Avios and Barclays Premier agree a long-term points-earning partnership

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• Zara says:

  18 Feb18 February 07:53

  OT: thanks to everyone who gave me some feedback on the BA price match thingy. I just got back found the difference so I am well chuffed!

  • Shoestring says:

    18 Feb18 February 08:56

    good result

• sloth says:

  18 Feb18 February 08:12

  “In an dumbed down world”

  kind of ironic…:)

• Jordan D says:

  18 Feb18 February 08:19

  Was on a BA aircraft yesterday with the High Life trial and was actually disappointed – am one of the ones who always picks it up and has a flick through, not least for John Simpson’s column (my first port of call).

  • Lumma says:

    18 Feb18 February 08:26

    Strange isn’t it? In this day and age a simple pleasure is reading a book or magazine on paper. Never got the e-book thing

  • Flying Misfit says:

    18 Feb18 February 08:42

    If it wasn’t for Simpson piece, don’t think I’d even pick it up

    • Anna says:

      18 Feb18 February 09:07

      +1 – and the “Shop” section is a joke, it’s not been updated for years and I never see anyone actually buying anything!

      • AJA says:

        18 Feb18 February 09:18

        That’s funny! I bought 100ml Terre d’Hermes on my last flight, it was a very good price compared to the High street and also at my destination and got me a few bonus Avios. But I do agree I see fewer and fewer people buying from the high life shop catalogue.

  • AJA says:

    18 Feb18 February 09:12

    I do read John Simpson’s articles but they’re not my first port of call. I like the Business Life magazine more than High Life.

    I am ambivalent on this, part of me likes the physical magazine but I also see the benefits of digital. I mean we’re all reading this website on phones and computers.

    That said I downloaded press reader and a few magazines a few months ago when it was being pushed by BA but completely forgot to do so on my last two times I was in the lounge. Does that still exist?

    The thing is I enjoyed collecting the 100 anniversary editions – that wouldn’t be fun at all with a digital only version.

• Nick C says:

  18 Feb18 February 08:31

  I switched to Barclays Premier 3 months ago, within the timescales, still waiting for the Avios……. I raised a complaint with them 2 months ago when I could not find anyone who could tell me when they would be credited to me. So far I have received 4 letters from them apologising for the delay and deferring the resolution date for my complaint. Impressive!

  Has anyone else had the same ( or better?) experience?

  • Alex says:

    18 Feb18 February 08:54

    I didn’t get the avios. But one email to the dedicated premier support team, and later that day, the voucher was with me.

    I couldn’t decide whether it was poor service that they didn’t send the vouchers automatically, or excellent service how quickly they sorted it out.

    • Paul74 says:

      18 Feb18 February 10:30

      Kind of +1. I got the old IHG product from Barclaycard. The promised bonuses and status didn’t post but after I threatened to make my complaint external they went further than I expected to make things up.
      I have no idea off the top of my head what the relationship between Barclays and Barclaycard is but based upon some of the experiences posted here, they seem to have some resemblance to mine.

  • Anna says:

    18 Feb18 February 08:58

    They sound as good as Lloyds!

  • aDifferentSimon says:

    18 Feb18 February 09:00

    Same as Alex for me. They didn’t arrive when they were supposed to. One email to premierrelationship_bankingteam at barclays.com and they arrived very very quickly.

    • Ant says:

      18 Feb18 February 09:16

      +1

    • AndyW says:

      18 Feb18 February 09:53

      +1. One of the best offers of last year this. Zero cost, pretty much no time, 50k avios and £400 through blue rewards (the wife and I).

  • Tazzy says:

    18 Feb18 February 09:02

    I had to email one of feb premier customer relations staff members. I complained and got the avios and £75 as a good will gesture.

• Andrew says:

  18 Feb18 February 08:33

  Back in one of the early series of “Red Dwarf”, there was an episdode where they are about to crash, and Lister explains how the in-flight magazine articles are actually a sedative. One of them being “Salt, an Epicure’s Delight”.

  It did make me giggle when “The High Life” subsequently published a full article about Salt.

  • Anna says:

    18 Feb18 February 09:00

    That was quite prophetic given the currently popularity of sea salt, Himalayan etc!

  • Russ says:

    18 Feb18 February 13:18

    I use Kryton’s ‘are you sure Sir it does mean changing the bulb’ in talks on the use of color coding on cockpit alerts 🙂

• Chrish says:

  18 Feb18 February 08:37

  Hi, Rob, looks like 2500 Club Card Points for taking out Tesco Pet Insurance is back but might be targeted, came out with Tesco spend at Store yesterday.

