Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

How to earn Avios from Barclays Premier via savings WITHOUT switching banks

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

I am spending time this week looking at the Barclays Premier current account and Barclays Avios Rewards package, so you can see if it is worth signing up.

Our main introductory article to Barclays Premier and Barclays Avios Rewards is here. You can apply online for Barclays Premier here.

There is a 25,000 Avios bonus for signing up and, when you opt in to Barclays Avios Rewards, you receive an additional 1,500 Avios each month.

This means that you will earn 43,000 Avios in total during your first year. You also receive a British Airways Avios upgrade voucher for every 12 months that you retain your account.

Some people are put off by the requirement to move their day to day banking to Barclays Premier, or the requirement to have a £75,000 income. Whilst it makes sense to use a ‘premium’ banking service if your salary allows it – they are usually free, after all – you may be happy with HSBC Premier or similar.

All is not lost. You CAN have a Barclays Premier account even if you don’t have a £75,000 income or don’t want to move your day to day banking across.

How? By depositing £100,000 in a savings or investment account with Barclays.

How to earn Avios from Barclays Premier

If you don’t have a spare £100,000 floating around then this isn’t for you. Feel free to move on to the next article.

Are Barclays savings and investment accounts competitive?

It is fair to say that Barclays is not known for topping the ‘best buy’ lists with its savings products. Whatever interest rate you are offered will, almost certainly, be beatable elsewhere.

However, factor in the tax you pay on the interest you earn and the benefits of Barclays Avios Rewards may start to look attractive.

Basically …. you may value getting the Barclays Avios Rewards benefits more than you value a little bit of extra interest.

The best cash savings rate at Barclays seems to be 3.56% for Blue Rewards Saver. You need to be a Premier customer to get this.

There is a one-year fixed rate cash ISA for Premier account holders paying 4.3%.

Because interest from an ISA is untaxed, it would make more sense to move cash which you have outside of an ISA wrapper into Barclays. The weaker interest rate is less noticeable on taxable interest.

These rates can be beaten elsewhere, so you need to treat the interest differential as as additional cost for getting access to Barclays Avios Rewards. Whether this makes sense or not depends on the value you place on the British Airways Avios upgrade voucher and the broader value you get from Barclays Premier.

Barclays also has the usual range of ‘open to all’ stocks and shares ISAs etc. These would accept a transfer from an existing non-Barclays product in order to meet the £100,000 criteria.

How to earn Avios from Barclays Premier

How do you open a Barclays Premier account based on savings and not income?

Barclays does not make it very clear how you go about opening a Barclays Premier account based on savings and not income.

When Barclays Avios Rewards launched I sat down with the Barclays Premier team and this is what they told me:

Situation 1:

You earn less than £75,000 but do have £100,000 in cash or investments you could place with Barclays

This is a little complicated, because the online application system for Barclays Premier requires you to declare an income of £75,000+.

This is the route I am told that you need to follow:

  • Click here to open an account. Once you state that your income is below £75,000, you will be down-sold to a standard Barclays current account.
  • Call Barclays and your account will be upgraded to Premier and you can opt-in to Barclays Avios Rewards (you will have a grace period to fund a savings account after the upgrade)

The reason that you should get your account upgraded BEFORE you move the £100,000 is that you will then have access to the exclusive Barclays Premier products.

How to earn Avios from Barclays Premier

Scenario 2:

You do earn £75,000 but would prefer not to move your day-to-day banking to Barclays Premier

This is a far easier scenario.

  • Click here to open an account – it will work OK because you are declaring an income of £75,000
  • Once the account is open, move £100,000 into a savings or investment account with Barclays. You need to do this before Barclays makes the first check as to whether your salary is going into your new Premier account or not (which it won’t be).
  • You can opt-in to Barclays Avios Rewards from Day 1

You will need to keep some money in your Barclays Premier current account to fund the £12 monthly fee for Barclays Avios Rewards, but you don’t need to pay your salary into it.

How does Barclays Avios Rewards work?

To avoid making this article excessively long, I don’t want to go into full details again about how Barclays Avios Rewards works. Instead, take a look at this introductory HfP article which outlines Barclays Avios Rewards in detail.

