Barclays US Airways Card Archives

US Airways Bumps Bonus to 50,000!

The US Airways® Premier World MasterCard® has always been one of our favorites for people to get started and it just got even better! They have just bumped the bonus from 40,000 miles with your first purchase to 50,000 with your first purchase. This means you can get this card, spend $1 on gas and then earn enough for two round trip flights anywhere in the US! You do have to pay the $89 annual fee with this offer, but I would trade $89 for two round trip flights every day of the week.

This is really as easy as it comes for bonus miles. Apply for the card, spend $1, get 50,000 miles!

Some other ways you could use these miles are for a ticket to Hawaii (40K miles), Off Peak to Europe in the winter (30K miles) or you could save up the miles and add some to it and get Business Class to Asia via Europe for 110K miles like I did when I went to Germany and China!

How you spend the miles is up to you, but the important thing is getting them while you can! As you may know US Airways and American Airlines have partially merged and this card will probably be going away once the merger is completed (or at least rebranded to an AA card).

Some other benefits of this card are first checked bag free on US Airways operated flights, priority boarding, and one companion certificate per year. If this sounds like something you are interested in (and it should) then click here to apply now.

As always, reply with any questions and follow me on Google+, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to make sure you don’t miss any great info! And don’t forget to share this article with anyone who might be interested using the handy social share buttons right below this post!

Reader Question: Should I 0% balance transfer $7700 for $230 just for the miles?

This is another of our Reader Question series of articles. One of our readers recently asked:

“I received the older version of the US Airways card with 30,000 miles (the current offer is 40,000 mile sign up bonus after spending $1). As part of that offer they will give me 1 mile/$ transferred up to $10,000. I have a balance I could transfer for $7700 but they would charge me a 3% fee of $230 to do it. Is it worth it?”
Continue reading “Reader Question: Should I 0% balance transfer $7700 for $230 just for the miles?”

1500 US Airways miles for Spending $1? OK.

Don’t forget to enter our TravelWithMiles Guru contest that ends Friday. A free plane ticket to Cancun is guaranteed but maybe even more!

Barclays Bank just loves to keep on giving! I received a 40,000 US Airways Mile sign up bonus after spending just $1 on my US Airways® Premier World MasterCard® a few years ago.

Since I have been out of town, I haven’t been able to activate a replacement card they sent me. Well, I guess they really wanted me to activate it because I got this in the mail as well. US Air 1500 This is one of the reasons I tell people not to cancel their cards right away after they get the sign up bonus. Sometimes they will surprise you with little bonus offers during the year that are a great deal. In this case, I just have to make any purchase, even if it is $1 and I will get 1500 US Airways miles! And then when I logged onto my account online, I got another offer! US Airways 20 Percent This means I’ll get 1.2 Miles per dollar for normal purchases and 2.4 miles per dollar for US Airways purchases for the rest of the summer. Nothing earth shattering, but free miles are free miles!

So US Airways card holders check your email and online because you might have a similar offer. And if you don’t have this card yet, then why not apply now for 40,000 Miles after spending $1!

5 Ways to get a Free Credit Score

Did you know that some credit cards will tell you what your credit score is for free? Knowing your credit score is one of the most important things when you’re working on Credit Repair or about to apply for a new credit card such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred with its 40,000 point sign on bonus. Your credit score is computed by scoring different things in your credit file to come up with an objective number to help creditors quickly make credit decisions. While the above graph tells you what is important, it doesn’t tell you exactly what your score will be which is why it is great to be able to see your score regularly. Here are some of the cards we recommend that allow you free access to your credit score:

1. Discover It Card.

This card is great because it not only gives you your FICO score but also has no annual fee (all of the rest below have annual fees). This is one of the reasons that I still have this card even after getting it over 20 years ago. Discover makes it really convenient by giving you credit score each month right on your monthly statement. This makes it easy to keep an eye on that all important credit score. Add this to the fact that Discover has a great cashback program with quarterly bonuses, great promotional 0% interest balance transfer offers (such as the 18 month interest free offer they currently have for new signups), no foreign transaction fees and is the only cars that you can use reliably in China, I really think that this card should be in everyone’s wallet.

2. US Airways® Premier World MasterCard®

This card is one that we recommend over and over because of its generous 40,000 mile bonus with just $1 in spending! In fact, I used part of this bonus recently to go to Austria, Germany and China in business class for just $184! It also gives you a free FICO score via their website when you log into your account dashboard. Their standard benefits of a free checked bag and a 5,000 mile discount on US Airways awards definitely are useful to have. To add a cherry on top, they have a 15 month 0% interest offer for balance transfers made in the first 45 days after your account opening. Since US Airways has merged with American, these miles will eventually become American miles in 2015 and this card will disappear as we discussed in this article.

