Barclaycard Avios Plus: Fees, Eligibility and Avios Earning

The Barclaycard Avios Plus card is a Mastercard that earns Avios on what you spend and charges a monthly fee for the higher earning rate. Barclays states the monthly fee is £20, which is £240 a year, and the card earns 1.5 Avios points per £1 of everyday spending¹. The Avios you collect are transferred to your linked British Airways Club account on the second working day of the next month².

The card is aimed at people who spend enough to make the fee worthwhile and who want their spending to turn into British Airways flights and upgrades rather than cashback. The card has a welcome offer for customers new to Barclaycard who meet a spending condition in their first months². It also pays a yearly reward once you have spent £10,000 within 12 months³. The provider's site has today's welcome offer.

This page covers how the earning works, what the card costs, who can apply, how to run the account day to day, and what protection and complaint routes exist if something goes wrong. It does not give current rates, fees or bonus figures beyond those the sources state, and the provider's own site carries today's figures.

How Avios are earned and when they reach your British Airways Club account

Avios are collected on what you spend and then moved across to your British Airways Club account, rather than sitting inside the card account. Barclays says the Avios you collect are transferred to your linked British Airways Club account on the second working day of the next month². That means a purchase made in, say, early March produces Avios that land in your Club account in early April, so the points are not available to spend immediately.

The earning rate on the Avios Plus card is 1.5 Avios points per £1 of everyday spending³. The card is a Mastercard, so it can be used anywhere that accepts Mastercard¹. For comparison, the standard Barclaycard Avios card earns 1 Avios point per £1, and the British Airways American Express Premium Plus card earns 1.5 Avios per £1 on everyday spending and 3 Avios per £1 with British Airways or BA Holidays³.

Barclays gives a worked example of what the combination of spending and bonus produces. The provider also gives a worked first-year example that adds everyday Avios, the welcome bonus and the annual reward together¹. It depends on meeting both the welcome offer's spending condition and the annual spending target, so it shows a maximum for that pattern of spending rather than a guaranteed outcome.

Welcome bonus and the annual spending reward

There are two separate rewards on this card, and they work on different thresholds. The welcome bonus is a one-off payment for new cardholders who spend enough in the first three months. The annual spending reward is a repeatable benefit for people who put a larger amount through the card over 12 months.

For customers new to Barclaycard, the welcome bonus is paid once a spending condition is met in the first months². Existing Barclaycard customers get a smaller bonus on the same kind of spending condition². The gap between those two figures is the main reason the card is more valuable to someone who does not already hold a Barclaycard.

The annual spending reward is triggered by spending £10,000 on the card within 12 months. At that point you choose between a British Airways cabin upgrade voucher to use on an Avios Reward Flight booking, or 7,000 bonus Avios². The upgrade voucher moves you up one cabin class only and excludes First Class³.

The equivalent card without the fee, Barclaycard Avios, sets its annual spending reward at £20,000 within 12 months, double the Avios Plus threshold, and pays the same choice of cabin upgrade voucher or 7,000 bonus Avios². The Avios card has its own first-year example, which assumes a higher spend⁴.

Fees and charges: the monthly fee, cash, abroad and late payments

The defining cost of this card is the monthly fee. Barclays states the monthly fee is £20, which works out at £240 a year¹. That fee applies whether or not you use the card, so the value of the card depends on whether the Avios you earn and the rewards you trigger are worth more to you than the fee. The Avios card without the fee carries no monthly fee at all⁴.

Beyond the monthly fee, the charges that catch people out on credit cards generally are cash withdrawals, foreign use and missed payments. Barclays lists cash balance transactions, which it describes as cash withdrawals, wire transfers and buying currency, as outside the Avios earning rules⁴. Fees and charges may apply when you use cards outside the UK⁵. On credit card borrowing generally, Barclays says you will need to pay back at least a minimum amount each month, or you will be charged a late payment fee⁶.

The card also comes with airport lounge access at a discounted rate. Barclays states the Avios Plus card gives access to over 1,000 airport lounges worldwide at a discounted rate of £24 per lounge pass, per person¹. That is a paid benefit rather than a free one, and it is separate from the free passes described below.

Interest only applies if you do not clear the balance

The card's interest cost depends entirely on whether you clear the balance. Barclays says that if you have not paid off your last Barclaycard statement balance by the date your payment was due, interest is charged⁸. Pay the statement balance in full by the due date and no interest is charged on purchases. Carry any of it over and interest applies.

This is the same rule that applies across credit cards, and it is worth being precise about what it means. The interest-free period on purchases is not a fixed number of days from the transaction; it runs to the payment due date on your statement. Once you fail to clear the balance, interest is charged, and on many cards you can lose the interest-free period on new purchases until you have cleared the balance again.

The Avios Plus card is a rewards card, not a borrowing card. The monthly fee is charged regardless, and if you also pay interest on a carried balance, the cost of the card is the fee plus the interest. Someone who clears the balance in full each month pays the fee and nothing else. Someone who does not pays the fee plus interest on the balance carried, which is where the card becomes expensive relative to its rewards.