I hope you found this easier to follow than the official Barclays website when it comes to working out how to access Barclays Premier and Barclays Avios Rewards via savings. I think it is an interesting option that will appeal to some readers.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

Barclays Premier, British Airways and Avios

Comments (49)

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

  • Vit says:
    6 Sep6 September 04:50

    Made the switch a couple month ago when the £175 Switch Bonus was still on. You can double dip with the 25k avios. Worth waiting for those who plan to switch anyway.

    • JDB says:
      6 Sep6 September 06:58

      If you wait, Barclays might increase the requirement to £100k annual income as HSBC has which might not suit everyone. Quite a contrast to Amex that offers its flagship Plat card to those on a median salary and Gold on the minimum annual wage.

      • points_worrier says:
        6 Sep6 September 07:19

        Ouch. Have they just changed criteria? Am I no longer eligible for my account?

        • Phantomchickenz says:
          6 Sep6 September 08:01

          HSBC changed on Wednesday. Barclays haven’t (yet).

        • Speedbird676 says:
          6 Sep6 September 09:02

          The new criteria does not apply to existing accounts or applications made before Wednesday, 4th September.

  • Rob H not Rob says:
    6 Sep6 September 06:21

    Would a scenario of a less thst 75k annual income but when topped up with dividends it his the 75k figure be sufficient for them?

    If so how to display that on the application forms?

    • Daniel says:
      6 Sep6 September 06:27

      It’s not even £75k. That’s gross. You just need to pay in £40k annually. They don’t seem to care where it comes from.

      • Matt says:
        6 Sep6 September 10:12

        How did you get to £40k please? £75K p/a salary – after tax and NI is £4505 per month, which is £54k p/a

        • Daniel says:
          6 Sep6 September 14:42

          It’s not my calculation it’s from the Barclays website:
          https://www.barclays.co.uk/premier-banking/premier-eligibility/

          Priya is self-employed and on average has a gross annual income of £85,000 a year.

          What she pays into her current account varies – some months its £5,000, while others it’s closer to £3,000.

          Although Priya doesn’t meet the requirements for Premier every month, the amount she’s paid in over the last 12 months on a rolling basis is over £40,000, so she’s eligible for Premier Banking.

        • TGLoyalty says:
          6 Sep6 September 16:31

          Yes but out of that salary you have pension contributions, perhaps company car payments / bik and other salary sacrifices so they don’t expect the whole lot to go in.

    • ADCOCKTOM says:
      6 Sep6 September 08:07

      So you can just move 10k from an external savings pot, back and forth four times a year?

  • NotGrumpy says:
    6 Sep6 September 07:03

    Solution 2a: pay your salary into the account and have it automatically transferred to your preferred bank a day later minus the monthly Avios fee. No need to use the account for anything else.

  • points_worrier says:
    6 Sep6 September 07:18

    Haven’t we just missed an additional £175 for signing up to Barclays? Your timing of these articles is poor…

  • KyaCat says:
    6 Sep6 September 08:04

    Just need a spare £100K to sit and rot at Barclays lol, is this article a joke?

    • Rob says:
      6 Sep6 September 08:14

      Average income of our readers is close to £100k. Remember most live in London and the surrounds and work in the City / law / IT / consulting.

      • Ken says:
        6 Sep6 September 08:40

        But they’re not going to be earning less than £75k are they.

        How many readers will earn less than that, have £100k sitting around that they are happy to earn a crappy interest rate on.

        There is a lost interest cost of say £600 + a year after tax (assuming higher rate taxpayer).

        Whole idea seems an expensive way of buying Avios/ voucher.

        Each to their own though.

        • Rob says:
          6 Sep6 September 08:47

          I agree it’s not a slam dunk but Barclays offers it so I’m explaining how to do it.

          Remember that for large sums of £85k+ you’ve lost regulatory protection so your choice of banks for savings is reduced. I have large sums in Tesco Bank because it’s generally the best combo of ‘won’t go bust’ and rate. I also have a large sum in Euro with HSBC.

          • executiveclubber says:
            6 Sep6 September 09:03

            Curious how you know average reader income when you don’t survey it? 🙂

          • Rob says:
            6 Sep6 September 09:48

            Most people have no idea what sort of data is out there. I admit it is quite shocking when you see it (we know the most common car driven by our readers, and we’ve never surveyed that either) but the data is there. Not about YOU personally but about the 700,000 equivalents of you who visit each month, averaged.

