Halifax's switching offer & my existing account

sbutler1

Firstly, I apologise if the question has been answered elsewhere but I couldn't find it myself.

Basically, I want to know what will happen to my existing account if I try to take advantage of the £100 incentive that Halifax are offering.

At the moment, I'm with HSBC and have a student account. I never actually graduated and my interest free overdraft has never been in danger of going anywhere so I've taken full advantage of it.
If I want to open a Halifax reward account and if they do the whole switching rigmarole will the HSBC realise I'm no student and take away the overdraft facility?

Getting £100 is not really worth it if I'm forced to pay back £1,500.

stqueen

Usually, the interest free element of a student overdraft 'expires' after the period you are studying - so for example, with my Natwest Student Account, the overdraft was interest free for 4 years, and after the 4 years climbed up to an extorionately high % (which then prompted me to pay it all back, pronto!) This is probably the case with yours too.

Do you live in this overdraft or do you just use it for emergencies? As the Halifax Reward current account also offers an overdraft?

hermante

sbutler1 wrote: »

At the moment, I'm with HSBC and have a student account. I never actually graduated and my interest free overdraft has never been in danger of going anywhere so I've taken full advantage of it.

If you aren't studying any more, you're defrauding HSBC. Why is your overdraft not going anywhere? Has the expected date of graduation you gave them passed?

If I want to open a Halifax reward account and if they do the whole switching rigmarole will the HSBC realise I'm no student and take away the overdraft facility?

How will they find out you aren't a student? Students don't have to have student accounts.

Getting £100 is not really worth it if I'm forced to pay back £1,500.

If you are considering a reward account, I assume you have £1000 in liquid funds. So this means you need to have at least £2500 in a savings account, £1500 to pay off the overdraft and £1000 to move in and out every month.

If the £2500 is earning 3%, that's £75 a year. If you switch to Halifax, you get £100 instantly, and £60 during the year, so after one year, you have profited more than you would have if you kept the overdraft for 2 years. Unless you were studying medicine and quit in 1st year, I think it's highly unlikely that HSBC will extend your overdraft for much longer than that...

If you don't have £2500, you won't benefit from the reward account anyway, unless you borrow it from your mum. In that case, give her £75 after one year and it would be similar to keeping it in a savings account.