Savings Advice for my Millions..

If you have a spouse/partner, you could double up on the accounts you have already.

Otherwise look at HSBC and/or M&S for opening bonuses and linked regular savers.

Or keep things simple and use a Virgin Regular Saver for 2.25% interest on up to £250 per month. Withdrawals permitted.

I don't have any current accounts to switch

You could always open one as a "sacrificial" account.....

linuxpenguins wrote: »

do you think I could open another flexi account and then a tsb classic plus and switch? Wouldn't Nationwide be annoyed that I opened an account and then moved it like a week later?

Personally I'd avoid opening too many sacrificial accounts with the same bank, I'd use a different bank for the next one and there are options which don't pose a significant risk of missing out on a future switching bonus (look for banks which have never offered a bonus for switching).

The main reason I'd do this is to avoid getting a bad reputation with a particular bank - you never know when you might want to re-establish a relationship with them in the future and there is no point giving them an additional reason to turn you down.

Another consideration is that unlike most other banks, Nationwide is a building society owned by its members. I'm not suggesting it is a major issue (just something to be aware of), but people 'taking advantage' of Nationwide are affecting the members (i.e. many of the people offering advice on here) rather than shareholders.

Ok, it is selective morality to think it is ok for shareholders to suffer some loss, but not building society members - and many people offering advice on here will be bank shareholders too - but I think there is a slight distinction between the two and for me personally I feel the building society model needs to be treated with a little more respect.

linuxpenguins wrote: »

so if I open a 'sacrificial account' wont they be annoyed ive opened it and moved it?

Difficult to say - perhaps it is unlikely they will care about one account, 'they' may not even notice. But if you do it more frequently then perhaps it will count against you. Hence my 'safety first' approach of not just using the same bank all the time.

You were concerned about your credit rating - you credit history is the information that gets shared around, what might be more of a concern is the information a bank might gather about you which it keeps to itself - like how frequently you open new accounts, how many transactions are made or weeks elapse before you switch away. The problem is we really do not know.

What we do know is people get refused accounts for no apparent reason - and banks can close accounts by giving notice, without having to justify the reasons why.

So whilst an occasional sacrificial account is unlikely to be a problem, like with most things in life, try not to take the proverbial

P.s. If you need to have active direct debits transferred as part of the switch you'll need to keep the account running for quite a bit more than a week.