The Barclaycard Platinum is a credit card from Barclays Bank and I decided to sign up for one of these because of the promise of cashback on purchases. There are several Barclaycards available, each with different features but I tend to go for cashback cards as I don't want one that doesn't give me anything. Ones that gives me 0% on purchase or balance transfers for a limited time aren't any good to me either.
It has the usual chip and PIN and is a VISA card. When I first started using the card, I'd received two phone calls on my mobile from Barclaycard staff members telling me there had been suspicious activities on my card, which did have me worried. However, on going over the recent transactions with the Barclaycard staff members, it turned out to be just my busy self spending my money all over the place. I do use the cards quite a lot but after those two occasions, they seemed to have picked up on the fact that I use the card a lot so six months on, I've not received any further calls. Either way, it seems that they take security of customers' identify and fraud seriously enough to make courtesy calls.
FEATURES
The main feature for my Barclaycard is the cashback. There are other cashback cards from other banks and card issuers so why did I pick the Barclaycard? The main attraction was the whopping
2% cashback from supermarket and petrol spends. Unfortunately, they seemed to have dropped the 2% down to nothing now for new customers but mine continues to give me cash back.
Barclaycard do limit the cashback to £15 a month but that would be £750 worth of petrol or supermarket purchases (2%) or £3000 of any other spending (0.5%) or a combination of the two, whichis more than I'd spend. The cashback is credited to the balance when the statement is due. I think this is good in a way as you do not need to wait to the end of the year or build up a certain amount before you can cash out like most other cashback cards.
RATE
The APR is 14.9% variable, which is surprisingly low for a cashback credit card as I'd expect a normal card to be around 15.9% APR and so I would have expected a cashback card to have a much higher APR of around 20%. The general rule for using cash back cards is to always clear the balance at the end of each month otherwise it would just eat up the cashback reward.
USING THE CARD
I use the card just like any card. At most shops, via Chip and PIN or sign, at car parks, just pop the card in to debit the amount, by entering the card details on secure website payment pages if shopping online and of course registering with payment services and websites that store card details for future purchases. You receive a paper statement every month giving you about 25 days to pay the statement, which can be done online, over the phone, by post or in branch. There's also a thing called 'Barclays Secure' that you can set up so that websites that support it will ask you for an extra password when you try to use the card.
If buying from abroad or foreign websites, like most cards, there is an 2.75% charge which is a similar charge to other credit cards and if ever withdrawing cash from the card via an ATM (bad idea normally), there's the usual 3% or £3 (whichever is higher) charge and the usual rip off interest but this is in line with all other credit cards.
BARCLAYCARD SITE
After registering on the Barclaycard website, to log into my account, I am asked for my ID number, which they gave me, then for a six digital pass code, which I chose, my last name and finally, two characters from the memorable word which I chose. With all these security question just to log in, it seems security is pretty good with the site. The pages are secure and it times out if I'm idle for around five minutes, just like all other bank and websites dealing with money that I use.
With the Barclaycard website, I'm able to view recent transaction, view past statements, request a new credit limit, request PIN via post, request new card, etc as well as the usual, pay the bill using a debit card. The account seems to have all the things that any other bank or card company's website would have for a credit card and everything is very straight forward.
When the site is working, it's terrific but I find that the site doesn't work a lot of the time during late evenings and early morning (11pm-2am+). Sure enough, some nights it will be due to site maintenance but when compared to other online banking and other credit card onlineaccounts, the Barclaycard site seems to be down the most often.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Customer service is a bit iffy. I've phoned customer service a few times to ask questions. Based on the accent of the customer service representatives, I'm guessing that it was an overseas call centre. Their English is good but are not always able to answer my questions. I asked how they determined what stores qualified for the 2% cash back but she did not have an acceptable answer for me. She just told me that certain stores they have in their system qualified but was not able to tell me what they were. Reason I asked was because I wanted to find out whether they deemed stores like LIDL a supermarket. I'm also still wondering whether shopping at Chinese supermarkets count rather than just shopping at the big supermarkets like Tesco's, ASDA, Sainsbury's, etc.
On another occasion for a different, a newly acquired Barclaycard OnePulse, I asked if it earned cashback at all, even on an introductory period and I was told it does not. I asked because I remembered seeing something about 3%cashback on somewhere for the first few monhs. However, 3 months later, I received my monthly statement and it had said that I had received cashback! I emailed customer services and was told that this was cashback for the last 3 months of spending! I believe it was 3% cashback for all my spending but as I was told that it did not have cashback, I used my other cards more often, giving me less cashback, so customer service can be a bit useless unless dealing with very standard queries.
After six months with Barclaycard, they let you request a new credit limit. I had mine for exactly six months so requested a higher limit. They ask you for the reason in the form that you fill and they give you options such as car, electrical, etc but is easy to do. They started me off on £950, which is rather low as my other cards give me £2600+ and on asking for the increase, on the second day, was told that I had qualified for the increase and bumped it up to £1450. I wanted a bit more but they didn't give it to me but I'm not bothered.
VERDICT
Although the cashback card may not be for everyone, Barclays offer other cards with other features such as balance transfer, charity credit card, student, and so on so there's something for everyone. I'm also not limited to supermarket and petrol cashback as I get 0.5% for other spending. Customer service is a bit iffy but I find I don't need to use it much anyway. I am confident that with more serious problems like fraud that they have procedures in place and they would be able to deal with it properly as the customer representatives seem to understand and speak English well enough. I do recommend the Barclaycard Platinum but as with any credit card, only if you pay off the bill in full at the end of each month, and especially if it provides other benefits such as cashback.
As Barclays withdraws such offers once they have drawn in enough people, I would suggest looking at their other cards as well, which offer benefits, otherwise, look at what offers other card companies are offering. As for me, as I will put my spending on a credit card, I might as well be using my Barclaycard Platinum with cashback for the rewards as it's basically earning me money for money I'm going to be spending anyway if we're talking food shopping at supermarkets and petrol. To conclude, I would recommend the Barclaycard Platinum, but whether it's right for you depends in your circumstances, what features the card has at the time, etc, as the cashback feature doesn't seem to be available anymore at this time for new customers.
Thanks for reading
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Mar 14th, 2008
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