Whats best - A+L or Haliax

alana171

I want to swicth my current account (currently with RBS and PAY £6.95 p/m for the privelage:mad:) but am looking to do something better.

I have seen two accounts which have caught my eye:

Halifax Reward current account - pays £5 p/m to me, ovedraft is £1 per day tho.... no interest as they pay you the fiver obviously

or

Alliance and Leicester Premier Direct Current account
5% AER first year, 0% ovedraft for first year then a usage fee of 50p per day up to £5 after that for going into the red
I have also found this on Quidco with £45 cashback

I normally get about £1200 wages each month, but sometimes I creep into my overdraft (but Im tying to get out of this) so would maybe use this facility for a few days here and there (perhaps)

What do you tink is best as Im not very good at this kind of thing!

Thanks for any advice:D

JacksterD

Halifax have a much better reputation than A+L, although Halifax's overdraft fees are fairly high, you might want to try to budget to make sure you can stay out of your overdraft if you're gonna go with them.

blueberrypie

alana171 wrote: »

Halifax Reward current account - pays £5 p/m to me, ovedraft is £1 per day tho.... no interest as they pay you the fiver obviously

or

Alliance and Leicester Premier Direct Current account
5% AER first year, 0% ovedraft for first year then a usage fee of 50p per day up to £5 after that for going into the red
I have also found this on Quidco with £45 cashback

I normally get about £1200 wages each month, but sometimes I creep into my overdraft (but Im tying to get out of this) so would maybe use this facility for a few days here and there (perhaps)

Halifax vastly better customer service than A&L. If you're not very good at managing banking, you do not want to have to try to manage with A&L's on-line banking, which I don't think is fully understood by anyone other than the person who originally designed it (and I'm not sure even he/she does).

The A&L 0% OD offer sounds good, but lots of people who switched for it have found they didn't get it - it's all subject to approval - and if you go overdrawn at all, even for a matter of hours, you will be charged £25 - so bang goes a chunk of your incentive.

Halifax is indeed expensive for overdrafts, but if you keep your OD usage to five or fewer days per month, the fiver Reward will cover the charges.

sarabeth

I would go with the Halifax option.

I (Bank of Scotland Customer Living in England) was getting annoyed with still not being able to do all my banking in a branch of Halifax so, tempted by the £100 and good interest rate I changed to A+L about a year ago. One of the worst decisions I have made in a while.

Although I applied online they managed to get my name wrong on my card and took them 4 cards before they had changed it on their numerous systems. They do not have 24hr phone banking (halifax do - uk based) and most of the customer service people I have spoken to have been down right rude and it is very phone banking based. I went into the branch with several different enquires (from direct debits to changing address) and all they could do was refer me to phone banking.

I would stay far away from A+L.

Gone back to HBOS having discovered that they are actually quite good in the big picture.

izools

Halifax.

All you need to do is search for "Santander Complaints" to see why

opinions4u

A&L if you regularly overdraw.

Halifax if you rarely/never overdraw.

sarabeth wrote: »

I (Bank of Scotland Customer Living in England) was getting annoyed with still not being able to do all my banking in a branch of Halifax

Blimey, what can't you do?

dizzy2274

sarabeth wrote: »

I would go with the Halifax option.

I (Bank of Scotland Customer Living in England) was getting annoyed with still not being able to do all my banking in a branch of Halifax so, tempted by the £100 and good interest rate I changed to A+L about a year ago. One of the worst decisions I have made in a while.

Although I applied online they managed to get my name wrong on my card and took them 4 cards before they had changed it on their numerous systems. They do not have 24hr phone banking (halifax do - uk based) and most of the customer service people I have spoken to have been down right rude and it is very phone banking based. I went into the branch with several different enquires (from direct debits to changing address) and all they could do was refer me to phone banking.

I would stay far away from A+L.

Gone back to HBOS having discovered that they are actually quite good in the big picture.

I've had virtually the same experience with A&L, wish I didn't switch from Halifax. I am now in the process of switching my DDs to halifax again, which is a nightmare, having to contact all my utility suppliers.

BigAndy_79

Halifax. No-one has mentioned the fact that they will give you a 120 day interest-free overdraft when switching.

Alliance & Leicester good on paper (good switching incentive, Quidco cashback, 5/6% interest, etc. The drawbacks, as previously mentioned, are the phone and interest-only access to your account, with the online banking being awful & (in my own experience) many of their contact centre workers being rather unhelpful and unprofessional.

Hope this helps

Innocent_Guy

Halifax - Santander are clowns

u02ja3

I'd got with halifax aswell, they're pretty good when things go wrong (lose purse etc), and if ou've gotm ore than one account with them, they're internet banking is really easy to use and to move money around in.

alana171

:DThanks for all your replies.
I have applied for the Halifax one as they do seem to get the better reviews!
Also their 120 days overdraft deal when switching was a good incentive too - although I hope I dont have to use it.
Halifax £5 reward sure beats the £6.95 I pay RBS each month for nothing!