How to earn Avios from Barclays Premier via savings WITHOUT switching banks

I am spending time this week looking at the Barclays Premier current account and Barclays Avios Rewards package, so you can see if it is worth signing up.

Our main introductory article to Barclays Premier and Barclays Avios Rewards is here. You can apply online for Barclays Premier here.

There is a 25,000 Avios bonus for signing up and, when you opt in to Barclays Avios Rewards, you receive an additional 1,500 Avios each month.

This means that you will earn 43,000 Avios in total during your first year. You also receive a British Airways Avios upgrade voucher for every 12 months that you retain your account.

Some people are put off by the requirement to move their day to day banking to Barclays Premier, or the requirement to have a £75,000 income. Whilst it makes sense to use a ‘premium’ banking service if your salary allows it – they are usually free, after all – you may be happy with HSBC Premier or similar.

All is not lost. You CAN have a Barclays Premier account even if you don’t have a £75,000 income or don’t want to move your day to day banking across.

How? By depositing £100,000 in a savings or investment account with Barclays.

If you don’t have a spare £100,000 floating around then this isn’t for you. Feel free to move on to the next article.

Are Barclays savings and investment accounts competitive?

It is fair to say that Barclays is not known for topping the ‘best buy’ lists with its savings products. Whatever interest rate you are offered will, almost certainly, be beatable elsewhere.

However, factor in the tax you pay on the interest you earn and the benefits of Barclays Avios Rewards may start to look attractive.

Basically …. you may value getting the Barclays Avios Rewards benefits more than you value a little bit of extra interest.

The best cash savings rate at Barclays seems to be 3.56% for Blue Rewards Saver. You need to be a Premier customer to get this.

There is a one-year fixed rate cash ISA for Premier account holders paying 4.3%.

Because interest from an ISA is untaxed, it would make more sense to move cash which you have outside of an ISA wrapper into Barclays. The weaker interest rate is less noticeable on taxable interest.

These rates can be beaten elsewhere, so you need to treat the interest differential as as additional cost for getting access to Barclays Avios Rewards. Whether this makes sense or not depends on the value you place on the British Airways Avios upgrade voucher and the broader value you get from Barclays Premier.

Barclays also has the usual range of ‘open to all’ stocks and shares ISAs etc. These would accept a transfer from an existing non-Barclays product in order to meet the £100,000 criteria.

How do you open a Barclays Premier account based on savings and not income?

Barclays does not make it very clear how you go about opening a Barclays Premier account based on savings and not income.

When Barclays Avios Rewards launched I sat down with the Barclays Premier team and this is what they told me:

Situation 1:

You earn less than £75,000 but do have £100,000 in cash or investments you could place with Barclays

This is a little complicated, because the online application system for Barclays Premier requires you to declare an income of £75,000+.

This is the route I am told that you need to follow:

• Click here to open an account. Once you state that your income is below £75,000, you will be down-sold to a standard Barclays current account.

• Call Barclays and your account will be upgraded to Premier and you can opt-in to Barclays Avios Rewards (you will have a grace period to fund a savings account after the upgrade)

The reason that you should get your account upgraded BEFORE you move the £100,000 is that you will then have access to the exclusive Barclays Premier products.

Scenario 2:

You do earn £75,000 but would prefer not to move your day-to-day banking to Barclays Premier

This is a far easier scenario.

• Click here to open an account – it will work OK because you are declaring an income of £75,000

• Once the account is open, move £100,000 into a savings or investment account with Barclays. You need to do this before Barclays makes the first check as to whether your salary is going into your new Premier account or not (which it won’t be).

• You can opt-in to Barclays Avios Rewards from Day 1

You will need to keep some money in your Barclays Premier current account to fund the £12 monthly fee for Barclays Avios Rewards, but you don’t need to pay your salary into it.

How does Barclays Avios Rewards work?

To avoid making this article excessively long, I don’t want to go into full details again about how Barclays Avios Rewards works. Instead, take a look at this introductory HfP article which outlines Barclays Avios Rewards in detail.

I hope you found this easier to follow than the official Barclays website when it comes to working out how to access Barclays Premier and Barclays Avios Rewards via savings. I think it is an interesting option that will appeal to some readers.

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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:

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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