Santander bank student account 2012/2013: We want your feedback

I enquired about the Santander student account at my local branch on behalf of my 18 year old son, about to start uni. I explained he already had a different santander account and asked if he would still get the £50 if he switched to the student account. Two members of staff agreed he would, but when he went along to open the account, he was told he didn't qualify because he already had a Santander account! After this, I made the same enquiry at another Santander branch and was again told that having an existing Santander account would not prevent this £50 bonus being paid. It seems very misleading to me.

So far so good with Santander, I applied first with the Co-op 3 weeks later i had no reply so phoned and told them to close that account being in need of a student account and already being with Santander i decided to go into a branch and talk to an adviser to see if i could get my existing current account changed into a student one, the guy told me just to fill out a new application so that i get the £50 but he would make sure the account would be added to my existing ones therefore getting around the existing customer problem. I checked me accounts today and my student account is already set up after 3 days which is nice to see and gives me some comfort knowing that i have an account for uni now. All i'm waiting for now is the overdraft to be increased to it's full amount, I deposited the £500 yesterday so hoping that the overdraft will be increased very shortly but so far so good with Santander much better than the co-op in my experience.

I have wasted a morning trying to open an student ac with Santander. After completing most of the online application i couldn't select the relevant year for opening my current account with another bank. For some reason Santander will only let you select up to 2007 ( I opened mine in 2010 and previous bank accounts have now been closed down) there appeared to be no way of getting round this so I phoned their customer helpline (which is actually a technical helpline that transfers you to customer services). The customer services guy was as helpful as he could be be he couldn't understand why I couldn't select the relevant date either. He suggested I visit my local branch which I did. The girl behind the counter said as long as I had my acceptance letter and it stated the length of my course there would be no problem. That 'no problem' lasted for about a minute until the next lady spoke to said I needed a UCAS number. I dont have one of these as I applied directly through the university. She wasn't happy about this and went off to make several phone calls. On her return she told me that because my course was a post graduate course I couldn't have a student ac whether i had an UCAS no or not. When I told her that's not what it said on their website she just shrugged her shoulders. This was my first contact with a Santander bank and I'm not impressed. They do offer a separate PG a/c but they didn't mention that in the branch - More fool them.