Barclays Blue Reward

Descrabled

I've now reached the position that my blue rewards saver is my lowest interest rate easy access. So in order to maintain my payments to my remaining regular savers (@ +5.5%) I need to empty my rainy day account.

When and how is it best to exit blue rewards? Is it best to close on the second working day? or does it matter?

surreysaver

Why not just leave it in place to save the aggravation when you need it again?

Descrabled

Ms Descrabled is concerned that if (when) I pop my clogs she will be left with a myriad of accounts to sort-out. She is pressurising me to reduce the 60 off accounts we each hold.  I have been able to keep accounts that are useful up to now. However:

1. The 4 digital regular savers (2 each) are almost full, therefore we no longer need half a dozen credit cards that are used for small purchases and are paid by multiple £1.01 debit card payments.
2. These debit cards provide the direct debits that are only used for the 2 Barclays accounts.
3. Ms Descrabled will next year be hit with an increased tax payment (interest received has tripled) so her net company pension will reduce below the 2 off £800 transfer from Halifax through Barclays each month.
4. Barclays removed both our arranged overdrafts earlier this year so making same day in/out standing order transfers not usable.
5. I am fed-up with the contortions required by Barclays.
   

The main changes will be next April when £40000 from our regular savers will be moved into ISAs. This years ISAs were fully funded in April this year.

So Barclays Blue Rewards goes. Barclays current accounts become unused and then goodbye.

Flugelhorn

gosh sounds like a full time job. I just shove everything in a couple of accounts and forget it 

surreysaver

I probably wouldn't worry about it. Once you've emptied the Rainy Day Saver and claimed the last bit of interest, just close or switch the Barclays Current Account away. Or just switch Blue Rewards off and keep the account open but not doing anything. If you lose £5 by doing that, so be it, but you should get it the following month after switching off Blue Rewards I believe?

EDIT:
Just reading the T&Cs, because they don't charge you the fee until your second month of joining Blue Rewards, you should just be able to cancel it you you won't have lost anything.
Might want to empty your Blue Rewards Wallet first, though 

Section62

Descrabled said:

So Barclays Blue Rewards goes. Barclays current accounts become unused and then goodbye.

In the past Barclays have automatically closed Blue Rewards accounts if the customer was no longer benefitting.

I think so long as I was getting the DD benefit to offset the monthly fee, I'd probably let Barclays do the shutting down for me.  Either the automatic process above, or because the linked current account has been closed.

If they charged you a monthly fee you got no benefit for* then I'm reasonably confident they would be willing to offer you at least £5 as a goodwill gesture if you complained to them.  My overall impression is Barclays are terrified of winding up with another mass misselling claim over their add-ons (such as Blue Rewards) - hence them being proactive and closing BR accounts if they aren't working to the customer's net benefit. (*if you proactively close the account in a way which deprives you of a benefit they may be less generous in refunding the fee)

ColdIron

You might want to read this thread from when people closed it last year

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6345094/when-to-close-barclays-account-so-as-to-not-get-billed-blue-rewards-for-april

FWIW I closed mine 04/03/2022 just after I received my fiver 02/03/2022 and wasn't charged in April

flaneurs_lobster

I'm leaving the Blue Rewards setup as is with a tenner in the RDS on the off-chance that Barclays react to Santander and increase the rate to something, er, interesting. 

Descrabled

Thanks ColdIron.

Will close mine on either 5-10-23 or 6-11-23 and move direct debits in the next month.

subjecttocontract

I can't see the point of me closing this account.
The best Easy Access account is Santander at 5.2%
Barclays is 5.12% ......the difference is £4 a year......not worth the effort

wmb194

subjecttocontract said:

I can't see the point of me closing this account.
The best Easy Access account is Santander at 5.2%
Barclays is 5.12% ......the difference is £4 a year......not worth the effort

Yes and I'm far more confident that Barclays isn't going to block my accounts at any random moment so I think it's worth it for that.