The appeal of the Arrival card gets lost by anyone counting up the value of their points based on advertized prices of overpriced tickets and hotels. I look at the discount it earns you on paid travel, exactly when and where you want to travel, and allowing you to take advantage of mistake fares and rates, sales and non-chain properties, portal bonuses, rental cars, etc.
Can I afford to drop $2000 at any time for four $500 tickets on some awesome deal? No! Can I earn 200K Arrival points to pay for those tickets within the 120 days that Barclays gives you to redeem? Yes!
For our trips, on maybe one night out of 10 is a major chain (points earning or can be bought with points) even a potentially viable choice. Even then it's rarely the best one.
If you buy AGC with Arrival card, earn 1.5% portal cashback and 2.2 points per dollar and liquidate for 1% in fees, the result is a 69.4% discount on paid travel, what when and where you want, taxes and fees, whatever.
If you load an Atira or Coopera at 10K with Arrival card and liquidate with 70 cent money orders, the result is $215 in free travel credits each month.
If you pay the annual fee on an Arrival card, you're nuts! Trade off with spouse/partner or churn it if you can't get a fee waiver.
For those who have substantial travel budgets and use miles & points to do the travel they'd already be doing in luxury, Arrival is mediocre at best. For others of us who use miles & points to make much more frequent travel possible, Arrival is an awesome tool.