Barclaycard Freedom Points: Easy to Collect, Impossible to Spend

dantes

I've managed to spend some reward money at Chiswick Pizza Express and Westfield Pizza Express. Although I don't think all Pizza Expresses accept it as I had to pay normally at a Pizza Express near Watford Harlequin.

Any one know any where else to spend let us know, as I have over £130 to spend but I can't keep eating pizza all the time

chris-j

So if you don't fancy pizza and are not in market for expensive goldsmith stuff then you accumulate worthless points.
Never really bothered with this but got in flyer about Shell giving 5%, so with high cost of fuel thought worth doing even with Shells normally higher prices. Now accumulated around £22 rewards and nowhere to spend.
Look on site and it says thousands of retailers HAVE BEEN INVITED to participate, clearly most have just thrown the invite in the bin.
Scheme is biggest sham ever and I am astounded a large company like Barclays continue with the charade. Hope they have sacked the marketing genius who came up with this - I can imagine the meeting, ”Why don't we get rid of Nectar (which we helped create) because it has all these low brow trashy places signed up now. Instead we will have our very own exclusive reward scheme and thousands of retailers will be invited to join, and they will because we are Barclays.” Sorry idiot, they didn't sign up because they are most likely either in exclusive deals with other schemes, like Nectar, or don't want to administer multiple reward programmes.
If Barclays have any self respect they will abandon this scam immediately and convert the reward money into everybody's next payment and then either go to a straightforward cashback or do nothing.

NicolaJP_2

Just to confirm Goldsmiths allow you to collect point and redeem them (even in the same transaction) as I work there!

The amount of people who WE have to tell about the scheme is ridiculous! So many people don't have a clue they even have points let alone the (few) places you can spend them. It seems like a farce to say the least...

GTmon

Just had a letter from Barclaycard that says that the scheme is changing - can collect up until June 21st and then have until 26th July to redeem any that are saved up.

They describe the scheme as "our award winning rewards programme". I wonder what the awards were for? ...... most useless?

lawstudent

I spend my points at halfords autocentres. Get quite a good deal on an MOT or whatever you need if you pay part with points.

floppyarms

Just received this from Barclaycard - looks like they might be listening... :j

**********
Dear Mr xxx

We're delighted to tell you that we're making some exciting changes to Barclaycard Freedom, our award winning rewards programme.

Since its launch, millions of our customers have been rewarded with Freedom Reward Money when they have spent at thousands of retailers across the UK. They have also received valuable ongoing offers from participating brands within the programme.

We've been thinking about how we can bring you the best of both worlds of Barclaycard Freedom. Later this year we will be launching new programmes which will provide tailored and valuable offers from thousands of merchants, allow customers to earn rewards on all spend, both home and abroad, and have easy options to redeem.

Before we can launch our new programmes, we need to make some changes that will impact how you earn and redeem Freedom Reward Money today.

As we move forward with these programmes you will no longer be able to earn Reward Money after 21 June 2012 and you will have until 26 July 2012 to redeem any you've saved up.

Currently, you have £xxx.xx worth of Reward Money. This includes all Reward Money balances on any authorised user cards you may have on your account.

If you don't redeem your Reward Money by 26 July, don't worry - we'll credit the outstanding balance to your Barclaycard by the end of September 2012. This means you won't lose out on the value of the Reward Money you will have earned.

If you have any questions please see here for further information, which should hopefully answer them.

We're really looking forward to being able to share all the details of our two new offerings in the coming months. The changes we are making are part of our ongoing commitment to making our customers' relationship with Barclaycard even more valuable and rewarding.

Yours sincerely,

Paul McWeeney
**********

CLAPTON

well, I don't mind saying that across my three heavily used Barcalycards I have amassed an amazing total of 0.54

I'm much relieved that I won't be losing this valuable benefit

andrew-the-cat

I've only found one place so far that allows you to pay with this freedom points, and it's only because they have a Barclaycard card reader

WelshRarebit

CLAPTON wrote: »

well, I don't mind saying that across my three heavily used Barcalycards I have amassed an amazing total of 0.54

I'm much relieved that I won't be losing this valuable benefit

I can beat that...I got 24p!!

What sort of awards have they won? Freedom has to be just about the worst reward scheme ever thought up!!

tlh858

Barclaycard Freedom - a useless scheme and by far the worst of their points schemes to date.

Earn points in a tiny number of places, most of which are overpriced luxury boutiques, or places which sell ordinary stuff at higher prices than everyone else (Shell fuel for example).

Then when you have your tiny little amount of money, you can only redeem it when spending yet more money on expensive luxury items you neither want or need.