Barclaycard High 5 Cashback Card fee-free for a year

We look at the benefits and booby traps of Barclaycard's high-paying High 5 Cashback credit card, and compare it to the other top deals.

Barclaycard has a high-paying cashback card that's now fee-free for a year.

The Barclaycard High 5 card is convoluted, as you'll soon see, so it's for those who are serious about saving money or for those who do lots of transactions each month. After writing more about it, I'll compare it to the best alternatives I can find.

The Barclaycard High 5 Cashback credit card

A small family spending around £80 a week could easily ratchet up more than £120 cashback with this card in the first year from grocery shopping alone (around £100 after paying the £24 fee in 12 months' time) and around £65 cashback in following years (£40ish after the fee). But you get cashback on all spending, not just groceries, so all additional spending will boost your cashback.

The main cashback rules are:

• 6% cashback for the first three months on your biggest five transactions per month.
• The 6% cashback is limited to £2,000 spend in total over the first three months (which is £120 cashback).
• 2% cashback after the first three months on your biggest five transactions per month.
• 0.5% on all other transactions (i.e. not the biggest five).
• 4% cashback on your five biggest transactions for one month only every year from the second year, on the card's anniversary month, with no specific limit to the spending.
• To get the 6%, 4% or 2% cashback, you have to do at least 15 transactions on the card in that month.
• The annual cashback limit on Barclaycard's High 5 cashback card is £75,000 “unless we tell you otherwise” the Barclaycard small print warns.
• You'll lose all your cashback if you close your account before you get the next annual statement.
• The annual fee is £24, although it's free for a year.

In summary: do at least 15 transactions per month with the Barclaycard and the biggest five will net you 2%+ cashback, the rest 0.5%. Less than 15 transactions per month and all of them will earn you 0.5%.

If you're short on transactions, you could drag it out to 15 per month in the supermarket, perhaps using self-service counters to pay for your smallest items separately.

Whenever you choose to close your account, you're going to have to pay the following year's fee of £24 or you'll lose the current year's cashback. That's because of the rule that you'll lose all your cashback in a year if you close the account before the annual statement arrives – which is after the next year has started.

The 4% anniversary cashback has no specific limit – just the overall cashback limit of up to £75,000. So you could do all of your major purchases in this month every year.

If the Barclaycard High 5 seems too confusing and complicated here are your best alternatives:

For Asda shoppers

The Asda Money Credit Card will pay 1% on all your Asda shopping, not just groceries. You also get 1% off Asda petrol, but that might only be worth it if your Asda regularly offers you the cheapest petrol. You get 0.5% cashback on all non-Asda spending.

A small family could easily earn more than £40 a year on their grocery shopping alone, with all other spending earning a fair rate on top.

There is no annual fee and no limit to the cashback you can earn.

For Sainsbury's shoppers

The Sainsbury's Cashback Credit Card is a slightly trickier deal. You get 5% cashback in the first three months (up to a maximum of £1,000 of spending per month).

After that, you could get a flat £5 cashback per month. You must spend at least £250 in Sainsbury's and at least £250 on purchases anywhere every month to earn your £5. Funnily, if you spend over £500 per month every month on food, this might even encourage you to do half your shopping at another supermarket, if one is convenient!

This works out at 1% cashback on everything.

However, the more you spend over £500 per month on goods and services that you could pay for by credit card, the more the potential cashback percentage rate shrinks. Spend £1,000 and you still only earn £5, so your cashback rate sinks to 0.5% on all your spending. That's ok, but not brilliant.

1% to 3% cashback on specific spending

The Santander 123 Credit Card pays 1% on groceries, 2% at major department stores and 3% on petrol, trains and London transport. From their groceries alone, a single person should just about pay off the £24 annual charge (which is waived in the first year if you are a Santander 123 current account holder).

Anything extra is a bonus. A small family might have £15 or more left over from their grocery spend alone after the annual charge. (£40+ in the first year.)

3% cashback on petrol and transport is a fantastic rate, even with a limit on monthly spend of £300. 2% on your department store spending is great too, but that's no good to you if you like to get a much cheaper price for your shopping online, or if you also want cashback in restaurants or for buying a car, for example.

American Express Platinum Cashback Credit Card

With this American Express card, a small family might get cashback of £65+ after deducting the £25 annual fee in the first year on their groceries alone, thanks to earning 1.25% interest on all spending and 5% on up to £2,000 of spend in the first three months.

In following years, the 1.25% cashback rate will earn you £50+ in cashback just from the groceries, which is £25+ after deducting the fee. Since you earn 1.25% on all other spending as well – far more than the more typical 0.5% – it could add up very nicely if you put petrol, transport and household goods on the card.

High spenders (£10,000+ per year) will earn a little extra cashback on the anniversary month each year.

As with the Barclaycard, you'll lose cashback you've accumulated over the year if you close your card account in that period, which means you'll have to pay the next year's fee before you can close the account if you want to retain the current year's cashback.

Fewer retailers take American Express than those who take MasterCard and Visa.

Pay your bills or lose the cashback

With all cashback cards, if you don't pay off your balance in full each month, the interest you'll pay on your debt will destroy the cashback you've earned. If you miss payments, you'll not only pay interest and charges, you'll lose cashback – possibly everything you've earned.

As normal, cashback is on purchases only. This excludes cash withdrawals, mobile phone top-ups, balance transfers, gambling transactions and refunded purchases, and foreign-currency exchange. Barclaycard, and potentially others, also exclude insurance premiums.

Finally, all cards will offer linked 'deals'. Beware of these. Now they've tied you into a card, it's easy for them to offer, for example “commission-free” travel money. But in reality it is still expensive because your provider gives you a bad exchange rate. Or the provider offers 10% off insurance – which is still expensive because others are cheaper even without the discount.

Cash in with reward cards

Your alternative to cashback is reward cards, but reward points are rarely as rewarding as even a basic cashback card paying 0.5%, and such cards come with more psychological traps too.

That said, there are a couple out now that are potentially rewarding enough. The AA card and the John Lewis card look like they might be good choices, provided you are devoted to those companies. If not, you'll be better off shopping around for the products and services they offer than using their cards.

More on credit cards:

The best credit cards to use on your travels

The best reward credit cards

The best 0% balance transfer credit cards

The best low-fee balance transfer credit cards

The best cashback credit cards

The best 0% purchase credit cards

Best credit cards for bad credit borrowers