Barclays Blue Rewards and Rainy Day Saver

In this article I detail the Barclays Blue Rewards scheme, and Rainy Day Saver, look at what if offers and discuss whether its actually worth it. 

I’ve previously talked about earning cash from bank accounts, but that mostly came via switching incentives, or as I prefer the term bank bribes. Barclays customers typically got a raw deal here, as it was one of the few banks not to offer incentives to switchers. In fact, I personally switched a Barclays account over to First Direct to take advantage of the latter’s £175 switching bonus.

What’s seldom discussed is switching, or opening new accounts to take advantage of rewards or savings offers. When interest rates were near zero that didn’t make sense, but with the Bank of England base rate projected to head towards 5%, savings accounts are beginning to look more attractive.

What is Barclays Blue Rewards?

Barclays Blue Rewards, is a rewards scheme you can choose to add to your Barclays current account.

It’s a pay-to-join scheme in which you get monthly rewards, and money back depending on the Barclays products you hold, e.g., Mortgage, loans, home insurance etc. It also gives you access to the Rainy Day Saver account which is currently one of the highest paying instant savings account in the UK.

How do I join Barclays Blue Rewards scheme?

To be eligible for Blue Rewards, you must first have a Barclays a current account. The good news is that even the basic account is included. This can be opened online or in-branch, where they be able to print your debit card for you there and then.

There’s a £5 monthly fee (up from £3 previously) for Blue Rewards, and you’ll need to keep at least two active direct debits. Additionally, you need to have a minimum of £800 a month paid into the account, though the money doesn’t have to stay there.

Tip: The Barclays basic bank account is also a good one for switching away to other banks to take advantage of incentives.

Blue Rewards is something that’s been in place for a number of years but seldom made sense when you could earn more from switching incentives, and other ‘rewards’ accounts.

In fact, in a 2016 article entitled ‘Barclays Blue Rewards Blues’ (which this article replaces) I questioned whether value of the scheme as joining, or staying with Barclays over switching to the best incentive paying bank accounts at the time, meant losing out on up to £75 a year.

What are benefits of Barclays Blue Rewards scheme?

The benefits of the Blue Rewards scheme are based on your use of Barclays products. In a nutshell you’ll receive the follow:

• £5 current account cash reward
• £3 a month mortgage reward
• £1 a month personal loan reward
• £1.50 – £5 life insurance reward
• 3% cashback on home insurance.

These can and do change. The last time I wrote about the scheme, it was £3 a month to join, but you received £7 back. A net earning of £4 a month or £48 a year.

Changes to the scheme in 2022 mean that your £5 monthly fee, gets you a £5 reward, so your profit from the reward payment is zero. Presumably that makes sense to someone high up in Barclays’ marketing team, but it’s pretty bizarre for to the rest of us.

Extra rewards for additional Barclays products

Just as before, you will get additional rewards for holding certain Barclays products.

Those with a Barclays mortgage will be given an additional £3 a month, life insurance £1.50 a month or £5 with critical illness cover, £1 a month for a personal loan, and 3% cashback on home insurance.

In total, including the £5 loyalty reward i.e., for signing up, you could stand to receive £14 a month total or £9 a month net, which would translate to £108 a year.

When are Blue Rewards paid?

The monthly fee comes out your account on the second working day of the month, and rewards are usually paid on the third working day of each month.

How to get Blue Rewards cash

You would think the money you earn via the Blue Rewards scheme is paid directly in to your bank account. Unfortunately, just like the £5 fee and £5 reward, Barclays has complicated things somewhat.

Blue Rewards cash is held in your Barclays Wallet. To access this and move the cash to your bank account, you need to log into your online banking, or app, and move the funds across to your account.

What are the alternatives to the Barclays Blue Rewards?

Barclays Blue Rewards first started in 2015, but it’s not the only ‘rewards’ account out there.

• Trading 212 card – No monthly fees, 1.5% cashback on spending, and 5.2% AER on deposits.
• Santander 123 Lite – £2 monthly fee but up to 1% on bills, plus 1% cashback on spending and access to a 4% savings account
• NatWest Rewards – £2 monthly fee but £4 back each month plus an extra £1 for using the mobile app
• Halifax Rewards – £5 monthly fee (waived when paying in over £1,500 a month), £5 a month cash back (but must spend £500 a month via debit card)

Bear in mind the benefits from any of these reward accounts above are surpassed by switching bonuses when available.

Barclays Blue Rewards Rainy Day Saver

The real benefit of the Blue Rewards scheme is the Rainy Day Saver, an exclusive savings account for Blue Rewards members, with an interest rate of 5.12%. This is so good right now it almost deserves an entire article on its own.

