Barclaycard premium plus credit card review

Corporate credit cards can do lots of things, from earning you travel rewards to helping your business manage its cash flow.

Some cards are optimised for one type of feature, such as travel perks, others are designed to cover a lot of bases and potentially make the running of your business that little bit smoother, especially in the early days.

In this article, we’ll be examining the impressive range of features, perks and rewards available with the award-winning Barclaycard Premium Plus credit card.

And if you are interested in an alternative option to credit cards we'll touch on Wise Business Cards, debit card that allows you to spend in 150+ countries and earn 0.5% cashback on your spending.

💡 Learn more about Wise Business

What is Barclaycard Premium Plus and how does it work?

Barclaycard Premium Plus is an award-winning business credit card with rewards, discounts and useful product features like cashback on purchases plus tools and resources aimed at helping you manage and grow your business.¹

The card isn’t explicitly marketed toward small businesses and sole traders, but the benefits and eligibility criteria, which we’ll cover later in this article, suggest that it could be a good choice for owner-operated businesses looking to manage cash flow and earn some rewards in the process. It may also be suitable for early stage businesses that may not have a need for a more comprehensive corporate credit card.

The Barclaycard Premium Plus business card is what you might describe as an ‘all rounder’ of a business credit card, with a range of benefit types. With competitive foreign exchange fees² and enhanced travel insurance, the Barclaycard Premium Plus might be particularly useful for small UK businesses that accept payments across borders and whose staff travel abroad.

Rewards on offer include:

• Up to 66% off AA breakdown cover³, ideal for businesses that need to hit the road with confidence
• 10% cashback on your first year’s subscription to AXA Health business healthcare plan,³ handy as an employee perk or just to use yourself
• Free Freshbooks accounting, no strings and yours to use from day 1³

Through its partnership with Mastercard’s Strive programme, this card also provides a range of benefits and perks aimed at growing UK businesses.

These include expert articles and guides for small businesses, connection to the Eagle Labs entrepreneurial community, plus lifestyle perks for you and your team including pre-sale access to in-demand festivals and shows.³

Is Barclaycard Premium Plus a safe provider?

Account security is a top concern for any business, but for businesses just getting started who need to focus on their trade without worrying about fraud and scams, it’s an absolute must-have.

Barclaycard protects your credit card and personal information in a number of important ways.

These include¹:

• Fraud protection, offering a refund plus interest on any fraudulent transactions.
• 24/7 monitoring. If Barclaycard’s systems spot something suspicious, they’ll either contact you in person or alert you within 60 seconds.
• Secure Customer Authentication (SCA). This lets you securely confirm transactions with the Barclaycard app.
• Cardholder misuse insurance.

Barclaycard Premium Plus credit card review

So is the Barclaycard Premium Plus credit card a good fit for your business?

Let’s take a look at the features, fees, rewards and limits to get a clear picture.

The BarclayCard Premium Plus credit card is feature-rich, with 6 months¹ interest free on purchases from account opening, 0.5% cashback on all business purchases up to £400 per year, a 2% reduction on the exchange rate for transactions made abroad, plus free travel insurance when you pay for your trip using the card.

There’s an annual fee of £150^⁴ and a relatively low advertised opening credit of £1,200. Although the terms and conditions state that your credit limit is based on individual circumstances, so you may be eligible for a higher one.

There are a couple of limitations to be aware of before applying for this card. Firstly, only company directors or owners are eligible to apply. And all employees within the business must be 18 or over.

The Barclaycard Premium Plus business credit card’s advertised features make it tempting.

But what about customer experience?

Barclaycard doesn’t have a business page on Trustpilot, but it does have a page for the Barclaycard brand. And based on more than 3k reviews, it has a low rating of 1.3.^⁵

Quite a few of the reviews refer to poor digital experience. Difficulty updating details and unreliable website performance stood out as potential red flags for businesses that prefer slick usability.

