Has Anyone Moved to Santander 1 2 3?

cepheus

I've just received this in my post. Surely the £1000 only applies to mortgage payments, £500 per month is sufficient for the 3% interest?

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Remember in order to qualify for cashback on your household bills and interest on your balance you need to:[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] pay the monthly account fee of £2, which will be taken automatically from your account each month; and[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]fund your account with a minimum of £500 a month (a minimum of £1,000 is required to receive interest - see Note 1); and
[/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]set up a minimum of two Direct Debits; and[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]for cashback, household bills must be paid by Direct Debit.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Note 1: You must pay a minimum of £500 into your account each month. This is not a calendar month, it is the month from the date you opened your account. For example, if you opened your 123 Current Account on the 7th of the month, you must pay £500 between the 7th and 6th of the following month to qualify.

Household bills include electricity, gas, council tax, water and communications such as mobile and home phone, broadband and paid for TV packages and Santander mortgages. The maximum mortgage payment amounts that quality for cashback are limited to £1,000 per month (for either single or multiple monthly Direct Debits). Mortgage cashback applies to Santander UK plc mortgages. The 1% cashback on water and council tax bills applies to rates in Northern Ireland. Household bills do not include TV licence, maintenance or insurance contracts, commercial use or commercial mortgages. Santander has categorised all companies within eligible cashback categories as accurately as possible. If you have a query on any company eligibility, please check www.santander.co.uk. Cashback and interest paid monthly. Interest and transfers into the new 123 Current Account from any other Santander account does not count towards the monthly funding amount. Interest is paid on the first £20,000 of your entire balance once you have at least £1,000 in your account. AER stands for Annual Equivalent Rate and shows what the interest rate would be if we paid interest and added it to your account each year. The gross rate is the interest rate we pay before income tax is taken off. Rates may change. For details of our fees and interest rates, visit www.santander.co.uk or ask for the latest Interest Rates and Fees Information leaflet at any branch.[/FONT]

Archi_Bald

I think what they mean is that you won't get interest on anything below £1K. Nothing to do with mortgage payments or monthly minimum deposit.

The min monthly deposit is £500 - - but all that happens if you don't pay that in is that you will get no cashback and also no interest, regardless of how many qualifying DDs you have, and how much your balance is.

Lansdowne

cepheus wrote: »

I've just received this in my post. Surely the £1000 only applies to mortgage payments, £500 per month is sufficient for the 3% interest?

Yes you need to have £500 a month paid in to get interest. Interest is only paid on a minimum balance of £1000. The wording you've quoted does not make this distinction clear at all.

eskbanker

Yes, the wording isn't particularly well structured in that Note 1 covers a wide range of points, not all obviously inter-related, so it would have been better if subdivided, but the main body of that quoted text does include "Interest is paid on the first £20,000 of your entire balance once you have at least £1,000 in your account" towards the end.

cepheus

Ah yes it makes more sense now!

cepheus

First Interest payment of £25 plus £3 cashback minus £2 fee. Not bad for a couple of weeks.

Crater

Yes that is my understanding, but i believe you don't get the full 3% until you hold £3000 or over in the account. £1000 gets 1% and so on.

Our switch "started" last Thursday, but they've just told my husband there was a "technical hitch" and it now won't happen till 20th instead of 14th. That's upset my calculations of how much money to put in both accounts to cover any direct debits going through!

Any bets that the technical hitch is the big response to their TV advertising campaign? They didn't say what else it might be, although with a bit of theatre it seemed that the gent on the phone "got it going" while he was actually talking to my husband! Now I wonder how he knew it would start working right then? :rotfl:

So much for 7 days - just hoping it won't grow like Topsy.

cepheus

Can anyone remember if Santander sent the debit card PIN through the post, or we chose one during the application process. Can't find my PIN anywhere!

Stompa

cepheus wrote: »

Can anyone remember if Santander sent the debit card PIN through the post, or we chose one during the application process.

They post them.

soulsaver

cepheus wrote: »

Can anyone remember if Santander sent the debit card PIN through the post, or we chose one during the application process. Can't find my PIN anywhere!

You can change them to one you like at a Santander ATM under "Card Services" option - but you'll need the PIN to do it..

Service: They made a few screw ups at the start.. and there was a coq up with DD switching - but it's not clear who the culprit was - them or First Utility.