Forums › Payment cards › Barclaycard Avios › Downgrade via app – “no options available”
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I am not downgrading for this reason. But I appreciate all of you defending Barclays I am sure they will greatly appreciate you standing up for them.
Even if you were downgrading for a more justifiable reason after just weeks, there is no particular reason why they should make it so easy after giving you 25k Avios in return for almost nothing. I doubt assisting financial flibbertigibbets is part of the strategy for this product, nor is it probably a brilliant idea to identify yourself as one to the country’s top credit card provider and top 5 mortgage lender.
I am not downgrading for this reason. But I appreciate all of you defending Barclays I am sure they will greatly appreciate you standing up for them.
Even if you were downgrading for a more justifiable reason after just weeks, there is no particular reason why they should make it so easy after giving you 25k Avios in return for almost nothing. I doubt assisting financial flibbertigibbets is part of the strategy for this product, nor is it probably a brilliant idea to identify yourself as one to the country’s top credit card provider and top 5 mortgage lender.
I wonder why they didn’t go for a non-refundable annual fee, which would’ve prevented this sort of ‘behaviour’ which was entirely inevitable.
I am not downgrading for this reason. But I appreciate all of you defending Barclays I am sure they will greatly appreciate you standing up for them.
Even if you were downgrading for a more justifiable reason after just weeks, there is no particular reason why they should make it so easy after giving you 25k Avios in return for almost nothing. I doubt assisting financial flibbertigibbets is part of the strategy for this product, nor is it probably a brilliant idea to identify yourself as one to the country’s top credit card provider and top 5 mortgage lender.
I wonder why they didn’t go for a non-refundable annual fee, which would’ve prevented this sort of ‘behaviour’ which was entirely inevitable.
And even more inevitable as Rob promoted it as such!
I am not downgrading for this reason. But I appreciate all of you defending Barclays I am sure they will greatly appreciate you standing up for them.
Even if you were downgrading for a more justifiable reason after just weeks, there is no particular reason why they should make it so easy after giving you 25k Avios in return for almost nothing. I doubt assisting financial flibbertigibbets is part of the strategy for this product, nor is it probably a brilliant idea to identify yourself as one to the country’s top credit card provider and top 5 mortgage lender.
Also worth noting the recent faqs article on HfP – “In this article, we’ve put together answers to 18 questions which we had about the new cards, and which we thought you might have too.
Barclaycard has contributed to and approved these answers.
Can you upgrade and downgrade between the two cards?
Yes. If you want to swap between Barclaycard Avios Plus and Barclaycard Avios, you can. Go to the Barclaycard (or Barclays) app and select ‘Change to a different card’ under your existing Barclaycard in the ‘Cards’ section of the app. It will happen automatically.
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The most likely scenario is that you have the Barclaycard Avios Plus card, trigger your cabin upgrade voucher at £10,000 after a few months and then downgrade (saving £20 per month of card fee) for the rest of your card year.”Barclaycard approved this wording, which made it quite clear that downgrading to save card fees was something that was not only possible, but one must assumed not frowned upon by barclaycard.
If you honestly believe that Barclaycard want people to sign up receive £300 worth of Avios + however much you value the upgrade voucher at, in return for a few monthly payments of £20 then I don’t know what to say.
Most likely Rob insisted on adding it to the articles as he would have highlighted the strategy for any Amex card.
If people don’t like the card and can’t downgrade then just close the account down.
If you honestly believe that Barclaycard want people to sign up receive £300 worth of Avios + however much you value the upgrade voucher at, in return for a few monthly payments of £20 then I don’t know what to say.
Most likely Rob insisted on adding it to the articles as he would have highlighted the strategy for any Amex card.
If people don’t like the card and can’t downgrade then just close the account down.
No, of course they don’t “want” people to do that, but like most businesses I imagine they know the small minority taking this course of action will be far outweighed by those who don’t want to/can’t be bothered, so they accept it.
