ABBEY SUPER ISA Yes or No

I think you've answered your own question. The ISA itself is great (for a year!) but the catch is that you have to invest an equal amount in Abbey's Guaranteed Growth Plan, which is basically a Guaranteed Equity Bond.

This is a pretty lousy product. For a start, you can't touch that half of the money for at least 3.5 years. Also, in a GEB you don't receive any dividend income, and in this particular product you only get half of any rise in the FTSE 100. Yes, your capital is secure, but if the FTSE100 rises 10% or less in 3.5 years, you only get a 5% return, which in real terms is a loss. You really need the FTSE to rise by 40% or more over 3.5 years to get a return that will beat the current top cash ISA rates, and even in that case you only make a 20% return in a period when the market's risen 40%, so you would have been much better off investing in a proper FTSE tracker.

If I were you I wouldn't touch this.

Dramdog, you might look at these funds instead. Note their relative stability (not guaranteed) and high returns compared to what you were looking at. You also get access to your money at any time:

BlackRock UK Absolute Alpha
Cru Investment Portfolio

If you're interested in the possibility of more growth if the stock markets are doing well you might consider these:

Invesco Perpetual Monthly Income Plus
Invesco Perpetual Income
Neptune Global Equity

There are many other options. Normally you'd do this sort of thing inside a stocks and shares ISA and select a range of funds that invest in different ways or places, as these do. That way some are likely to be doing well even at times when others are doing badly.

The chart shows how the volatilities differ for the five that I've mentioned.

Is the GEB a stocks and shares ISA?

http://www.abbey.com/csgs/Satellite?c=GSDetalleProducto&cid=1181581352861&idParent=1181581352392&pagename=Abbey%2FGSDetalleProducto%2FGS_DetProducto

There are two options there, but is this offer tied to the 6 year ISA term (less attractive) due to the fact that it is against ISA regulations to offer a cash ISA product conditional on taking up a 'non' ISA 'savings' or 'investments' product?

This shows that the 'protections' aren't worth much (again!) because providers have been given plenty of let-outs (presumably to help encourage 'trade'?) - like the way A&L were able to tie their ISA to their current account - and therefore limit its availability to non-banking cusomters - whereas they wouldn't have been allowed to tie it to a savings account (Slippy definition of 'savings'?)

(..so I think this Abbey offer is a six year tie in only...)