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Apologies for application issues with Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

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Yesterday we ran three articles on the brand new, and very exciting, Barclaycard Avios Mastercard credit cards.

As soon as we’d published them, the Barclaycard application website collapsed. At the time of writing (10pm) it is still not fully functioning. It may or may not be working when you read this.

I’m sorry for the inconvenience. We are in close contact with Barclaycard and as soon as everything is good to go we will let you know.

HFP-Barclaycard-Avios-Plus-Card

Are you an existing Barclaycard holder?

In our article yesterday we said that existing Barclaycard holders would need to cancel their card and wait six months if they wanted the sign-up bonus on the new card.

It turns out that Barclaycard has a Plan B for existing cardholders which will go live in a few days. We should be able to share full details soon, but basically there will be a route which will allow you to get the Avios cards and receive a bonus. It will be a smaller bonus than the one given to new customers, but it will be better than nothing. We will run an article on this as soon as the process is live.

For everyone else …. we’ll let you know as soon as applications are open.

If you want to try again now, in case it got fixed overnight, you can apply for the free Barclaycard Avios credit card (5,000 Avios bonus) here. You can apply for the Barclaycard Avios Plus credit card (25,000 Avios bonus) here.

If you missed our content yesterday, the first of our three articles on the Barclaycard Avios Mastercards is here.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Comments (291)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Stuart says:
    1 Mar1 March 07:44

    Managed to get through last night via your link and spotted you at the referral. Hopefully that pays for my annual membership to HfPs

  • Corin says:
    1 Mar1 March 07:48

    How do I know if I still have an active Hilton card ? I had one many years ago, I assume they closed it as it was inactive, I haven’t received any in the post ?

  • Jp says:
    1 Mar1 March 08:00

    Is the upgrade voucher limited to upgrades up to business or can you get up to first?
    Applied for the card anyway but somehow I read somewhere that there is a cap and this site seems like the best source

    • Paul says:
      1 Mar1 March 08:07

      It’s in the T&C: “Bookings cannot be upgraded to a First Cabin using the Cabin Upgrade Voucher.”

  • Paul says:
    1 Mar1 March 08:01

    Applied around 11pm last night. Used the eligibility checker first which said provisional approval then completed the application which said they needed to do more checks. No email received with any application reference number so no idea if it’s gone through or not

    • TerryTierPoints says:
      1 Mar1 March 08:08

      Same.

      • Andrew says:
        1 Mar1 March 09:06

        Applied at 0612 this morning and received the email about 0830ish. Perhaps they’re working through the list.

      • TerryTierPoints says:
        1 Mar1 March 09:22

        My email just arrived. Took about 11 hours.

    • CatchFlightsNotFeelings says:
      1 Mar1 March 14:54

      I got the same. No email as yet. Have a perfect credit score, regular income, no finance problems or dependable so not sure what needs to be checked. My BA Amex card got approved right away.

  • Ty says:
    1 Mar1 March 08:24

    Morning Rob, many thanks for the update. I have a regular Barclays current account that I hardly use. I have read all the comments and it appears that if I close the account today and wait 6 months, I can then apply for the premium account and get the full 25k bonus. Please can you confirm that this is correct? Thanks in advance!

    • AJA says:
      1 Mar1 March 08:30

      There is no need to close your current account. The only proviso is you must not have a Barclaycard credit card. If you do have an existing credit card and want the full SUB you must close that card and wait 6 months.

  • Grammer says:
    1 Mar1 March 08:26

    I applied yesterday but was rejected despite having what I considered a perfect credit record…. never had any credit declined before so was shocked. Said they will write to me. Does anyone know what credit reference agency they use and whether there’s any point appealing the decision?

    • Ian says:
      1 Mar1 March 08:28

      Barclaycard uses Experian.

    • Rob says:
      1 Mar1 March 08:37

      I think these may be incorrect rejections based on that site issues yesterday but I’m not sure how to resolve it.

      • Alex says:
        2 Mar2 March 09:08

        I had the same issue this morning, wasn’t expecting a rejection! Perfect credit score and not a lot of credit against. Is this now a no go for us?

        • Rob says:
          2 Mar2 March 09:41

          We have now been told that the site will be working from Thursday (it isn’t working properly now, even though you can fill in the form).

          I suggest you apply again then.

    • Mark says:
      1 Mar1 March 08:41

      I had exactly the same. Their reply said they used Equifax so I checked my score with them and it is showing as 1,000 out of 1,000, so no idea why they didn’t approve it – I did wonder if it was anything to do with the website difficulties they had been having.

      • John says:
        1 Mar1 March 09:18

        Your score is not an indicator of whether you will get approved as it is not used in the decision

        • Mark says:
          1 Mar1 March 11:44

          Score might not directly be used in the decision, but the score is made up of a lot of underlying factors (e.g. amount of limits, utilisation, payment record, amount of unsecured limits, etc), which are all used in the decision.

    • Roberto says:
      1 Mar1 March 09:39

      Player 2 also rejected which tends me to believe that there was a error with Barclaycard processing the application yesterday. Perfect credit score and 100% fit for the purpose of their enquiry , hey ho…..

    • RT says:
      1 Mar1 March 11:44

      I had this too and was surprised. But I only got rejected on the “proving your income” step sometimes required to establish a credit limit. I pointed it at my Barclays current account which is where the income goes, but has only been open 5 months. I’m guessing there wasn’t enough history, or the transaction types didn’t match what they expected or something like that.
      Anyway I will wait for that letter and call and speak to a human

  • rmjs says:
    1 Mar1 March 08:30

    Does existing customers include the Barclays Hilton card from that’s still going strong for some of us?

  • Nigel W says:
    1 Mar1 March 08:35

    I applied around 10 last night and got approved. However only got email confirming application was approved and stating credit limit in the last 15 minutes.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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