Switch switch!

JTLatics

Hello. My partner and I are in the process of switching a few accounts to take advantage of some of the cashback offers.

We are moving our joint account to Halifax. I am moving my own current account to First Direct.

I've been told my Halifax that you can't get the £100 hello payment for more than one account. But if I was to open an individual current account alongside the joint - both accounts would get the £5 a month payments.

I was wondering if there is period of time I'll have to be with First Direct, after enjoying the £100 for an individual switch, before I could then switch again - eg to Halifax in the example above, so I'd receive £5 a month rather than zilch.

I notice there is a half-decent 6% savings account you can get with First Direct - can any of you geniuses work out how much you would have to put into the account each month for it to accrue more than £60 (equivalent to 12 £5 Halifax monthly payments) during the year. I think the FD 6% savings rate is just for a year....

Thanks.

YorkshireBoy

JTLatics wrote: »

I was wondering if there is period of time I'll have to be with First Direct, after enjoying the £100 for an individual switch, before I could then switch again - eg to Halifax in the example above, so I'd receive £5 a month rather than zilch.

You can switch out the same day FD pay the £100.

I notice there is a half-decent 6% savings account you can get with First Direct - can any of you geniuses work out how much you would have to put into the account each month for it to accrue more than £60 (equivalent to 12 £5 Halifax monthly payments) during the year. I think the FD 6% savings rate is just for a year....

Example on their site for £300 a month...

http://www2.firstdirect.com/1/2/savings/regular-savings-account

...so just adjust the numbers.

But it's not as easy as that. You'd save your £300 a month somewhere else if you moved from FD, so that needs factoring in.

You could of course do both, ie stay with both FD for their 6% regular saver and Halifax for their £5 a month Reward. To do this you'd need a donor account held elsewhere. If you don't have one, open one!

One final thing, and in line with the above, as a couple, if your partner had her own donor account you could each get £100 and £5 a month for switching into 2 sole accounts...so that's £320 in the first year. By all means switch your joint account too, and you'd get £60 a year in Reward payments for that. So that's a total of £380 in the first year with Halifax, and £180 a year thereafter! Sound good?

Wammer

Not wishing to hijack the OP's thread, but I have a similar query re switching.

We have an existing joint Halifax Rewards account and a sole donor account each. I understand that you only get the £100 for a joint account, but is that a joint donor account or a joint new account?

I was originally thinking of switching one of us to the existing joint account and the other to a new sole account. However would that be dangerous in that they might consider the switch to the existing joint account to be for both of us and only pay the £100 once?

I am now thinking it would be safer to switch to two sole accounts, but we really don't need another couple of accounts to keep track of.

Archi_Bald

Wammer wrote: »

I am now thinking it would be safer to switch to two sole accounts, but we really don't need another couple of accounts to keep track of.

You are right, sole to sole is a lot safer. You won't be any worse off than today - you have the same number of accounts as today but £100 each more. What's there to lose?

You can still consolidate after you have bagged the £100s.

Wammer

Thanks for the reply. Sole to sole it is then when I get round to it.