If you are carrying a balance and finding the repayments hard, the options and the free help available are set out in Help with credit card debt. The rules on how interest is calculated and when it starts are explained in How credit card interest is charged.

Who can apply for Barclaycard Avios Plus

The stated minimum age is 18 or over. Barclays says that if you are 18 or over you can use its eligibility checker to see if you are likely to be accepted for the card you want¹. Beyond the age rule, the provider does not publish a list of income or residency requirements in the material behind this page, so the practical test is the eligibility checker and then the full application.

The eligibility checker is a soft search. Barclays says the eligibility check takes a few minutes and will not affect your credit score¹. That matters because it lets you see your likely outcome before a full application is recorded on your credit file. A full application, if you go ahead, is a hard search. The same distinction applies across the market: checking eligibility does not affect your credit score, while a full application and acceptance triggers a hard credit search that may affect it⁹.

The card is issued on the Mastercard network¹. The provider's representative example is based on a credit limit of £1,200, which is the basis for the illustrative figures the provider publishes rather than a limit you would be given¹. If approved, Barclays says your Barclaycard could be with you in seven working days¹.

If you already hold a Barclaycard, you can still apply, but the welcome bonus is the reduced amount for existing customers². If you are weighing up whether a rewards card suits you at all, Rewards and cashback credit cards sets out how the different types work, and Applying for a credit card covers the application process and what lenders look at.

Applying, managing the card and making payments

Applying starts with the eligibility check, which Barclays says takes a few minutes and does not affect your credit score¹. If you go on to apply and are approved, the card typically arrives within seven working days¹. Once the account is open, the Avios you collect are transferred to your linked British Airways Club account on the second working day of the next month, so you need a Club account linked to the card for the points to reach you².

Day-to-day management is app-first. Barclays provides a Barclays app and a Barclaycard app, and the provider's other card products require the app to activate, use and manage the account, with some parts manageable in Barclays Online Banking¹¹. If you already use the Barclays app to manage another Barclays account, you can also use it to make payments to your Barclaycard once you have set up the bill payment in Barclays Online Banking and made your first payment¹².

The app also handles the practical tasks. You can view your card details and PIN in the app by selecting your card and entering your five-digit app passcode¹³. You can set payment alerts so that you receive an update every time you use the card to spend, when you receive money, and when direct debits or standing orders change, through the push notification settings¹⁴. If a cash machine keeps your card, Barclays has a published process for getting it back or replaced¹⁵.

Fraud cover, disputes and complaints

If your card goes missing, Barclays says you can freeze it or report it as lost or stolen in the Barclays app¹⁶. Barclaycard also takes reports by phone so the card can be cancelled and a replacement ordered, with a separate number if you are calling from abroad¹⁵. The general rule from the provider is to report any lost or stolen cards immediately¹⁷.

On suspicious contact, Barclays states that if a call, voicemail or text from someone claiming to be from its fraud team seems suspicious, the number on the back of the card is the one to call back on, and that the line should be clear first so the fraudster is not still on it¹⁸. If someone needs help with their banking, they can be added to the account as an additional cardholder or account supervisor¹⁶.

If a purchase goes wrong, the card is a credit card, so the usual dispute routes apply. Section 75 covers purchases over £100 and up to £30,000 made directly with the supplier on a credit card, and Chargeback is the scheme route for card payments that Section 75 does not reach. The provider's own dispute process sits alongside these.

If a complaint is not resolved, the Financial Ombudsman Service is the free, independent route. Its published complaints data shows 33 credit broking complaints opened in Q1 2026/27¹⁹, and 996 travel insurance complaints in Q1 2025/26²⁰, with 4,451 travel insurance complaints across 2025/26²¹. Those figures are for other product lines and are included here only to show the scale of the ombudsman's caseload, not to suggest anything about this card. Complaining about a credit card provider sets out how to escalate a complaint.

Where the card sits and what protects you

The card is issued by Barclays, with Barclaycard among its current trading names²². The bank appears on the Bank of England's list of banks incorporated in the UK authorised to accept deposits, as of 1 September 2026²³, and Companies House records it as an active company, number 09740322, incorporated on 19 August 2015²⁴. For a reader, the practical point is that the firm behind the card is a UK-authorised bank, which is what makes the complaint and protection routes above available.

Credit cards are not deposit accounts, so the Financial Services Compensation Scheme's deposit protection does not apply to a card balance. What protects a cardholder is the Consumer Credit Act framework, Section 75 for eligible purchases, the chargeback scheme, and access to the Financial Ombudsman Service when a complaint is not resolved. Those protections apply to the transaction and the dispute, not to the value of the Avios you have collected.

The Avios themselves sit in your British Airways Club account once transferred, and the card's terms exclude Avios on transactions that are later refunded²⁵. If you are comparing this card with the version that has no monthly fee, Barclaycard Avios covers that card, and Barclays covers the wider brand. For the market as a whole, Rewards and cashback credit cards and Credit cards: a complete guide are the starting points.