Santander Zero account costing me £150pa

moneysavinggirl40

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

I'd be closing the account, or at least taking my chances of them not downgrading it when I stopped meeting the criteria.


Time to move on (and make/save more elsewhere).

Is it true that they must have downgraded me when i stopped with the £1000permonth? I have a feeling i received a letter saying so a while back, so I will not benefit from saving fees using the debit card in europe..I was looking to take a back up debit card if my clarity card failed for some reason. Any advice on what cards don't hit you so hard or ones to avoid?

eskbanker

moneysavinggirl40 wrote: »

Any advice on what cards don't hit you so hard or ones to avoid?

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/overseas-card-charges

moneysavinggirl40

brilliant! worked out for me

johnmoney05

Gizmo247 wrote: »

Just as a follow up. I decided to apply my rule of last resort to decide if I'm going to keep a product or not. It is to pretend that I don't have it in the first place and pretend that the product is about to be withdrawn so would I act to take it up (hypothetical as Zero is already gone but the logic works).

So would I take up a Zero Account given that you need to pay in £1000, keep two Direct Debits and deposit £10,000 in Santander savings account for ever. All to get 1% on account balance, commission-free cash withdrawals worldwide and no bank charges. The answer would be "No". Not sure why it was "Yes" back then, perhaps I had £10,000 knocking around and the ISA rates were pretty good.

So I have decided to run the gauntlet and risk losing the Zero account, transfer the bulk of my savings into my offset mortgage so I am now fully offset. The money I'm saving in interest will pay for the Nationwide Flex Plus fee to get the same worldwide commission-free cash withdrawals and more.

Fully offset is not quite mortgage-free but it is a step in the right direction. :-)

Just came across this thread, I got a Zero account, but I closed my saving account long long time ago, and no direct debit at all. I checked my account online this month, it was still called Zero Current account, and confirmed with the customer service that I still got the worldwide commission-free cash withdrawal on my account. Did withdraw some cash at the ATM in Thailand last week. Correct as advised.

Gizmo247

Thanks for your input @johnmoney05. I suspect Zero accounts have slipped off Santander's radar for now and probably won't bother checking any of the eligibity criteria. Of the three, the £10,000 deposit would be the most expensive to implement as it can be across multiple account types and even bonds which I think is a different organisation altogether. The DD requirement is just a way of categorising as a 'Primary Account' so is a little obscure. The £1000 a month is the easiest as they probably calculate deposits for every account type but I doubt Santander will do anything until they decide to have another cleanup and dump the whole Zero brand.

Now I've dumped the ISA into my mortgage, I estimate the Zero account costs me only £5pa which is much more reasonable.

moneysavinggirl40

johnmoney05 wrote: »

Just came across this thread, I got a Zero account, but I closed my saving account long long time ago, and no direct debit at all. I checked my account online this month, it was still called Zero Current account, and confirmed with the customer service that I still got the worldwide commission-free cash withdrawal on my account. Did withdraw some cash at the ATM in Thailand last week. Correct as advised.

Just been talking to them via secure messaging, i have also a santander zero account with £3, i do not credit it with £500 or £1000 pm i also have an esaver with a few pounds but they say i have free cash withdrawal WW at atms providing that merchant do not charge. This is even better than using my clarity card.