Barclays £175 switch offer - new customers only, Nov 1 - 30 2023

Yorkshire_Pud

TraySelect said:

Has anyone who switched in November, and who's met the criteria, had the Blue Rewards £5 payment into their BR wallet?

What day does the Blue Rewards £5 payment go into the wallet?

I switched on 22 Nov, and received the £175 switch incentive on 13 Dec.

Two DDs went out from the Barclays current account on 11 and 14 Dec, and the £800 credit went in on 1Dec.

The BR £5 fee went out on 2 Dec; I haven't had the £5 reward into the wallet yet, and hence wondered about the date it goes in, before I cancel BR.

You pay the fee £5 on the second working day of each calendar month paid out in advance it’s a fixed non refundable fee. The £5 blue reward is paid also on the second working day of each month but in arrears. Therefore you would only get a £5 reward paid in December IF you paid out the two direct debits in November.

I paid one DD in November, the other comes out in December so I didn’t get £5 reward but did pay the fee! Sucks really because how can you ensure two direct debits on the switch account are paid out in November when you open the account mid way through the month and Barclays say you MUST open blue rewards for the incentive £175. Otherwise you/I/we would have waited until December to join maybe even dec 4th so missing the fee? But then knowing the two DDs pay out in December and the reward is paid on 2nd January or whatever the second working day is!

So unless you ensured you paid out 2 DDs in November you are £5 down on your £175. Plus how to exit without loss when the fee for following month is taken on the same day as the reward is paid for the previous month? I’m assuming if you cancel BR then there is no mechanism to get any rewards that would have been due!

AmityNeon

TraySelect said:

Has anyone who switched in November, and who's met the criteria, had the Blue Rewards £5 payment into their BR wallet?

What day does the Blue Rewards £5 payment go into the wallet?

I switched on 22 Nov, and received the £175 switch incentive on 13 Dec.

Two DDs went out from the Barclays current account on 11 and 14 Dec, and the £800 credit went in on 1Dec.

The BR £5 fee went out on 2 Dec; I haven't had the £5 reward into the wallet yet, and hence wondered about the date it goes in, before I cancel BR.

This information can be found in the Blue Rewards Terms & Conditions:

To be eligible for Barclays Blue Rewards you will need to:

• Pay the £5 monthly fee. We’ll take this from your nominated current account on the second working day of the month. The first monthly fee will be taken in the month after you join Barclays Blue Rewards on the second working day of the month

When and how you’ll receive your rewards

• We’ll add the rewards you have earned into your Blue Rewards Wallet on the second working day of each month.

This means on the second working day of each month, the £5 fee is taken from your current account, and any rewards earned in the previous calendar month are added to your Blue Rewards Wallet.

It is not possible to have rewards added to your Blue Rewards Wallet without also paying the £5 fee, as both occur simultaneously on the same day. The fee is always charged regardless of whether any rewards were earned/added.

Yorkshire_Pud said:

So unless you ensured you paid out 2 DDs in November you are £5 down on your £175. Plus how to exit without loss when the fee for following month is taken on the same day as the reward is paid for the previous month? I’m assuming if you cancel BR then there is no mechanism to get any rewards that would have been due!

That is true.

If we or you cancel your Barclays Blue Rewards:

• We’ll close your Blue Rewards Wallet and you’ll stop earning rewards
• We’ll transfer your available rewards balance back to you.
• You will no longer be eligible for any pending rewards that have not yet been shown in your Blue Rewards Wallet

The fee is paid in arrears. If you cancel within 14 days of joining Blue Rewards, they would normally refund the fee if it was charged, but if you had rewards added to your wallet during that time, the fee is not refunded. In effect, paying the fee is thus a prerequisite of having rewards earned in the previous month (if any) added to your wallet.

TraySelect

Yorkshire_Pud said:

TraySelect said:

Has anyone who switched in November, and who's met the criteria, had the Blue Rewards £5 payment into their BR wallet?

What day does the Blue Rewards £5 payment go into the wallet?

I switched on 22 Nov, and received the £175 switch incentive on 13 Dec.

Two DDs went out from the Barclays current account on 11 and 14 Dec, and the £800 credit went in on 1Dec.

The BR £5 fee went out on 2 Dec; I haven't had the £5 reward into the wallet yet, and hence wondered about the date it goes in, before I cancel BR.

