Halifax Ultimate reward current acc - 6.25% on your savings?

newfoundglory

The Halifax website says that if you sign-up to the £10 a month ultimate reward current account you can get an extra 1% interest on certain savings accounts... it says:

"1% extra interest on the standard rate paid on our Halifax Guaranteed Saver or Halifax Instant Saver account, whether you’re opening a new one or already have an account"

The current rate on the Guaranteed Saver is 5.25% AER ... surely this means a 6.25% instant access savings account!!!!!

So, if you have enough money to save, it actually makes sense to pay the £10 a month just to get the extra interest (plus you get the nice "freebies" on top). The cost of this account is therefore £120 per year.

The difference between 5.7% at IceSave and the 6.25% at halifax is 0.55% (or 0.44% after net 20% tax).

In which case, if you have at least £27,500 to save you can "break even" with an "extra" £121 of interest with Halifax at 6.25% against icesave.

If you had £27,500+ you will start to make more interest at halifax than with icesave. Assuming you were a basic rate tax payer, after tax you would make £100 more per year at Halifax than icesave on 50k, an extra £320 on 100k or £540 extra on 150k!

highet

i thought that too but just checked with halifax and the rate for normal customers is 4.25% on the guaranteed saver acc - having a qualifying current account eg ultimate reward boosts this by 1% to 5.25%

thumshie

yeah, not sure i like the wording on the web site, maybe they'll make it more obvious:

Web_site wrote:

To get this rate:
....
Pay £1,000 every month into a qualifying Halifax or Bank of Scotland personal current account or £50 in to a qualifying Halifax or Bank of Scotland Ultimate Reward Current Account

web_site wrote:

A qualifying Halifax personal current account is a Halifax High Interest Current Account, a Halifax Current Account (except for student current account), Halifax Moneyback Current Account and Halifax Extras Current Account. It must be held in the same name as your Halifax Guaranteed Saver account.

So the Ultimate isn't listed above(but not sure what the Halifax extras account is), would only get the 4.25%..+1% extra. It may just be badly worded...

Should also mention minimum balance in guarenteed saver is £5000(unlike icesave)

regularsaver1

Ultimate Reward (URCA) was only launched today

if you have the URCA then you will get an additional 1% above the rate it would be

highet

as usual a great big con - if you dont open a reward current account you still get 5.25% on your guaranteed saver if the balance is over £5000 or you get the less than £5000 rate of 4.25% plus the extra 1% so 5.25% if you pay £10/month for a reward current account - big ad on back page of money section on mail on sunday ''great rate now available to non current account customers''

regularsaver1

there are other benefits to the packaged account

or the high interest account

thumshie

highet wrote:

as usual a great big con - if you dont open a reward current account you still get 5.25% on your guaranteed saver if the balance is over £5000 or you get the less than £5000 rate of 4.25% plus the extra 1% so 5.25% if you pay £10/month for a reward current account - big ad on back page of money section on mail on sunday ''great rate now available to non current account customers''

Think they've updated the site now the URCA has launched:
http://www.halifax.co.uk/savings/guaranteedsaver.asp

Looks like you will get +1% on the 5.25% (I.e. 6.25%) if you have the ultimate reward account(and pay in atleast £50 a month). If you don't pay in £50 you'll get 4.25+1=5.25%
regularsaver1 - can you confirm?

Moonbeam

sounds too good to be true .......



because it is....the maximum you will get on this is the same as the bank of england base rate - current 5.25%

The extra 1% they are referring to is the 1 % above the 4.25% standard rate....

Sorry guys....

thumshie

Still very badly worded then. how can it be an 'extra'.

High Interest Account + £1000 deposits = 5.25%
URCA + £1000 deposits + 1% extra = 5.25%

Thought banks were meant to be good at numbers??

CSR even told me(after checking) it was 6.25%...But i don't take that as Gospel........

regularsaver1

you have a point - and have not seen this question be raised

newfoundglory

Does anyone know for sure yet? If so, i will be straight down there on Monday to upgrade my account from High-interest current to Reward current, to take advantage of this possibly fantastic offer.....