First Direct Regular Saver 8%

adindas

Hi All

Thank you for all of you guys who provide response to my queries. This forum is great as people are sharing their knowledge.

From my understanding, the fee is avoidable given that:
1. I apply for Credit Card and given that it get approved, I will not pay £10.00 monthly fee as long as I am still holding their Credit Card. Is this option possible even if we did not use it frequently. Is there any dormancy fee attached to credit Card. OR
2. I apply for a saving account and maintain balance of £1.00. What kind of flexible account do you suggest ?.

3. Also my understanding is that if we have done 1 or 2 we do not need to fund it £1,500.00. Am I correct ?

4. The £1,500 monthly finding and Switching Services of our old A/C from other bank is only useful to get Switching Incentive of £100.00.

5. If we mean to get £100 incentive, we only need to pay for 3 consecutive months and as soon as we get £100 we could stop it and there will be no £10 fee to pay as long as we keep 1 or 2 running, am I right here ?.

Thank You for your time answering my question

ADINDAS

blueberrypie

To answer 1, 2 and 3: The e-saver account will avoid the monthly fee on the First Account - I think this is the easiest way, and it doesn't involve holding or applying for a credit-card. If you have the e-saver, you don't need to fund the First Account with £1500/month.

To answer 4 and 5: To get the switching incentive, you do need to fund the account with £1500/month for the first three months (iirc), but you don't need to use FD's switching service. Once the switching incentive has been paid, there's no need to continue to fund with £1500/month.

If you later want to claim the payment for moving away from FD, you have to have used the switching service when opening the account.

adindas

Dear blueberrypie

Thank you for your time answering my questions.
It seems it is dead easy to get the £100 incentive, and to get advantage of 8% monthly saver. This is what I will do.

1. I will open 1st Direct account
2. At the same time I will open eSaver and I will put £1 (say) into this saving a/c.
3. As soon as I get 1st direct account, I will open Regular Saver A/C which pays 8%.
4. I will do in and out FP transfer every month from my another a/c in other bank in the sum of £1500 and back in the same day to the origin a/c until I get £100 incentive and then I will stop it.
5. I will keep the balance of my 1st direct a/c as low as £1.00 and eSaver a/c
6. As soon as my RSA mature I will close both my 1st direct A/C and eSaving and RSA. The reason why I am doing this because in the future there will be the same scheme might take place and if you already have a bank a/c you will not qualify. Some bank (like Santander) also requires us that there must be a gap for at least 3 months before we could reapply again

Is there anything am I missing here ?

Thank you

ADINDAS

blueberrypie wrote: »

To answer 1, 2 and 3: The e-saver account will avoid the monthly fee on the First Account - I think this is the easiest way, and it doesn't involve holding or applying for a credit-card. If you have the e-saver, you don't need to fund the First Account with £1500/month.

To answer 4 and 5: To get the switching incentive, you do need to fund the account with £1500/month for the first three months (iirc), but you don't need to use FD's switching service. Once the switching incentive has been paid, there's no need to continue to fund with £1500/month.

If you later want to claim the payment for moving away from FD, you have to have used the switching service when opening the account.

blueberrypie

adindas wrote: »

6. As soon as my RSA mature I will close both my 1st direct A/C and eSaving and RSA. The reason why I am doing this because in the future there will be the same scheme might take place and if you already have a bank a/c you will not qualify. Some bank (like Santander) also requires us that there must be a gap for at least 3 months before we could reapply again

First Direct's t&c currently state (and have said the same for as long as I've been aware of them) that the incentives are only available to those who haven't banked with FD before. For me, having the FD current account is better than the theoretical possibility that there might sometime in the future be another incentive I could take advantage of.

You can get bonus payments from referring other people though...

exel1966

VT82 wrote: »

At Halifax, I get £5 per month as a reward for paying in my salary, I get an extra 0.2% on my newly transferred ISA, and I should soon be getting £5 most months for spending on my Clarity Card.

I therefore don't want to transfer away from Halifax.

I still have an old current account open. Could I create a couple of duff direct debits on that account (cheapo magazine subscriptions for example), use their switching service to open a First Direct current account and transfer the DDs from my old current account, and cycle £1,500 into the FD account from savings or my Halifax current account? Would this be a way of getting their £100 introductory bonus and the 8% regular saver?

You could still get the £5 pm from Halifax and extra 0.02% without paying in your salary or having any DD's on the account. Just FP in at least £1k and FP it straight back out a few seconds later from your new FD account perhaps who permit manual FP's in/out up to £10K.
There never has been a requirement to pay a salary into a reward account to get the free fiver, it's just a suggested way of crediting the account.

Rob_192

hpsauce wrote: »

Why does this not come up on the top picks for regular savers under specialised alernatives due to the extra conditions?:mad:

Because FD only anounced it yesterday!! Give the MSE guys a chance.

adindas

Dear blueberrypie

Thank you again. Now I already know what I am going to do next.


ADINDAS

blueberrypie wrote: »

First Direct's t&c currently state (and have said the same for as long as I've been aware of them) that the incentives are only available to those who haven't banked with FD before. For me, having the FD current account is better than the theoretical possibility that there might sometime in the future be another incentive I could take advantage of.

You can get bonus payments from referring other people though...

uzubairu

Just been on the website to transfer money and didn't even know about this.

Just opened one. :j
I've got several regular savers for our mortgage overpayments and this is great news.

Keepitcool

I might have to have a look at this savings account

ginvzt

I have open one for myself, and will get OH to open one too. We are getting our offset mortgage with them, but this is better than offsetting rate.