            For eg, data about the most commonly driven brand of car per town in the UK is freely available. Data about which town you access HfP from is freely available. This is cross-referenced automatically (by third parties we don’t even instruct to do it, because they get the data off Chrome or elsewhere) and you can be statistically certain – when you’ve got 700,000 unique users per month – that we know the most commonly owned car from our readers.

            £70k is almost certainly too low for reader salary. Our average reader lives in London or the home counties and is aged 45 (this was on the last survey). They are in their peak earning years in IT / media / consultancy / banking / law.

            If you are under 35 and not living in London or the South East you represent about 5% of our readership.

            Amex has told us that the wealthiest / highest spending cohort of cardholders they acquire is from HfP. No other source of new customers comes close. MoneySavingExpert etc may send them more people but they are nowhere near as attractive.

          • RussellH says:
            6 Sep6 September 10:51

            The fact that £100K > £85K is indeed one of the reasons I shall not be doing this, though the main reason is increasing lack of interest in avios.
            It would be nice to think that the regulator required Barclays to put a warning about the lack of protection on all the information they provide about this particular offer.

          • Roy says:
            7 Sep7 September 03:01

            Remember that it doesn’t all need to be cash. You can have shares or funds in a Barclays Smart Investor account.

        • RussellH says:
          6 Sep6 September 10:46

          I am well aware that I am not a “typical HfP reader”, so you may not be surprised to find that my taxable income is just a small fraction of £75K, but I could, if I wanted, easily find £100K to put into a Barclays savings facility.

        • Bagoly says:
          6 Sep6 September 12:24

          Plenty of people retire (particularly if from an equity buy-out) and live on the wealth accumulated while working.
          Especially while interest rates have been low, income has been minimal, but no shortage of money.

  • MrWhite says:
    6 Sep6 September 08:38

    @Rob – the Barclays website states, “You’ll need to have a current account with us and either pay in a gross annual income of at least £75,000 …”.

    This would suggest that you have to pay the equivalent net amount into the account during the course of the year, not just have a salary >£75K . Imagine the only way around if one doesn’t want to change banks is to transfer income from your current bank to Barclays.

    • TD says:
      6 Sep6 September 13:56

      But no-one on PAYE will have their gross annual income paid into their bank account.

      I’m retained as a Premier customer after every review and it’s been a while since £75,000 passed through my account in a year.

  • John Tickner says:
    6 Sep6 September 08:50

    If you dont switch current accounts do you still get the 25k bonus ?

  • Man of Kent says:
    6 Sep6 September 09:06

    How would Barclays Premier work for someone like me who no longer receives a salary but has a flexible drawdown pension. If I drew the net equivalent of £75k (? £40k) per year and had it paid into a Barclays Premier account could I simply then transfer it elsewhere subsequently as long as I left a sum there to pay the fees?

    • Rob says:
      6 Sep6 September 09:19

      You’d need to look at their definition of ‘income’ to see what they include. If they accept pension income then, yes, £40k net equivalent would be fine.

    • Mike Hunt says:
      6 Sep6 September 09:33

      Retirement seems to work ok with the account. My salary used to be approx £7,500 a month paid into the account, now my pension (at age 55) is approx £4,000 a month paid into the account.

      I could pay in dividends or move money around to bring the amount back up to the required £75,000 minimum but Barclays Premier haven’t asked me to increase the amount going into the account in the 12 months since I retired

      • TGLoyalty says:
        6 Sep6 September 16:34

        75k is the minimum salary not the minimum annual payments into the account.

        That is £40k

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

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Get 25,000 Avios with the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

GET A SIGN-UP BONUS OF 18,000 VIRGIN POINTS!

Latest Forum Posts

Get 80,000 bonus points (worth 80,000 Avios) and £400 of dining credit with The Platinum Card (Offer ends 27th May)

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get up to 10,000 bonus Hilton Honors points

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? GET THE ONLY FREE SMALL BUSINESS CREDIT CARD WHICH CAN EARN AVIOS

Get points worth 30,000 Avios with 'first year free' American Express Gold (ends 27th May)

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!