  • david says:

    18 Feb18 February 08:55

    I dont have or plan to have a pet. And what would the cheapest be, a cat/dog? on deaths door? or just born? Asking for a friend 😉

    • Shoestring says:

      18 Feb18 February 08:57

      young & healthy, you’re buying insurance

      • Shoestring says:

        18 Feb18 February 09:07

        and there’s another 5600 Avios on top if you want to try the old double dip

      • BJ says:

        18 Feb18 February 11:57

        @Harry, is the 5600 going directly to the Tesco page offering 2500 cc points? Time I stopped procrastinating before I have another Economist moment!

  • Secret Squirrel says:

    18 Feb18 February 09:07

    Our 2nd policy came out at £4.63 @ month, i did use all the tricks to get it down as low as posdible. They upped the prices recently as the same details came in @ £3.26 a few weeks back.

    • Jamie says:

      18 Feb18 February 09:12

      How many times could I do this for the same clubcard account? Are there stringent on this?

      • Shoestring says:

        18 Feb18 February 09:50

        they’re pretty stringent – only 1 policy per person (identified by your Clubcard number)

        no problem if you have (say) 2 pets and your partner (at the same address) wants to take out a second policy in their own right & with a different Clubcard number

    • aDifferentSimon says:

      18 Feb18 February 10:24

      £7.35 for my 20 month female house moggy Outer London postcode. How many months do have to hope she lives for to qualify?

      • Shoestring says:

        18 Feb18 February 22:25

        3 months if you are double dipping

  • r* says:

    18 Feb18 February 09:17

    Has anyone received their points yet? Im just past the required 35 days but no points in the account, can i cancel yet or do i need to wait for the points to appear?

    • Shoestring says:

      18 Feb18 February 09:51

      up to you but I’m certainly not cancelling until I receive something (or hopefully, 2 payouts)

    • Secret Squirrel says:

      18 Feb18 February 10:42

      You may also get the good old clubcard excuse, “points not credited until next statement” so maybe 2-3 months of instalments.

      • Leigh says:

        18 Feb18 February 11:20

        2 months of instalments have been taken, but no points yet.

      • Rui N. says:

        18 Feb18 February 14:28

        Yeah, I’ve paid 2 monthly fees as well so far. Leaning towards cancelling it before another one is taken…

      • Pablo says:

        19 Feb19 February 18:07

        My 2500 Clubcard points for cat insurance landed today.

      • Shoestring says:

        19 Feb19 February 18:13

        nice, did you try a cheeky double dip on the other site as well? no 2500 for us so far, the double dip attempt would officially explain it but we’ll see how that turns out

      • Pablo says:

        20 Feb20 February 02:24

        Tried the double dip also. Still pending. Transaction date 11 Jan so took 39 days for the points to arrive and 2 DD payments. Total cost £8.83

• jay says:

  18 Feb18 February 08:52

  OT, does the Virgin Atlantic credit cards charge a FX fee for new customers? When I had the card I know there was a pretty long running offer with no fees. I spend most of my time outside of the UK, and I’m currently using a Curve Black (with underlying Hilton Honors Barclaycard) but wondering whether to go back to Virgin if I can avoid FX fees and downgrade my Curve.

  • Rob says:

    18 Feb18 February 09:44

    Virgin has quietly dropped FX fees due to an EU ruling but I would expect an identical fee with different wording to appear soon. The application form still says there are fees.

    • RussellH says:

      18 Feb18 February 10:30

      I received a letter dated Janaury 2020 from Clydesdale Bank (who issue my Virgin Atlantic CC) saying that on 15 Dec 2019 they stopped charging for payments and ATM withdrawals within the EEA for transactions in GBP, EUR, SEK and RON.

      The main body of the letter was about changes to other fees and debit interest coming in on 1 Apr 2020. Supposedly giving customers 3 months notice, I would guess.
      Which should mean that if they want to re-impose exchange fees in those currencies they need to give another 3 months notice.

    • Travel Strong says:

      18 Feb18 February 13:01

      Interesting! I noticed the fee’s on my application, but had no idea they did not really exist now! I was about to use up my Curve limits on foreign spend curved to Virgin… I will now just spend on Virgin. Very useful to know.

• Noggins says:

  18 Feb18 February 08:54

  I’ve been a Premier customer with Barclays since they invented it.
  I wonder if this is going to be one of those ‘back of the van’ moments….?

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.