You pay the fee £5 on the second working day of each calendar month paid out in advance it’s a fixed non refundable fee. The £5 blue reward is paid also on the second working day of each month but in arrears. Therefore you would only get a £5 reward paid in December IF you paid out the two direct debits in November.

I paid one DD in November, the other comes out in December so I didn’t get £5 reward but did pay the fee! Sucks really because how can you ensure two direct debits on the switch account are paid out in November when you open the account mid way through the month and Barclays say you MUST open blue rewards for the incentive £175. Otherwise you/I/we would have waited until December to join maybe even dec 4th so missing the fee? But then knowing the two DDs pay out in December and the reward is paid on 2nd January or whatever the second working day is!

So unless you ensured you paid out 2 DDs in November you are £5 down on your £175. Plus how to exit without loss when the fee for following month is taken on the same day as the reward is paid for the previous month? I’m assuming if you cancel BR then there is no mechanism to get any rewards that would have been due!

Thank you - yes I'm assuming that - if I wait to get the BR £5 reward I'll have paid another £5 out for BR. So will always be a fiver down ... but not a problem when the incentive paid out 175!

Yorkshire_Pud

jimjames said:

Yorkshire_Pud said:

Blue rewards, for what it is must be one of the most  verbose finicky pieces of financial pedantry ever written all for a basic you give us £5 and we give you £5 back. Or in my case they don’t give me back my £5 because I didn’t pay out a second DD due to not having a calendar month of membership. 

There was some discussion whether the fee/reward was paid in arrears or not. I was also charged the fee but DD hadn't paid out as the switch was after the DD date. Waiting to see if I get it paid for December instead.

I’ve had it from the horses mouth as it were using the contact us chat facility in the app. Fee is in advance, £5 blue reward is in arrears. So as one of my two switched account DDs paid out early November I.e.before switching it didn’t count! So fee taken, no reward due. Which is technically correct. But I had to join BR in November to get the incentive when it would have been better to wait until December. After aveeeery long to and fro with a very polite and reasonable human in India I made a complaint which was quickly resolved ‘in the banks favour’ by giving me a £5 goodwill gesture. Whether it’s worth two or three hours and an overnight sojourn to obtain this fiver is another matter. I’m a pedant so for me it’s a worth it, sort of.

Barclays should waive the fee for the first two months really but they will say the fee is for the BR scheme and we could benefit in several ways which is true it’s not just the £5 reward so it’s just a deduction off your £175 unless lucky enough to have both DDs paid out in November and AFTER opening the Barclays current account.

If I cancel BR end of December I will not incur the fee in January but even though I will qualify for the £5 reward after 2 DDs pay out in December I won’t  get the £5 paid in January because I won’t  be in the BR scheme anymore! So after my longwinded discourse with customer services and the goodwill gesture I will be cost neutral on Blue Rewards, ie a waste of time, £175 up from the incentive paid and maybe £10 up on £200 spend in December from Cashback Rewards, yet another compartment devised by their backroom boffins, and £10 down by not qualifying in November because I had no idea that I had to enrol in Cashback Rewards as well as blue rewards at that time. Here endeth the lethen 😊 

Yorkshire_Pud

AmityNeon said:

TraySelect said:

Has anyone who switched in November, and who's met the criteria, had the Blue Rewards £5 payment into their BR wallet?

What day does the Blue Rewards £5 payment go into the wallet?

I switched on 22 Nov, and received the £175 switch incentive on 13 Dec.

Two DDs went out from the Barclays current account on 11 and 14 Dec, and the £800 credit went in on 1Dec.

The BR £5 fee went out on 2 Dec; I haven't had the £5 reward into the wallet yet, and hence wondered about the date it goes in, before I cancel BR.

This information can be found in the Blue Rewards Terms & Conditions:

To be eligible for Barclays Blue Rewards you will need to:

• Pay the £5 monthly fee. We’ll take this from your nominated current account on the second working day of the month. The first monthly fee will be taken in the month after you join Barclays Blue Rewards on the second working day of the month

When and how you’ll receive your rewards

• We’ll add the rewards you have earned into your Blue Rewards Wallet on the second working day of each month.

This means on the second working day of each month, the £5 fee is taken from your current account, and any rewards earned in the previous calendar month are added to your Blue Rewards Wallet.

It is not possible to have rewards added to your Blue Rewards Wallet without also paying the £5 fee, as both occur simultaneously on the same day. The fee is always charged regardless of whether any rewards were earned/added.

