought of as points) to redeem for travel. Barclaycard launched the travel community last year, but I only recently got around to linking my account and creating my first travel story.

Here's how it works:

1. Log Into Your Barclaycard Account and Click to Join the Community

Since I hadn't previously joined the Barclaycard Travel Community, I was prompted to signup:

2. Create Your Travel Community Profile

Decide on your community username and password:

3. Complete Your Profile and Add At Least 5 Places to Your Travel Map

After selecting your username and password, you'll need to complete your profile, including adding your location, travel interests, travel style, companions, and adding at least 5 places to your travel map in order to be able to earn 500 miles for your completed profile (see below).

4. If You Already Have a Travel Community Profile, Link It to Your Barclaycard Account

If you already registered a travel community profile, be sure to link it to your Barclaycard Account so that you can earn miles, which are worth much more than the Amazon e-certificate option (more on this below).

5. How to Earn Miles to Redeem for Travel 

Create a Profile: 500 Miles

In addition to completing your profile with your city and state, travel interests, travel style and travel companions, you'll need to add at least 5 cities added to your “My Travels” map, so don't forget that part. You can view your map by going to your user name in the upper right and selecting “My Travels” from the drop down.

Post a New Travel Story: 200 Miles

This is the main way to earn additional miles, and if you have a photo handy, it should only take a couple minutes or so to write. The minimum length is 50 words, so nothing too onerous–keep it short, sweet and helpful. 

Receive Kudos: 10 Miles

Since you only receive 10 miles for kudos from someone, I wouldn't worry about this way of earning. Of course, if you find a story genuinely interesting or helpful, by all means give kudos, but it would take many kudos to make any meaningful difference in your Barclaycard miles.

Here's my first travel story, on Amankila in Bali. Amankila is such a gorgeous resort for a honeymoon, anniversary trip or romantic getaway to Bali, and TravelSort Clients booking with us receive fantastic Virtuoso benefits:

• Upgrade on arrival, subject to availability
• Continental breakfast daily, for up to two in room guests
• A complimentary lunch or dinner for up to two people per room once during stay
• Early check-in/late check-out, subject to availability

6. How to Redeem Miles for Travel

While non-Barclaycard cardholders can signup and participate in the travel community, you only earn a $5 Amazon gift certificate for every 2500 miles–definitely not worth it. Instead, if you have the Barclaycard Arrival Plus card, 2500 miles, which you would first earn for registering and 10 travel stories, is worth $27.50 when redeemed for travel, thanks to the extra 10% rebate when redeeming for travel expenses (update: rebate is now 5%, not 10%).

Not bad since that can be used towards any travel expense–my own favorites are fuel surchages and taxes on award tickets, or on short international flights, since there are no foreign transaction fees when using the Barclaycard Arrival Plus card.

For a step by step on how to rebate your travel expenses, see Barclaycard Arrival Plus Card: Top 10 Tips to Maximize Rewards from the 40,000 Bonus

Have you earned miles from posting travel stories in the Barclaycard Travel Community?