Santander 1.99% - refused

967stuart

Had our mortgage with Santander for years, just tried to renew our deal at the advertised 1.99% and was told NO.

This deal is for new customers only.

:mad:

Being a loyal customer means nothing to them.

fromtheshires

Have a look and see if you can find an identical deal call them back and say I can find this deal with XYZ. I know your deal is for new customers only but wouldn't you rather my money was with you than another bank. It never hurts to be cheeky.

As an aside, I have never been told for new customers only when getting my deals with them and have always found a rate from their website or better and always been accepted. Perhaps you just talked to the wrong person as their mortgage advisers on the phone have always been brilliant with me

ACG

Did you ask them what deals they do have available to you?

I dot mean this to come across like I am having a go, but I suspect like most (me included) you are only as loyal for as long as the rates are competitive? Thats not really loyalty.

967stuart

I guess the term 'loyal' is a bit subjective.
I'm loyal in so much as having saving accounts with them, my current mortgage, a business account and a joint current account with them.
So they do alright out of me each month

They offered me a higher percentage deal (over 2.5%) which I was genuinely surprised at.

I know they don't owe me anything etc. but as a current customer, you'd think they'd rather hang onto the business rather than lose it.

kingstreet

If you are an existing borrower not moving home, you need to know your lender's customer retention options.

If you are remortgaging to a new lender, that's moving your mortgage but not moving house, you look at the lender's remortgage offers.

If you are moving house, you look at the home mover products, which will sometimes have existing borrower loyalty options.

These will be different based on loan to value as well as customer type, so it's practically impossible to compare your lender's options across them. Some lenders have good customer retention options, some don't. That's because they are more interested in attracting new business than retaining old.

Thrugelmir

967stuart wrote: »

Being a loyal customer means nothing to them.

There'll only be a limited tranche of funds available for this product. Therefore it was made available to all then Santander wouldn't achieve their objective of winning new business. As simply wouldn't be enough funds to go around.

ACG

Any fees with the 1.99% that are not on the 2.49%? Might make it a little more palatable?
The other thing to look at is how much difference does 0.5% make? Are we talking a fiver a month or £50 a month? (I dont need an answer, just giving you something to think about).

967stuart

^Sorry, I typed a reply but my PC crashed yesterday.

As we're with them already, there would be no fee's on the mortgage deals.
Works out around good few hundred pounds down over the course of the deal which is bugging me.

Setting that gripe aside. I'm really not sure if we should look to fix for a longer term deal.... 2 years on a low percentage deal does appeal to us as we're having baby no.2 in March 2016.

So a lower percentage deal in the short term would make sense.... but then again, I'm thinking that whilst there are still good deals out there, would it be worth taking on a longer fixed term mortgage.

Our house is currently valued at 335k and we'd need to borrow 250k (we do have a small amount of savings, so could knock off a bit if it would mean getting a better rate)