Barclaycard Avios Plus Launches Balance/Money Transfer Offers. Can You Profit From Them?

If you have a Barclaycard Avios Plus credit you may have recently received an email from Barclaycard offering you Avios when making a balance/money transfer. If you aren’t in the market for a balance/transfer offer you may have sent it straight to the bin but did you know you can actually make money/points from these types of offers?

This post focuses purely on the ability to make points and does not factor in any personal circumstances that you may have and should not be construed as financial advice. You should always seek the advice of an independent, regulated individual when making financial decisions if unsure.

The Barclaycard Avios Plus Balance/Money Transfer offers

0% interest until 1 April 2025 on all balance transfers (4.0% transfer fee applies.) Move balances from other cards and manage one monthly payment, interest-free for 21 months. Offer ends‌ 31 July 2023.

0% interest until 1 March 2025 on all money transfers (4.5% transfer fee applies.) A money transfer lets you access your credit as cash, as quickly as the next working day – handy if you need to pay someone in a hurry or cover an unexpected bill. Interest-free for 20 months. Offer ends‌ 31 July 2023.

With both offers, you will earn 1.5 Avios per £1. This Avios offer is a change to your usual Barclaycard Avios Rewards Rules. Usually, you will not earn Avios for balance or money transfers. Once this offer lapses, you will no longer be able to earn Avios on balance and money transfer and your usual Barclaycard Avios Rewards Rules will apply.

How can I profit from these offers?

For simplicity let’s say you want a 5K balance/money transfer.

Barclaycard Avios Plus Balance transfer offer

If you do the balance transfer offer you will pay a 4% fee on the 5k which equates to £200. You would earn 7,500 Avios for this at 1.5 Avios per £1. This means you’d be paying a huge 2.66p an Avios (we value at 1p) unless you needed to transfer your balance AND you felt this deal was competitive. To work out how much you would be paying for an Avios compare the cost in fees between this card and another and then divide by the amount of Avios you’d get.

Take a look on the MoneySavingExpert website for the latest offers – https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/balance-transfer-credit-cards/

Barclaycard Avios Plus Money Transfer Offer

With the money transfer offer the fee is slightly higher at 4.5% which equates to £225. You would earn 7,5000 Avios for this at 1.5 Avios per £1. Under this offer you’d be paying an even higher rate of 3p an Avios BUT as this is money in the bank you can benefit from something called ‘stoozing’ (you can read more about it on the MoneySavingExpert site here.) Basically, it consists of taking money out on a 0% card and then sticking that money in a high-interest savings account to make a profit.

For example, you could stick the £5,000 in a 5.45% one-year ISA with Virgin Money. After a year it would be worth £5272.50. If you use this to pay off the money transfer you’d be £47.50 & 7,500 Avios up (which we’d value at 1p.)

Another option would be to stick the £5,000 in a 5% 18-month ISA with Skipton. After 18 months (you get 20 months to pay back the money transfer offer interest-free) you’ll have approximately £5,379. If you use this to pay off the money transfer you’d be £154 and 7,500 Avios up (which we’d value at 1p.)

Look at all your ISA & savings account options on the MoneySavingExport website here – https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/savings-accounts-best-interest/

Conclusion

As you can see if you are financially savvy it IS possible to make money/points from these sorts of offers. Beware though, if done badly, stoozing can lead to you losing money so make you understand what you are doing before you start and always seek advice from a regulated independent financial advisor.