Barclaycard is scrapping its flagship loyalty points scheme 'Freedom' after just two years, giving customers just two months to spend all of their reward points.

Barclaycard said that the decision had been taken "in the light of a changing rewards market" and following feedback from customers. More than a million people use the scheme, which was the third biggest in the UK when it was launched, and customers will have until July 26 to redeem any Reward Money balances. It is thought that the Freedom scheme did not attract sufficient interest from customers, despite substantial investment from Barclaycard, which ran a huge campaign last year to try to increase membership. At launch, the bank said that Freedom was available to "over eight million cardholders", but in fact only just over a million customers used it. Unlike popular cashback cards, which offer customers a percentage of their overall spend on the card as cash, the Freedom programme is more restrictive. Customers earn reward points for spending in selected stores, which can only be spent in an even more limited number of stores....Read more here: Barclaycard scraps loyalty points scheme