Barclaycard > Reviews (100)

I have had a barclaycard for as long as I can remember (nearly 30 years), and during that time I have spent a lot of money using Barclaycard. The Interest rate is probably not the best around but not the worst either, and as I have both a Mastercard and Visa card from them, I use one which I pay off monthly, and the other if I nead extended credit, which helps to minimise interest payments.

Barclaycard introduced a points scheme a number of years ago, and I found it quite useful to get free gifts, indeed a couple of years ago, my wife and I decided to use the card in the supermarket for everyday and weekly shopping to increase the number of points we received.

With Barclaycard you get 1 point for every £10 spent, and gifts require a set number of points, eg a case of wine 600 points, 2 cinema tickets 290 points, £10 Amazon voucher 400 points, £10 Leisure voucher which can be used in Pizza Hut, Brewer's Fayre and Travel Inns, etc. Over the years I have made use of quite a number of these offers, including Wine, Brewer's Fayre and the cinema tickets and enjoyed their use.

Now Everything has changed. They have dropped almost all of the free offers, and now almost everything has to be paid for (at a reduction from the normal retail price though) and theyno longer appear to have the offers of free cinema tickets or Leisure vouchers. Even the new wine offer is a case for half price (£35.99 instead of £72.10 and an additional charge of £4.99 for postage. Postage was usually included before).

To me this defeats the whole object of using Barclaycard and this was one of the main reasons for continuing to use this particular card. There are a number of other cards about (indeed I've got several others), which with lower interest rates would then make Barclaycard totally unnecessary. (My Egg-card has a much lower interest rate and also gives cashback of 1-2% depending on which companies I use it with.)

Companies like Barclaycard must remember that customer loyalaty only goes so far, and if they have reward schemes then they must provide the rewards customers want.

*****UPDATE 29 October,2001****************

Just received an update on Barclaycard Rewards - now giving £10 Leisure voucher for 400 points. Able to use it as Brewer's Fayre, Pizza Hut, and a number of other places. Voucher available for the next three months, whether it continues after that is not known.