Yorkshire_Pud said:

So unless you ensured you paid out 2 DDs in November you are £5 down on your £175. Plus how to exit without loss when the fee for following month is taken on the same day as the reward is paid for the previous month? I’m assuming if you cancel BR then there is no mechanism to get any rewards that would have been due!

That is true.

If we or you cancel your Barclays Blue Rewards:

• We’ll close your Blue Rewards Wallet and you’ll stop earning rewards
• We’ll transfer your available rewards balance back to you.
• You will no longer be eligible for any pending rewards that have not yet been shown in your Blue Rewards Wallet

The fee is paid in arrears. If you cancel within 14 days of joining Blue Rewards, they would normally refund the fee if it was charged, but if you had rewards added to your wallet during that time, the fee is not refunded. In effect, paying the fee is thus a prerequisite of having rewards earned in the previous month (if any) added to your wallet.

They waive the fee first month but it is still paid in advance, not in arrears, they told me.

AmityNeon

Yorkshire_Pud said:

They waive the fee first month but it is still paid in advance, not in arrears, they told me.

If what they say doesn't correlate with what happens in practice, then they're wrong. It certainly wouldn't be the first time customer support failed to understand a product's terms and conditions. If they will not refund the fee even if a customer cancels within 14 days specifically because rewards were added to the Blue Rewards Wallet (based on the previous month's earnings), then it's clear the fee specifically covers reward periods in arrears.

As you correctly inferred, any rewards earned in December will be pending until they're added to the wallet on the second working day of January. Those rewards are only added if the wallet is open to receive them; until then, they're pending, and pending rewards are forfeit if a customer cancels Blue Rewards. If the wallet is open, the £5 fee is taken, and if rewards were added to the wallet, this fee is never refunded, even if a customer cancels within 14 days of joining.

Setting aside the point regarding the lack of a refund if cancelled within 14 days, if the monthly membership fee were truly paid for in advance, then there must be a scenario in which:

1. the fee is first paid by the customer
2. the customer is then provided the opportunity to earn rewards during the period for which they paid (in #1)
3. after the period paid for has elapsed, the customer receives the earned rewards, and no further fee is taken because the membership was appropriately cancelled

I'd be curious to know if customer support could accurately confirm whether such a scenario is possible. The following points (especially the fourth) mentioned in the aforelinked T&Cs suggest otherwise:

If we or you cancel your Barclays Blue Rewards:

• We’ll close your Blue Rewards Wallet and you’ll stop earning rewards
• We’ll transfer your available rewards balance back to you.
• You will no longer be eligible for any pending rewards that have not yet been shown in your Blue Rewards Wallet
• We will no longer charge you the Barclays Blue Rewards monthly fee in future months, however you will continue to pay the monthly fee until your Blue Rewards Wallet is closed

So even if Barclays does not 'charge' the monthly fee in future months because you cancelled your membership in the current month, if you (somehow) request that your Blue Rewards Wallet remains open to allow rewards earned in the current month to be added to the wallet on the second working day of the next month (perhaps because they constitute multiple reward types amounting to a sum that more than offsets the fee), you will still have to pay the monthly fee on the same day the rewards are added to the wallet, even though Barclays isn't technically 'charging' the fee any longer!

Thus, the only logical inference based on the terms and conditions (assuming they accurately reflect what happens in practice), is that the monthly fee is paid for in arrears, regardless of what anyone simply says.

Ponchos

From reading several messages on here over the last couple of pages, it seems to me that actually getting the £5 rewards from Blue Rewards for paying in £800 and making two DD payments essentially doesn't happen - it is paid to you on the same day (2nd of the month) as the charge for having Blue Rewards is taken. If you cancel Blue Rewards then you have already made the payment but cannot receive the rewards - in short, you're always £5 down overall.

With that in mind, the maximum switching bonus anyone can expect is £170 (you'll have £175 transferred in but you're already £5 down).

Looking at the original steps listed on MSE to qualify for the switching bonus it stated to sign up to Barclays via the app, join Blue Rewards, switch from another account including 2x DDs, then wait 28 days for the bonus. It doesn't saying anything about fulfilling the monthly Blue Rewards criteria. Being as you will essentially be £5 down due to having Blue Rewards, it seems to me that it is not worth completing the Blue Rewards criteria, as you won't receive the rewards for it regardless.

Can anyone tell me if I'm wrong about this?