Base rates in the UK increased have steadily increased to over 5%. Further rises are expect, but the BOE will likely be cautious about going too far.

At over half a percentage point above the Bank of England base rate, the Rainy Day Saver is the best saving account around at the moment. Beating the top digital savings accounts.

Interest is only paid on the first £5,000 so it doesn’t make sense to hold more than that. On that amount you’d stand to gain £256 a year. It’s easy access too, so you can add or withdraw money as you please.

Another plus, is that interest is calculated on a daily basis and paid monthly, meaning you aren’t going to have to wait a full year to earn.

You can only open one account per person, but there’s nothing to stop couples opening one each provided they both have their own Barclays current accounts and are Blue Rewards members.

You can find the Rainy Day Saver in the Products tab in your banking app or online banking, though you might have to click on ‘see all’ as Barclays will try to show you the lower Blue Rewards Saver (2.02% AER) which isn’t what you want.

Barclays Blue Rewards Saver

The Blue Rewards Saver is Barclays main instant access savings account for Blue Rewards members. It carries an interest rate of just 2.02% AER, which pales in comparison to its Rainy Day saver cousin discussed above. In fact, it gets worse, as any month in which you make a withdrawal, the interest rates drops to 0.55% AER.

As far as I can see, the only reason to have a Blue Rewards Saver account would be if you’d reached the £5,000 interest earning deposit limit on the Rainy Day Saver. Even then, there are better accounts to store your money. Kroo Bank offers 4.35% AER on its current, and Chip offers 4.84% AER in its new Instant Access saver account. Both accounts have full FSCS protection for deposits of up to £85,000.

Alternatively, if you were to open a Santander Edge account (see our review), you could gain access to the Edge 7% Saver, which as its name suggests offers 7% AER on balances of up to £4,000.

Is Barclays blue rewards worth joining?

Yes and no. The Rainy Day Saver might have a headline leading rate, but it alone is probably not worth switching your main account to Barclays. That being said, if you’re prepared to go the hassle of opening up a new account solely to access the Rainy Day Saver, then you would stand to gain versus some of the best alternative savings accounts.

The Barclays Blue Rewards scheme itself has never been worth it on its own, and that was when the reward payment was larger than the fee. As it stands now it’s even worse. Those with only the current account don’t gain anything at all.

It says something that Barclays often hovers around the bottom of the pile when it comes gaining new customers, and is regularly up there with the worst for net customer losses. The fact that it refuses to compete with the likes of HSBC, Lloyds, Nationwide etc… on switching bonuses goes a long way towards that.

The opportunity cost of staying with, or joining Barclays rather than switching to another bank is between £125 to £200. Even, if you have other Barclays products, Blue Rewards still doesn’t make up the difference.

Maxing out the rewards would earn you a net £108 plus possibly another £10 on home insurance, and then you’d be tied in to a mortgage, loan, life insurance etc… that is unlikely to be cheapest around.

The Rainy Day Saver is it’s saviour

Its one saving grace is the Rainy Day Saver, which isn’t even a Blue Rewards product. It needs Blue Rewards to access though, and that’s where the dilemma comes in. Taking full advantage of the account would net you £256 a year, while sums above the £5,000 interest paying limit could be placed elsewhere for maximum benefit.

In contrast, Santander’s Edge saver, is now paying 7% AER on balances up to £4,000, plus the Edge account offers cashback on certain types of spending. Making it the highest paying savings around.

Want more rewards?

If you’re looking for rewards outside of savings accounts there are a number ‘best buy’ accounts, debit cards and reward cards available to help maximise your spending power.

Firstly, if you ever shop at Sainsbury’s, Argos, or Homebase, or fill up at Esso make sure you’ve got a Nectar card. We have a complete guide to Nectar and Nectar points value that could save you on weekly shop or fuel fill-up.

Secondly, Barclay’s standard visa debit card doesn’t pay any cashback on spending yet by opening a Chase account (see our full review) and using it alongside your Barclays account, you could earn 1% cashback on debit card spending, and benefit from a 3.1% easy access saver as somewhere to put away additional cash once you’ve maxed out your Barclays Rainy Day savings account.

For those that are willing to take a more hands on approach to rewards, consider the Plutus card. It offers 3% cashback on debit card spending, plus a free perk (e.g. Netflix, Prime, Disney plus) worth up to £10 a month.

Finally, and sticking with the ‘blue’ theme. If you are considered a ‘key worker’ e.g. working in social services, emergency services, military, police etc.. then make sure you see our guide on Blue Light Card for some of the best discounts on high street shopping, entertainment, and activities.