The point is the card was promoted with the ability to easily downgrade as a feature, so many readers of this site will have taken out the card with that expectation. If I can’t downgrade once I hit the spend target then the card will be getting cancelled. It’s makes no sense to continue paying £20 per month when there is no further benefit.
So if they don’t want these customers why would they make it easy for them to downgrade? Why would they bend over backwards for massive loss making customers? If it was your business would you?
No further benefit of the card? Where can you earn 1.5 Avios per £ on a card that costs less than £20 a month?
I’m assuming your not suggesting Rob was able to force barclaycard to enable downgrades so that the articles could be run on HFP? Barclaycard saw enough value to offer 10k Avios on their free card, with an ongoing earning rate of 1 point per pound. So I’m guessing they’d rather have the ongoing custom, ability to cross sell new products, tempt people into upgrading products, maybe make some margin on foreign exchange spend out of card holders or late payment fees. So surely out of keeping customers on the free card is of some value to them, as opposed to allowing the customer to restart a 24 month countdown for another sign up bonus? The earning rate on the paid for card only outweighs the free card earn on spends of ~50k+. So unless your spending significant sums, or wouldn’t have the annual spend to trigger the voucher, then the paid card doesn’t make financial sense for medium-long term use.
If you honestly believe that Barclaycard want people to sign up receive £300 worth of Avios + however much you value the upgrade voucher at, in return for a few monthly payments of £20 then I don’t know what to say.
Most likely Rob insisted on adding it to the articles as he would have highlighted the strategy for any Amex card.
If people don’t like the card and can’t downgrade then just close the account down.
No, of course they don’t “want” people to do that, but like most businesses I imagine they know the small minority taking this course of action will be far outweighed by those who don’t want to/can’t be bothered, so they accept it.
The point is the card was promoted with the ability to easily downgrade as a feature, so many readers of this site will have taken out the card with that expectation. If I can’t downgrade once I hit the spend target then the card will be getting cancelled. It’s makes no sense to continue paying £20 per month when there is no further benefit.
It is simply nonsense to suggest the Avios Plus card was ‘promoted’ with “the ability to easily downgrade as a feature” [your split infinitive, not mine]. If the card was not suitable for you on an ongoing basis, you should not have applied for it in the first place. You are ultimately responsible for choosing the products you apply for and confirming you have read the T&Cs, none of which have any mention of downgrading. If you were just there to grab a freebie, well done for marking your card with Barclays in respect of any other products.
- This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .
If you honestly believe that Barclaycard want people to sign up receive £300 worth of Avios + however much you value the upgrade voucher at, in return for a few monthly payments of £20 then I don’t know what to say.
Most likely Rob insisted on adding it to the articles as he would have highlighted the strategy for any Amex card.
If people don’t like the card and can’t downgrade then just close the account down.
No, of course they don’t “want” people to do that, but like most businesses I imagine they know the small minority taking this course of action will be far outweighed by those who don’t want to/can’t be bothered, so they accept it.
The point is the card was promoted with the ability to easily downgrade as a feature, so many readers of this site will have taken out the card with that expectation. If I can’t downgrade once I hit the spend target then the card will be getting cancelled. It’s makes no sense to continue paying £20 per month when there is no further benefit.
It is simply nonsense to suggest the Avios Plus card was ‘promoted’ with “the ability to easily downgrade as a feature” [your split infinitive, not mine]. If the card was not suitable for you on an ongoing basis, you should not have applied for it in the first place. You are ultimately responsible for choosing the products you apply for and confirming you have read the T&Cs, none of which have any mention of downgrading. If you were just there to grab a freebie, well done for marking your card with Barclays in respect of any other products.
t&c’s don’t mention downgrading. T&c’s do say “This agreement has no fixed term. This means it will continue until you or we decide to close your account.” In terms of ‘downgrading’ this is not something Barclays advertise. However they do advertise on their website card switching “Can I switch between the Barclaycard Avios and Barclaycard Avios Plus cards?
