Barclays avios plus intro bonus

lon_85

Hi everyone have a few questions about the bonus miles: 

My partner has main card and i have supplementary card 

If the spend threshold of £3k is reached before the 3 month time limit ends does it trigger the avios miles to be added or does it only trigger once the qualifying 3 months time limit has ended?

I understand that the points only get moved to avios account 2nd day of the following month  - so does this mean if we cancel after points added to ba account we still need to continue paying subscription for that month or will we get it back pro rata?

Is it better to downgrade to free avios credit card or cancel it completely?

WillPS

The points are added to your Barclaycard Avios balance immediately, but they're only posted to your BA Exec Account once a month - around the 2nd (for me at least) - so basically you'll get the points at the start of the next month. You might be able to get away with downgrading to the free card but personally I wouldn't risk doing that until the bonus was in my BA Exec account. 

Bear in mind that downgrades aren't always offered - particularly for cards which have recently been opened or changed. Have you checked if Barclays offer a downgrade in the app?

It's up to you whether you choose to keep it, downgrade or cancel. The free card is possibly the best earning 'all spend, fee free' card which isn't an Amex on the market. That said I've personally massively reduced my use of it - in part because BA have nerfed the Nectar exchange rate (originally this card earned 0.8% effectively for me, now it's only 0.5% effective) - but also because products like the Santander Edge credit card have entered the market. 

You need to determine yourself what an Avios is worth to you, to me it's a simple 0.5p because that's what I can get for 'em at Sainsburys.

pecunianonolet

The Barclays card is not that great for miles. I would check what Amex deals you can get. On the miles credit, I can't be of help when they credit it. For cashback they usually credit to the cashback account once the full monthly balance has been reached but no idea if this applies to the miles as well. You could call them and ask when miles are allocated?

My Amex Gold card applied the miles as soon as I hit the spend target.

WillPS

pecunianonolet said:

The Barclays card is not that great for miles. I would check what Amex deals you can get. On the miles credit, I can't be of help when they credit it. For cashback they usually credit to the cashback account once the full monthly balance has been reached but no idea if this applies to the miles as well. You could call them and ask when miles are allocated?

My Amex Gold card applied the miles as soon as I hit the spend target.

I'm not sure what you're basing this on. The Barclaycard fee-free Avios card earns 1pt per £, which is the same as the Amex fee-free BA card. The Barclaycard £20/month Avios Plus card earns 1.5 pts per £, which is the same as the Amex £300/yr BA Premium Plus card.

On this measure alone Barclaycard wins in either case, because a Mastercard is more widely accepted than an Amex, the points are rounded in a more favourable way and in the case of the Plus cards theirs is £60/year cheaper.

The Amex cards have a far better upgrade option, but you need significant amounts of spend to get to them.