3. US Bank FlexPerks® Travel Rewards Visa Signature® Card

This card is one we haven’t covered in a full article yet but we wanted to include it because it gives you a free Experian Credit Score monthly. The 20,000 Flexpoint signup bonus can be redeemed for an airline ticket that costs up to $400 which can be a good value if you are trying to earn status with an airline while you redeem the bonus. If you redeem your points wisely, you can end up with 2% back on normal expenses, 4% on airline purchases and cell phone bills, gas or groceries. Look for a full article digging into this card soon, but for now check out the application page for details.

4. Barclaycard Arrival Plus™ World Elite MasterCard®

This card offers not only a free monthly FICO score, but also a 40,000 Arrival Mile sign up bonus that can be redeemed as a statement credit for up to $400 in travel related expenses. We previously wrote about the 7 best ways to use the Arrival Card bonus, another article about the benefits in detail, and another article as a general overview.

5. Capital One Venture Rewards Card

Capital One Venture Rewards gives you a monthly non-FICO Transunion Educational Score each month via their online dashboard. We got this card when they were offering a great100K bonus, but the 40K bonus they currently offer is still good for $400 in travel expenses. This card offers 2X miles for every purchase which means it is worth 2% as a credit for travel related expenses.

Conclusion

By getting a credit card that gives you a free credit score each month it allows you to keep an eye on your score without paying for it. This way if you notice a score drop due to mistakes on your credit report or fraud, you can quickly notice and take action. Having quick access to your credit score also helps if you are doing our Credit Repair 101 Section and want to see how the changes are effecting your credit. Finally, it allows you to know when the best time to apply for that new card such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred is and its 40,000 point sign on bonus!

As always, reply with any questions and follow me on Google+, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to make sure you don’t miss any great info!

Austria, Germany, China 2014: Part 9 – The Great Wall of China at Jinshanling

This is part 9 of a series on my trip to Austria, Germany and China.

I received 40,000 of the 100,000 miles I used for this award ticket by getting the US Airways® Premier World MasterCard®! This is a great card and one I still carry. These miles will eventually become American miles which are some of the most valuable. Click here to apply now for one of your own!

When I started doing my research on the Great Wall of China, I found that while the Badaling section of the great wall was the closest to Beijing and the easiest to get to by train, the Jinshanling section was a more impressive section as well as being much less crowded with tourists. Two interesting things about the Great Wall that I didn’t know were that it isn’t one continuous wall, but instead multiple unconnected sections of wall. It was also not built all at one time but in different times across different dynasties of China. Great Wall of China Sections

I took the public bus from Wangjing West Subway station and used my transportation smart card (which I also used to get around the Beijing subway) which gave me a discount off of the bus fare. Check out this link for everything about the getting there by bus. I had planned to do a 12 mile hike from the Jinshanling section to the Simatai section but decided after about 6 miles that that was enough.

The 2 hour bus ride was quite scenic with mountains popping out of the mist and rice paddies on the side of the road.

Once I got into the scenic spot (what they call the park), I saw an interesting approach to a seating problem. 🙂

Here is the main entrance to the section of the wall.
A very serious looking rider greets you to the Wall. Almost right away you are treated with some amazing views of the wall crawling across the mountaintops. You can literally see it for miles across the mountains. A panorama of the wall is the best way to capture it.Here is a virtual walk down the wall.

The further I hiked, the better the views became.
Such an amazing feat of engineering considering the time it was built. Who needs a stairmaster when you have the Great Wall!?

A shot from inside one of the towers I really couldn’t get enough pictures of this amazing spot. Can you see it all the way in the distant mountains?
One of the older, unrestored towers. I stop for a break on a rough section of wall. More stairs. This is probably the most people I saw at one time all day on this remote section of the wall. Another Panorama Come with me to China!
The world is mine! Another neat shot from within a tower.Here is an overview of the wall experience I had.

This is near the spot where I called it a day.

A Mongolian woman engaged me right when I first arrived and offered to be my guide if I bought some of her souvenirs she had in a backpack. I told her (honestly) that I didn’t have much Yuan with me and didn’t want her services but she was persistent and wouldn’t leave me alone. So I let her walk with me and talk and got her to act as my photographer and videographer. At the end she offered me some kind of boring souvenirs so I skipped them and just gave her whatever small Yuan I had in my pocket (maybe $10 worth) which she wasn’t really happy with but I warned her I didn’t have much going in so I didn’t feel that bad about it. Evidently she hikes up and down the wall several times every day as a tour guide. Talk about a hard job!

In retrospect, the Great Wall really was one of the highlights of my trip. In particular I would recommend the Jinshanling portion of the wall to avoid the crowds and also see a more impressive section of the wall.

I know this is a lot of information but feel free to comment with any questions and follow me on Google+, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!