You can check if you’re eligible to change from one Barclaycard Avios card to another in the Barclays or Barclaycard app5. Any money spent on your existing Barclaycard Avios card won’t count toward your spending targets for extra rewards. You won’t receive a second welcome bonus.” Obviously they’re under no obligation to let you do so. But it was, and is, promoted with the clear potential that switching between products is possible.- This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .
At the end of the day, there are a couple of issues here that are being muddled. Firstly, it does look like there was some incorrect information provided in one of the earlier HFPs posts. Clearly the wording should have been along the lines of “MAY be able downgrade the card” or “the ability to downgrade the card cannot be guaranteed”. I’m sure this was an honest mistake, but it looks like it’s turned out to be a mistake non-the-less, or at best potentially misleading. I think it’s fair someone to point this out and for this to be clarified by HFP.
Secondly, I don’t really agree with JDB’s assessment that Scott should not have applied if the card was not suitable for you on an ongoing basis. Many people on this forum will take cards from Amex for example to benefit from an introductory offer, only to then go on and downgrade or cancel the card. Whilst JDB might not consider HFP pointing out these approaches / features of the cards as “promotion”, it’s reasonable for others to see it as such. At the end of the day, Amex, Barclays and others set the rules of such promotions and if they want to reduce the degree to which individuals can “game” the system, that is totally within their gift to do so.
My main reason for wanting to downgrade is that more than a month after I received the card, the card is still unusable online as 2FA doesn’t work (and Barclays don’t know how to fix it). The only reason I have been able to use it online is that I managed to link it to Curve. There are also many other issues like lack of Apple Pay or diabolical customer service that mean I have zero interest in paying Barclays £20pm…
@ed_fly – the phrase in the T&Cs “You can check if you’re eligible to change from one Barclaycard Avios card to another” is a long way from your interpretation that it is “promoted with the clear potential that switching between products is possible” and it seem quite obvious that you might not be eligible to downgrade immediately after giving you 25/30k Avios for £20 or £40. The sense of entitlement that Barclays should do this as a matter of course defies belief.
My main reason for wanting to downgrade is that more than a month after I received the card, the card is still unusable online as 2FA doesn’t work (and Barclays don’t know how to fix it). The only reason I have been able to use it online is that I managed to link it to Curve. There are also many other issues like lack of Apple Pay or diabolical customer service that mean I have zero interest in paying Barclays £20pm…
I’m sorry to hear of your experience, but it is not universal. I applied on 28 March, received my card one week later on 4 April when in the process of activation I ordered a supp which arrived yesterday. I was also able to use it online, chip & pin + contactless and add it to Curve without difficulty and know a couple of other people in the same position. My Avios are clocking up and showing on the spend target circles. The only issue I have is the five months of free Apple News+ which I haven’t managed to activate yet, but I am sure can be resolved soon. The product does actually work for most people, even through the dissatisfied make a lot of noise.
Of course, if you don’t like it you can cancel but it would be odd, in these circumstances, to downgrade rather than cancel if you say that the product is so useless, even for the free card.
- This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .
@phil it is a huge mistake to consider that the remarkable generosity of Amex in spraying around points/Avios, particularly on a repeat basis, can be expected from other players in the market.
- This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .
Of course, if you don’t like it you can cancel but it would be odd, in these circumstances, to downgrade rather than cancel if you say that the product is so useless, even for the free card.
Why would it be odd? I am happy to have a crappy product for free, but not for £240pa.
The product does actually work for most people, even through the dissatisfied make a lot of noise.
Can you back this up, please? It works for you and “a couple of other people” – plenty of people here for whom it doesn’t, including me…
@ed_fly – the phrase in the T&Cs “You can check if you’re eligible to change from one Barclaycard Avios card to another” is a long way from your interpretation that it is “promoted with the clear potential that switching between products is possible” and it seem quite obvious that you might not be eligible to downgrade immediately after giving you 25/30k Avios for £20 or £40. The sense of entitlement that Barclays should do this as a matter of course defies belief.
all over the barclaycard website the possibility of switching from one card product to another is promoted. specific reference to the ability to switch between the two Avios cards is mentioned within their faqs for the two products, on their main landing product page, so I do think it perfectly reasonable to suggest that the potential to switch between the two cards is promoted. I did also make it clear that in my view that terminology on the barclaycard website in no way suggests that anyone is entitled to such a switch.