Barclaycard Premium Plus credit card fey features

This card boasts a comprehensive collection of features, including:

• Free travel insurance when you pay for your trip with the Premium Plus business credit card
• 6 months interest free on purchases from account opening
• 0.5% cashback on purchases, up to £400 per year
• Additional cardholders, with the option to give each their own spending limits and misuse insurance up to £15,000^⁶ subject to terms and conditions
• Business and lifestyle perks for all cardholders

Barclaycard Premium Plus business card fees

The Barclaycard Premium Plus business card fees and terms are comprehensive, so worth paying close attention to. They breakdown like this^⁴:

• The Annual fee is £150
• The representative APR is 55.5% variable
• Purchases attract an APR of 19.3%
• Cash withdrawals and ‘cash-like transactions’, such as wire transfers, money orders and buying traveller’s cheques, attract an APR of 32.7% per year variable
• The international, or ‘non-sterling’ fee is 3% of the transaction amount, with a minimum charge of £3, plus a 0.99% non-sterling transaction fee
• The minimum monthly payment is the greater of £5 (or the full statement balance if it’s less than £5) or “an amount equal to any interest, default fees, account usage fees or account or card fees that have been added to your account since your last statement, plus 1% of the rest of your statement balance”
• There’s a £12 late fee if you fail to pay the minimum monthly payment within 25 days of your statement being produced

Barclaycard Premium Plus card limits

The advertised opening credit limit is £1,200 which may seem low for a corporate credit card, but the terms and conditions advise that Barclaycard will offer a limit based on your personal circumstances.

Barclaycard Premium Plus customer support

As well as online account self-servicing for things like updating details, Barclaycard Premium Plus has a range of digital content on their website, easily navigated to from the product page, designed to answer common account management questions.

If you can’t find what you’re looking for, need help in a hurry, want to report fraud or just need to speak to a human, Barclaycard’s phone lines are open 24/7.^⁷

How to apply for a Barclaycard Premium Plus credit card?

The quickest way to apply is online.

To make sure you can complete the application, have the following information to hand:

• Business details, including address.
• Your business bank details. You’ll find this in your statement.
• Financial information, including your turnover and net profit before tax. If you’re an early stage business, you may need information from your business plan too.
• Details of business partners or other business owners, such as dates of birth, home addresses and up to 3 years of address histories.

To be eligible to apply, you need:^⁸

• To be aged 18 or over
• To be a company director or owner
• To not be bankrupt or in bankruptcy proceedings
• To be meeting your current financial commitments

And the business must:

• Have a current UK Bank or Building Society account
• Have a turnover of between £10,000 per year and £6,500,000 per year, or if a new business, a business plan demonstrating you expect to turn over £10,000 or more in a year
• Not have been declined a commercial credit card in the past 6 months

Wise Business cards: international expenses made easy

If your business operates internationally and your employees are regularly spending time abroad for work, Wise Business cards could be the ideal alternative to a business credit card.

These contactless international debit cards work for spending and cash withdrawals in 150+ countries worldwide, with no foreign transaction fees or subscription fees.

Whenever someone spends or withdraws cash overseas, the currency is converted at the mid-market exchange rate, with just a small conversion fee to pay.

There’s also 0.5% cashback paid on all eligible spending.

Once you have a Wise Business account, you can order unlimited cards for just a one-off fee of £3 a card. You can add employees to your account, with controlled access - and you get full control over spending their limits.

What’s more, it’s easy to integrate Wise with your accounting tools, and your accountant can view team spending for smarter collaboration.

Get started with Wise Business 🚀

The Barclaycard Premium Plus doesn’t advertise it explicitly, but it looks to be geared toward early stage businesses and sole traders that wouldn’t necessarily benefit from a suite of corporate style perks, but who want to access a suite of useful business tools and rewards, plus helpful advice and access to a community of likeminds.

The fees and charges, plus discounts on things like foreign transactions all point to a product designed to be helpful during the early stages of running a business.

The associated benefits help this card stand out. Barclaycard clearly has a specific business in mind by offering discounts with AA and AXA, plus free use of Freshbooks accounting software. And although not classed specifically as credit card rewards, the knowledge-based perks included via the Mastercard Strive programme seem to offer genuine value.

Sources used for this article

Sources checked on 26/06/2025