US Airways card improves their sign on bonus to 40,000 Miles!

The US Airways® Premier World MasterCard® has had a 40,000 mile bonus for a while now that we have been including in our Easy Quarter Million program. I used this bonus when I got this card for part of my recent trip to Germany, Austria, and China for only $184 in business class. Up until yesterday, you would get 30,000 of the miles when you spent $3,000, then another 10,000 when you transferred a balance (at 1 mile per dollar transferred). For those people who don’t have any balances to transfer, it was effectively a 30,000 Mile bonus!

The new offer is definitely better at 40,000 US Airways miles after your first purchase! So you can get this card, spend $1 and get 40,000 US Airways miles. You will have to pay the $89 annual fee as well, but for 40,000 miles it is totally worth it. You will eventually be able to transfer these US Airways miles to American Miles when the two airlines get fully merged, but you can redeem them before then as well. They still have the balance transfer option and have increased the 0% from 12 months to 15 months! There is a 3% balance transfer fee with a $10 minimum fee.

Some of the other features of this card are:

Earn 40,000 bonus miles after your first purchase and payment of the $89 annual fee*
First checked bag free on eligible bags for you and up to four companions on domestic US Airways operated flights
One companion certificate good for up to 2 guests to travel with you on a US Airways operated flight at $99 each, plus taxes and fees
Priority boarding Zone 2 on US Airways operated flights
Redeem miles for award travel on US Airways and American Airlines booked through usairways.com or US Airways Reservations
Earn miles on every purchase with 2 miles for every $1 you spend on US Airways purchases and 1 mile for every $1 on purchases everywhere else
Please see terms and conditions for complete details

So what are you waiting for? Apply now and get the miles for your next free trip now before you need them.

As always, feel free to comment with any questions and follow me on Google+, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!

Why you should apply for the US Airways card before March 31st.

Updated April 30, 2014. This card has improved its sign on bonus. Click here for more details!

Some of your already have this card which is the first card in our Easy Quarter Million Program, but for those who don’t, read on.

As some of you may know, US Airways and American Airlines merged recently but they are still operating separately in their respective alliances until March 31st. You can read our article about how airline alliances work here. This all changes at the end of March when US Airways officially pulls out of Star Alliance and joins OneWorld. And why is this important? Well typically you can only get one sign up bonus for each type of card that an airline issues. So, for example if you apply for the Chase British Airways card and get the 50,000 mile bonus that it has, you will never be able to get the bonus for that same card again. Right now, there are two different sets of cards, the US Airways one issued by Barclays that has a 30,000 mile bonus(10,000 more if you transfer a balance), and the American Airlines one issued by Citibank that has a 50,000 mile bonus.

AA has a deep business relationship with Citibank and will end up being the survivor of the merger (even though US Airways is technically acquiring American). This means that the Barclays US Airways card will be disappearing, never to be seen from again. They haven’t announced that this will happen on March 31, but it is my best guess since that is when they exit Star Alliance. If you don’t get the card now, it might be your last chance to get this one time bonus before it is gone.

The cool part is that at some point, they will completely merge their two frequent flyer programs and you will be able to combine your miles across the two programs (Dividend Miles and AAdvantage). So if you don’t have enough miles in your American account for the 60,000 Milesaver award ticket to Paris then maybe you will when they combine your accounts.

The best thing about this card is the spend requirement! You get the full 40,000 miles with your first purchase! So buy $1 worth of gas, get 40,000 miles! Bing! Bam! Boom! It has a number of other good benefits such as:

Earn 40,000 bonus miles after your first purchase and payment of the $89 annual fee*
First checked bag free on eligible bags for you and up to four companions on domestic US Airways operated flights
One companion certificate good for up to 2 guests to travel with you on a US Airways operated flight at $99 each, plus taxes and fees
Priority boarding Zone 2 on US Airways operated flights
Redeem miles for award travel on US Airways and American Airlines booked through usairways.com or US Airways Reservations
Earn miles on every purchase with 2 miles for every $1 you spend on US Airways and American Airlines purchases and 1 mile for every $1 on purchases everywhere else
New! Receive a 25% savings on eligible US Airways and American Airlines in-flight purchases
Please see terms and conditions for complete details

That last point can be important to many of you who carry a balance leftover from holiday spending. 0% for 12 months can save you a lot if you are paying interest now. They do charge a 4% balance transfer fee, but they give you 1 bonus mile for every $1 in balance transferred up to 10,000 bonus miles. If you have a balance you are paying interest on (especially if it is a high APR) it is a no brainer to do a transfer to 0% even with the fee.

But as I mentioned in the beginning, the best reason to apply is that you may not be able to get this bonus after March 31! And if you don’t use it, you will lose it! So what are you waiting for? Apply now!

As always, feel free to comment with any questions and follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!