Barclaycard offers rebate to encourage low spenders

Tom Tickell
Friday 21 May 1993 23:02 BST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

BARCLAYCARD is offering special discounts to drum up business next month, but they are available only to customers who have cut back their card spending or were not spending much in the first place. The vast majority of the 8.8 million cardholders are excluded, writes Tom Tickell.

Debra Pentelow, a Barclaycard marketing manager, has written to 50,000 customers saying they can save money every time they use the card in June, provided they clock up enough on their bills. The bank will refund up to 4 per cent of the total bill, with a maximum rebate of pounds 20.

The benefits grow with spending. There will be a 1 per cent discount on bills for the month of between pounds 100 and pounds 200, 2 per cent on pounds 200- pounds 300 and 4 per cent on pounds 400- pounds 500.

At first sight, the benefits do not look that attractive when Barclaycard charges interest at 22.9 per cent a year. But the bank stresses that many customers do not pay interest at all.

'Half our customers settle their bills in full each month, and get their credit for nothing,' a spokesman said. 'Typically the rest will settle their bills over three months. Admittedly you can't use the official APR interest formula over that period, but broadly interest works out at 5 per cent.'

Barclaycard knows 30 per cent of its customers hold other credit cards and wants to ensure they do not use them too often. Concessions in June are designed to get people back into the Barclaycard habit.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in