@PeteM – your post stated “ the card is still unusable online”. That is specific to you and why would you keep that card even for free if you thought it was a permanent issue? If you do a quick skim though the positive reports vs the negative ones, the positives easily win, even though the naysayers post repeatedly. Many thousands have the card and are using it problem free.
It’s the same with the huge number of moans on this site about being rejected when the stats reported by Rob tell us that probably over 75% are being accepted. Some people just love to complain.
JDB – I don’t expect it and neither do I consider this as generosity on Barclaycards part. I am simply pointing out something that should be self evident to any semi-commercially minded person. That is, that Barclaycard are completely able in the way they structure their offers and associated terms and conditions to limit the potential of customers to “game” the system. I don’t see this as a contentious statement…
JDB – I’m not sure why you are being so defensive on Barclaycard’s part? It’s great that forums like this exist, and the contents should be considered gold for anyone in Barclays who is actually interested in identifying issues to fix. It’s great you’ve had such a positive experience with Barclaycard – but not everyone (including myself) have. For me, it’s a great product and I’m happy to pay £20 per month for the benefits and I expect I will continue to use it for many years (assuming the card ever arrives). I’ve had to deal with lots of issues (including the card not arriving and customer service unable to issue a replacement card being the most recent). Trust me, I don’t love complaining – I’d much rather have a smooth customer experience.
JDB – I don’t expect it and neither do I consider this as generosity on Barclaycards part. I am simply pointing out something that should be self evident to any semi-commercially minded person. That is, that Barclaycard are completely able in the way they structure their offers and associated terms and conditions to limit the potential of customers to “game” the system. I don’t see this as a contentious statement…
I agree with you but various people on here seem to think they should automatically be entitled to take the welcome points and downgrade and claim that this ‘benefit’ has been somehow ‘promoted’ to them looking to blame others for their decisions. This was never promised, so if not delivered, tough.
Trust me, I don’t love complaining – I’d much rather have a smooth customer experience.
Preach – when I contrast this experience with opening Chase current and savings accounts recently the difference is so stark. Everything with Chase has worked. Seamlessly. First time.
I also don’t get what JDB is doing. Maybe it has to with the fact that most people in this country are conditioned to expect to get screwed and receive no decent customer service, no apology and no compensation from most institutions and venues when the product that was advertised is not delivered. Oh well.. they’ve done it again. Typical Barclays. Winge and moan but do nothing else or even go as far as to defend large corporate financial institutions that have made £8bn worth of profit last year screwing customers in the first place. Poor Barclays, if only a handful of customers that want to downgrade to the free card could cause their demise?
I get it…. it seems that we just have to turn around, bend over and take it in order to receive a small benefit of miles/points that barely covers a one-way economy intra-European flight and have lost significant value over the years. Maybe i should also thank them for wasting my time holding on phone lines for 40mins+ while the card embarrassingly fails to arrive and work as promised. Should I also get down on my knees, cry and beg Barclays for forgiveness for complaining in the first place? A few of you seem to think so. I know its my own fault for applying, don’t need to tell me twice.
- This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .
Trust me, I don’t love complaining – I’d much rather have a smooth customer experience.
Preach – when I contrast this experience with opening Chase current and savings accounts recently the difference is so stark. Everything with Chase has worked. Seamlessly. First time.
That’s because they’re American… Oh no! I can’t believe someone dared to say it! Think of the children!!!
@JDB I had an issue activating the free Apple News trial via the web links, kept getting ‘sorry something went wrong, pls try again later’. I was able to resolve this by applying for the trial via the Barclays App – scroll to the bottom of the home page to Products and Services and click on ‘find out more’ – ‘Barclaycard’ -‘Four Apple subscriptions free up to 5 months’ These will generate app links which should take you straight into the app and redeem the codes.- This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .
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