Also...
I made the Barclays account, joined Blue Rewards and started the switch (with two DDs of my CC and eBay) on 30th November, paid in £800 on 4th December, set up a new DD with PayPal and made a payments through this on 10th and 15th December (yet to be taken from Barclays account, which Paypal says is normal), and my CC payment is due to be taken 29th December (so I would meet all Blue Rewards criteria, if it mattered).

Has anyone else who made the switch on the 30th November received the switching bonus yet? There was some talk on here about a batch of payments going out in early January. If that is the case then I feel like I can close my Blue Rewards by the end of December (just having opened it should be enough to meet the switching bonus criteria) and wait for the £175 sometime in January, and then leave ASAP. This is the most complicated switch there is!

masonic

Ponchos said:

From reading several messages on here over the last couple of pages, it seems to me that actually getting the £5 rewards from Blue Rewards for paying in £800 and making two DD payments essentially doesn't happen - it is paid to you on the same day (2nd of the month) as the charge for having Blue Rewards is taken. If you cancel Blue Rewards then you have already made the payment but cannot receive the rewards - in short, you're always £5 down overall.

With that in mind, the maximum switching bonus anyone can expect is £170 (you'll have £175 transferred in but you're already £5 down).

Well that isn't true. If you can pay in the £800 and pay out two direct debits in the first calendar month your account is open, you will receive the £5 reward when the first £5 fee is taken. Only those who open the account late in the month, or struggle to get their direct debits to pull in time, will lose out on the first £5 reward. There is also the cashback reward worth £10 that is easier to achieve in the first month and is paid independently of the other eligibility criteria being met.

I opened my account in the middle of November, and could have met all of the criteria for the £5 reward, but didn't pull out all the stops, Instead I went for the £10 cashback in both November and December, so I will end up £190 better off.

Ponchos said:

Looking at the original steps listed on MSE to qualify for the switching bonus it stated to sign up to Barclays via the app, join Blue Rewards, switch from another account including 2x DDs, then wait 28 days for the bonus. It doesn't saying anything about fulfilling the monthly Blue Rewards criteria. Being as you will essentially be £5 down due to having Blue Rewards, it seems to me that it is not worth completing the Blue Rewards criteria, as you won't receive the rewards for it regardless.

Can anyone tell me if I'm wrong about this?

It is true that if the only reward you receive is the £5 direct debit reward, then there is nothing to gain from the scheme and if you end it in the second month, there is nothing to gain in meeting the criteria. Just make sure you leave Blue Rewards before the end of the month to avoid paying another fee.

Ponchos said:

Also...
I made the Barclays account, joined Blue Rewards and started the switch (with two DDs of my CC and eBay) on 30th November, paid in £800 on 4th December, set up a new DD with PayPal and made a payments through this on 10th and 15th December (yet to be taken from Barclays account, which Paypal says is normal), and my CC payment is due to be taken 29th December (so I would meet all Blue Rewards criteria, if it mattered).

Has anyone else who made the switch on the 30th November received the switching bonus yet? There was some talk on here about a batch of payments going out in early January. If that is the case then I feel like I can close my Blue Rewards by the end of December (just having opened it should be enough to meet the switching bonus criteria) and wait for the £175 sometime in January, and then leave ASAP. This is the most complicated switch there is!

If you haven't yet received the incentive, it would be risky to leave Blue Rewards, so you may have to fulfil the criteria to avoid being down another £5 if you have to keep it active into January. There is no requirement in the T&C to keep it open, but it may be the lesser of two evils vs pursuing a complaint with an evasive member of staff (see previous discussion about difficulties making complaints).

boingy

Ponchos said:

Can anyone tell me if I'm wrong about this?

I'll tell you in about three weeks. I joined Blue Rewards in Nov, did the £800 and DD thing in both Nov and Dec. The first £5 fee came out in Dec and the first £5 reward arrived then too. Then I cancelled Blue Rewards. So I did enough to earn the fiver for Dec but cancelled the BR before would be paid out in Jan. It's not clear whether they will charge me the final fiver account fee in Jan but I won't mind too much if they do. In addition to the £175 I've had 2x £10 cashback on the account so it's hard to complain!

northwalesd

I started the process in early Nov, received my switch incentive on 20 and fairly quickly turned off BR. I was not charged £5 at the beginning of Dec. However, both of my transferred DDs did pay out from Barclays in Nov, so if I hadn't cancelled I still would not have been a fiver down.