Halifax incentive £200 to switch?

Milarky

.1xp wrote: »

I think FD are way overrated and really not what they were when they first came out.

They are probably better than when they first came out (only telephone banking was an option back then) but competition and technology has caused them to fall back in relative terms I feel.

Also, Nationwide ought to get more credit than it usually does in these "who's better" discussions, given they beat FD by one year in having an interest paying current account (1988) and used telephone banking from the get-go and had the first debit card in use (1991).

bonjan

London18 wrote: »

So I was wondering what the Halifax telephone customer service is like? I have barely used their telephone services, mainly just gone on line.

Same here, not used their telephones services much, but did so once a while ago and I was impressed.

We were travelling through Brazil and visiting the Iguassu waterfalls (next to the border with Argentina).
After the visit we asked a taxi driver for suggestions on where to go out in the evening and he drove us to a nearby city in Argentina.

Only then we realised that we didn't have any Argentine pesos and that none of us had told our banks that we'd be in Argentina.

We entered a hotel / casino that had free WiFi and I used a VoIP application on my phone to call the number on the back of my Halifax Clarity.
That was 01:00am UK time.
I told the lady that all of a sudden I found myself in Argentina and that I needed to withdraw cash with my Clarity there asap (it turns out that being so close to the border taxis accept Brazilian reales too, but we didn't know that).

The lady went through no less than 15 different security questions and I answered all of them correctly. She then said that I was able to withdraw cash immediately.
And indeed, I could withdraw cash 5 minutes later and even pay with my card at a restaurant without issues.

Despite the very suspicious call (I need cash asap at 01:00am in Argentina) she was very helpful and once she was confident I was who I said I was she updated my account so we could go back to our hotel in Brazil.

She was as helpful, nice and courteous as First Direct used to be. :T So from my side no hesitations on switching to Halifax.

Also as .1xp says their online banking is much, much better and I like their new smartphone app a lot.

bonjan

Having been both a FD and Halifax customer for 4 years now I'm also waiting for my FD Regular Saver to mature to switch my current account to Halifax, although should I get a £200 switch offer I'd jump straight to them with no hesitation.

colsten

You realise you can start a new Regular Saver at FD as soon as your existing one has matured? I wouldn't give up this little gem.

gotmac

Hi,

I was emailed this offer as I opened a NISA with Halifax recently, I have accounts with Lloyds but decided to go for it (£200!) and honestly it was pretty easy.
Switched online which took about 5 days to complete and I had texts from Halifax letting me know how it was going. Switch completed on the 19th and the £200 was in my new account on the 21st.
From my experience I'd say go for it, but if you want to move back to your current bank give it a month or two then switch back.

Hope this helped.

TriathNanEilean

I'm jealous. I'm just about to open a Halifax Reward c/a but now I wonder if waiting is best - in case one of these letters is soon to wing its way to me and I can get twice the standard £100. After all, I do have a Halifax savings product, a fixed rate online saver.

One thing that makes me think I might not get the offer though: I do have a Bank of Scotland Vantage c/a already. Halifax & BoS are so mutually connected that I suspect that will count against me.

Does anyone who has already had the letter also have a BoS c/a?

badger09

TriathNanEilean wrote: »

I'm jealous. I'm just about to open a Halifax Reward c/a but now I wonder if waiting is best - in case one of these letters is soon to wing its way to me and I can get twice the standard £100. After all, I do have a Halifax savings product, a fixed rate online saver.

One thing that makes me think I might not get the offer though: I do have a Bank of Scotland Vantage c/a already. Halifax & BoS are so mutually connected that I suspect that will count against me.

Does anyone who has already had the letter also have a BoS c/a?

I've just opened one, with the £100 switch deal.

You could wait and you might get a better offer

Or Halifax could withdraw the £100 offer and you'd get nothing

Your choice

London18

Gotmac, how did you switch online and still get the £200? Nothing on their website about it, just the standard incentive, and I am not prepared to risk ending up with just the £100 and then arguing about it afterwards.

I have already had a disastrous experience this evening trying to do it by phone. Customer services hadn't heard about the £200 offer for some customers, then insisted on putting me through to Mortgages to go through security "because you are already a customer".


Mortgages were mystified as to why I had been transferred to them, so they rang through to CS again and after 5 minutes on hold I ended up with the [presumably overseas] call centre and someone who was supposed to be from the "switching team". Unfortunately she sounded totally clueless and hadn't heard of the offer, got my name completely wrong twice & asked for my account number (err I don't have one that is why I want to switch????), Lost confidence at that point and decided not to keep going with it, so politely rung off.

Might try to get into a branch tomorrow and see if that goes any better. So far my fears about moving away from FD are not be allayed! I have a very low tolerance for bureaucracy so even £200 is not looking that tempting right now.