Santander's 123 account

System

sevenonine wrote: »

Just to give a postscript. I did a calculation on the website of all my DDs (I have no mortgage) and the total amount I'd get in cashback is £185 per annum, ie £15 per month, less £2= £13 paid gross (T&Cs refer). Of course if I get the 1% interest rate on my esaver, that would be extra incentive to go ahead.


I'm waiting to see what response I get from Santander to my messages.

Gosh, that seems a lot of cashback. I get about £3.50 pcm from council tax, phone payments and so on (like you, no mortgage, so no cash back there); that is, enough to cover my month's account charge, plus a little extra. Of course I get interest on top of that, which certainly helps, given I'm not paying tax on it. Does your total cashback include interest, perhaps?

Doh - forgot I've got the energy cash back on my 2nd 123 account, and my OH has the TV cash back on their account, so the total is about twice that given above. I've not included any interest as I've not used the website calculations.
Think I'd better go and have a cuppa!

rockm87

I get about £6 per month from using this account, its great!

sevenonine

uselessaver wrote: »

. Does your total cashback include interest, perhaps?

I gather interest was what Santander's website was showing on a theoretical amount of £5000.

grumbler

Your £13 is mainly the interest then that it's ~£12 (gross) on £5K.
The cashback is just a little more than the monthly fee.

EssexExile

I get about £6 cashback & £36 interest a month less the £2 fee makes a nice round £40.

Maelwys

sevenonine wrote: »

Just to give a postscript. I did a calculation on the website of all my DDs (I have no mortgage) and the total amount I'd get in cashback is £185 per annum, ie £15 per month, less £2= £13 paid gross (T&Cs refer). Of course if I get the 1% interest rate on my esaver, that would be extra incentive to go ahead.

I'm waiting to see what response I get from Santander to my messages.

If I was in your position, I'd probably try and open a TSB and a Halifax Reward account as well and set up 2 low-cost Direct Debits in the latter. Neither of those have minimum income requirements and you could grab an extra £100 switching bonus from each one if you have a few "spare" current accounts lying about.

Keeping £2k in the TSB account will earn more interest than that money would get you in the Santander 1-2-3, and the Halifax account just needs you to be "in credit" (so leave £1 in it) to earn you the £5-per-month reward. You'd effectively be earning an extra £160 a year just for keeping £2k in the TSB and moving £750 around a bit every month.

Having three accounts across separate banks and SOs for different amounts also means the banks shouldn't view you as transferring the same amount of money out and then right back again just to tick the box for their bonuses. Whilst doing so is technically not against the account T&Cs, it can highlight to the banks that you're not a great customer and may have caused a few of the Lloyds-group savers to by hit by account closures.

Yorkshire_Pud

sevenonine wrote: »

Just to give a postscript. I did a calculation on the website of all my DDs (I have no mortgage) and the total amount I'd get in cashback is £185 per annum, ie £15 per month, less £2= £13 paid gross (T&Cs refer). Of course if I get the 1% interest rate on my esaver, that would be extra incentive to go ahead.


I'm waiting to see what response I get from Santander to my messages.

Postscript!?

You haven't taken any of the advice so far given and you are still writing 'messages' to Santander which you've been doing for ages:eek:

Fair play for starting a long thread and doing nothing though. Don't dilly dally on the way.

As an aside I opened a Santander Everyday Current account in ten minutes online today and transferred £50 in there when it appeared in my online banking a grand total of 15 minutes.

No rush though, no rush:)

I'm off to watch some paint dry.