Current a/c game...

LuSiVe

Whereas I've had excellent service from M&S Bank since I actually switched to them.

Tweeting about a problem (with M&S Energy in the end, but....) I received a phone call 5 mins later suggesting they sort it out between themselves

And I received my vouchers last weekend from an 18th September switch date.

Everynamestaken

catwoman73 wrote: »

I'm beginning to wish I hadn't bothered with the £125 M&S gift card incentive, which I'm trying to switch a dormant Halifax account to (could no longer be bothered shifting money around to get the monthly fiver)

How could you not be bothered? It is easiest £5 pound (£60 pound a year) I make for around 30 seconds a month work for transferring it manually.

TrustyOven

Everynamestaken wrote: »

How could you not be bothered? It is easiest £5 pound (£60 pound a year) I make for around 30 seconds a month work for transferring it manually.

That translates to about £600 an hour!
Who wouldnt want that?

bouicca21

Why do it manually? I'm new to this game, but as far as I can see the money can just loop round on standing orders, within a day, or two at most.

I just wish I had another current account that I could switch for an incentive!

catwoman73

Saying its £600 per hour is silly if it takes you ten years to do that hours work. That really is starting to get into the 'life's too short' territory.

I'm trying to simplify my banking arrangements. I don't want accounts all over the place with all the associated passwords and paperwork. With the Halifax account you also need 2 direct debits. One of mine was the aqua card, which I gave up when they took the 3% cash back away as I also have a barclaycard that pays more and has a useable credit limit. So I would have had to switch another direct debit.

I'm very far from the breadline and £60 per year makes very little difference to me financially. There's more to life than seeking out and exploiting every little financial loophole going.

By switching the account to M&S, I was hoping to get 2 years worth of cash back in one go and that would be it. Who's to know how long the Halifax fiver will last anyway. Halifax don't want loads of customers that are only with them for the freebies.

colsten

catwoman73 wrote: »

Saying its £600 per hour is silly if it takes you ten years to do that hours work. That really is starting to get into the 'life's too short' territory.

You misunderstand. The hourly rate is £600 but as it's only some 10 minutes work, you just get £60 a year. That is, if you haven't started more than one of these accounts when it was still possible to do so.

catwoman73 wrote: »

I don't want accounts all over the place with all the associated passwords and paperwork. With the Halifax account you also need 2 direct debits. One of mine was the aqua card, which I gave up when they took the 3% cash back away as I also have a barclaycard that pays more and has a useable credit limit. So I would have had to switch another direct debit.

You seem to be looking for reasons against making a bit of extra money. It is, for example, ever so easy to set up 2 additional DDs - but as you don't want to know, there's no point telling you.

catwoman73 wrote: »

I'm very far from the breadline and £60 per year makes very little difference to me financially. There's more to life than seeking out and exploiting every little financial loophole going.

You will find that most people who are cashing in on the £60, or multiple £60s, from Halifax aren't anywhere near the breadline. This site is MSE, most people do care about making extra money.

catwoman73 wrote: »

By switching the account to M&S, I was hoping to get 2 years worth of cash back in one go and that would be it.

Having done the M&S switch, I can assure you it isn't a £600/hour opportunity. It's much more like max £200/hour because you have to spend significant time on the phone with them, and the multiple paperwork involved borders on the ridiculous. So to stay true to your opposition to making extra money from Halifax, you should really not bother with M&S.

catwoman73 wrote: »

Who's to know how long the Halifax fiver will last anyway. Halifax don't want loads of customers that are only with them for the freebies.

You are right, we don't know how long it lasts. Suffice to say it lasted for over 4 years already, and I for one won't be closing my accounts now just because Halifax might change their policy at some stage in the future.

Each to their own.

YorkshireBoy

colsten wrote: »

Suffice to say it lasted for over 4 years already...

It's actually nearly 6 years now, having been launched in Feb 2009.

I've made over £1,300 so far (on my 4 accounts), for an average 30 seconds work a month.

Like you say though, each to their own!

neorich2002

Hi All,

I have joined the current account game party.

Recently switched RBS->Halifax. For £100 plus £5pm
In the process of switching Nationwide->FD for the £100

And a nice bonus is that I grew really frustrated with both RBS and Nationwide, and I'm impressed with both Halifax and FD so far

I see there are also switching offers with coop, M&S but I have no spare bank accounts left. So I want to just open phantom accounts with random banks and then switch them (of course satisfying the criteria for switching). However, for M&S they need no salary, no minimum payments and no DDs so could just switch.

My first question is .... are there any pitfalls with opening an account with a random bank, and then switching it the next day to another bank? Assuming, like M&S there need be no direct debits or payments needed.

My second question is .... with a new account there is a 14 day cancellation period. What is this for? I mean, I can cancel the account any time I like, I'm not tied to it. So what difference would it make whether I cancelled on day 14 or day 15? And if there is any difference, does switching in the cancellation period amount to the same thing as cancelling?

My third question ... someone on this thread said that the switch to M&S was painful and took a lot of time. Why was that? Surely they have the same 7 day switch guarantee?

Thanks a lot

Regards

neorich2002

bouicca21

Since for the first time in my life I actually have spare money, I am mixing and matching the 0% purchase cc, the high interest current accounts and the incentive current accounts.

I faced my first problem this morning switching to my existing halifax reward. It did not matter that metro's Visa card listed me by initials and halifax's visa had my forename. What did matter was that my title was different. So to play the game you need to ensure consistency across accounts.

As suggested by YB, I now have my second halifax current account. How long should I wait before switching it?


Oh and PS: does a transfer from halifax to club lloyds count as external (though I didn't spot any restriction on source of funds in the T&Cs.)

BALLYMOSS_2

How many current accounts can you have before your credit rating starts getting affected ?
And what sort of length of time should I leave between opening current accounts ?

Thanks in advance