£100 for joining Alliance + Leicester

kissmeimposh

Will those who already have an Alliance current account get a carpetbag windfall in October?

nzseries1

LittleVoice wrote: »

No need to close account from which switched according to my reading of:

"Switch from your existing bank with our Premier Switching Service. We will take care of switching all your standing orders, direct debits and your salary to your new account. We can even close your old bank account and arrange for your balance to be transferred. "

I'm SURE at first I read that it said something like "You must use our switching service to transfer everything and then your old account must be closed". But now I look again and I can't see that wording anywhere. Hmmm. How bizarre.

nzseries1

kissmeimposh wrote: »

As we all favour recycling, , £500 need not mean £500 in the sense that:
You can actually depost £250 to your A&L (and can do this by the way at the post office which is most convenient) then go round the corn to a cash machine and withdraw the £250 and then put it in again. Or you can do this five times with £100, depending on how tight your cashflow is.

True, but what a pain! Although, this does sound like something I would do to avoid an "under-funding fee" of £5!

roddydogs

a&akay wrote: »

3 options come up at the end of the application process:
1. Use their free SO/DD transfer service. You must do this to get the £100.
2. Transfer your salary. It doesn't say you must do this but you must fund monthly with £500 from somewhere. Mine will go in instantly from Barclays and straight back out again (to Barclays to fund my SOs out from that account set up for the end of the month). I didn't opt.
3. Close you old account. I opted for this as I have 2 Nationwide Flex accounts from an old £100 deal and I was fed up with seeing 2 and picking the right one on the card reader. I set up a £1 SO on this account so they had an SO to transfer under 1. (I put £5 in it on the assumption this gets transferred on closure. Edit: it does, just checked T&Cs).

How do you get 2 a/cs for the same Flex a/c? dont they check? Also suppose you have a current a/c with no SOs or DD in it-you just sign the form anyway, wont you still get the £100? you may genuinely have no Sos or DDs.

LittleVoice

kissmeimposh wrote: »

Will those who already have an Alliance current account get a carpetbag windfall in October?

If that's a serious question the answer is there will be no "carpetbag windfall" for A&L current account holders. These account holders are customers of a bank, not members of a mutual society.

Customers of A&L are likely to get a windfall of even worse service if Santander do take over A&L - you only have to look at Abbey to see that.

Milarky

LittleVoice wrote: »

If that's a serious question the answer is there will be no "carpetbag windfall" for A&L current account holders. These account holders are customers of a bank, not members of a mutual society.

Customers of A&L are likely to get a windfall of even worse service if Santander do take over A&L - you only have to look at Abbey to see that.

It did cross my mind that MBNA issued A&L credit cards might be 'recalled' at some point and Abbey/Santander issue replacements with 'attractive' deals?

LittleVoice

Milarky wrote: »

It did cross my mind that MBNA issued A&L credit cards might be 'recalled' at some point and Abbey/Santander issue replacements with 'attractive' deals?

Good thought. Like they did with Abbey credit card and offered 5% off supermarket shopping for a number of months (at the end of which I stopped using the card).

M_Thomson

PBA wrote: »

They're still two totally separate banks at the moment, so no problem with switching the Abbey account to A&L. Come October, assuming the deal goes through, you'll just end up with 2 Abbey accounts. There's no restriction on having more than one account with Abbey, so would be fine.

How do you know this? Do you work for Abbey? How do you know that they will not continue to run both banks separately?

savingpennies

It's unlikely. Why run two branches on the same high street when you can run one? Look at what happened to the Woolwich when Barclays took over - they kept the Woolwich brand for mortgages but closed the Woolwich branches. When larger Building societies have taken over smaller ones they do the same. It doesn't make economic sense to run two separate banks.

seaglimpses

This offer looks great for me as I never earn any real interest and would use the account for billing so plenty would go in then straight back out! I am concerned about some of the comments regarding service though as the reason I am looking to switch is because I am so unhappy with Barclays. Is the service something that have caused many people have had problems with? Thanks.