Santander 123 Account - £500 a month query

pmartin86

Hi

I currently have a joint account with barclays with my aprtner which all the bills go out off (water, gas elect etc) and was looking into the santander 123 account to get the cashbalck, ive worked out that I would gain aproximatly £55-£60 a year in cashback, which more than offsets the £24 worth of fees for the year, however our monthly bills that we would use the account total around £400-£450 (Depending on months gas/elec bill etc) which is obviously less than the £500 a month it requires funding by.

Pay a monthly account fee of £2, fund the account with £500 a month (a minimum balance of £1,000 is required to receive interest); and set up a minimum of two Direct Debits. For cashback household bills must be paid by Direct Debit.

Would it be ok if we paid the £500 a month into the account and set up a standing order or manualy transfered the excess out each month? I don't want to leave the excess build up in that account as we have savings accounts that pay higher interest rates etc. If i did this, how long would the surhlous need to be in there for? would it need a few days or could i literaly deposit money and immeadiatly send it elsewhere?

Any advice appreciated
Paul.

Oh, also, im aware that its "only" £50-£100 a month surplous but it all counts and we allready build in a buffer each month to cover unexpected expenses (unusualy high bills etc)

davethorp

I'm pretty sure that you could just transfer £500 in and then straight back out if you wanted and that would meet the funding requirement so you shouldn't have any problems doing what you are proposing

You'd probably be best just transferring the excess out each month manually ideally just after you've been paid the cashback and they've taken the account fee that way you transfer the cashback you've earned out along with your surplus funds

pmartin86

Thanks very much davethorp

YorkshireBoy

I'm stoozing a very large O/D facility with Santander, and I leave the requisite monthly credit in overnight before transferring back out again.

This is because there's always the chance that Santander will shuffle the debits/credits meaning I could exceed my facility.

If you have at least a £500 O/D facility then you probably won't need to do this. But for the sake of a day I'd err on the side of caution.

richardmk

You almost know what will happen next.. The cashback will be 1% with a ceiling cap like Rail spending and the fee will be 3% And 2% on something obscure that most people do not spend anything on!.