Santander 123 fees

[Deleted User]

My one year fee free period on the Santander 123 cashback credit card ends in April, when I will start to pay a monthly £3 fee. I was thinking of cancelling the card until I looked at it another way.

I "earn" between £4.50 and £5 a month on routine spending (mainly petrol and supermarket spending) on the card, meaning a net gain after fee of £1.50 to £2. Probably not worth the bother of keeping the card.

However, the Santander 123 current account fee is £5 per month, meaning total Santander fees of £8 per month. I earn cashback of around £4 per month on direct debits. Looked at as a whole, I earn cashback of £8.50 to £9 to meet fees of £8. Keeping the credit card will earn enough to subsidise the £5 fee on the current account, keeping me in positive territory and allowing me to earn 3% on £20k. The choice to cancel the credit card is not such a good choice looked at this way.

grumbler

It's very simple.
Can you earn more than £2 p.m. cashback with any other free CC?
With easily available 0.5% cashback it's £400+ monthly spending.

Krash420

I barely make £1.50 a month on my Santander, and that too only when I fill up. As soon as my 'free' year ends, I shall be closing it down.

I dont have much luck on current account cadhbacks either, i only make 45p from my mobile bill, but the interest makes it worth it.

I'm yet to open the 5% accounts, which I will eventually, but given that I know i will no doubt use most of my savings within a year when I do finally purchase a house, there's no point for me to open so many accounts to just have them be empty later on. At least then I'll have the bills with which I'll get the Santander Cadhbacks to make the fee worth it.

kingrulzuk

My father and myself wants to open a joint 123 account, I have few qustions:

• Do we get 2 bank cards or just 1?
• I know we can have a balance of up to £20000 but for the joint account is 40k or just 20k?
  
  
  Thank you

Ballard

kingrulzuk wrote: »

My father and myself wants to open a joint 123 account, I have few qustions:

• Do we get 2 bank cards or just 1?
• I know we can have a balance of up to £20000 but for the joint account is 40k or just 20k?
  
  
  Thank you

If you have a joint account then you would be able to get a card each but the limit for interest purposes would be £20k.

Katiehound

Krash420 wrote: »

I'm yet to open the 5% accounts, which I will eventually, but given that I know i will no doubt use most of my savings within a year when I do finally purchase a house, there's no point for me to open so many accounts to just have them be empty later on.

Well, depending on exactly when you will be using all your savings you could be reaping the benefits of small interest each month- it adds up each month and is worth the juggling- £6 here and there- I would have thought worth a bit of effort!
and no, I do not have a Santander a/c- have pretty much everything else!

badger09

Deleted_User wrote: »

My one year fee free period on the Santander 123 cashback credit card ends in April, when I will start to pay a monthly £3 fee. I was thinking of cancelling the card until I looked at it another way.

I "earn" between £4.50 and £5 a month on routine spending (mainly petrol and supermarket spending) on the card, meaning a net gain after fee of £1.50 to £2. Probably not worth the bother of keeping the card.

However, the Santander 123 current account fee is £5 per month, meaning total Santander fees of £8 per month. I earn cashback of around £4 per month on direct debits. Looked at as a whole, I earn cashback of £8.50 to £9 to meet fees of £8. Keeping the credit card will earn enough to subsidise the £5 fee on the current account, keeping me in positive territory and allowing me to earn 3% on £20k. The choice to cancel the credit card is not such a good choice looked at this way.

Hattie625, If you have the Halifax Reward current account (and if you don't have it, why not?:p) you can get £5 per month Reward with the Halifax Clarity credit card. You do need to read the T&C;)

[Deleted User]

Thanks badger. I do have the Halifax Reward (just opened recently and got £125 switch bonus). I will look into the clarity CC.

where_are_we

I ditched my 123 credit card last week as the annual fee (£24) had come to an end and the increased monthly fee of £3 was going to kick in. I am getting a much better return using 2 TSB contactless cards with 5% cashback. I now buy just over £29 worth of petrol each time and under £30 for supermarket purchases and you can use contactless now on London transport so no need to top up your oyster with a 123 credit card.

[Deleted User]

badger09 wrote: »

Hattie625, If you have the Halifax Reward current account (and if you don't have it, why not?:p) you can get £5 per month Reward with the Halifax Clarity credit card. You do need to read the T&C;)

Hi badger, I have investigated taking out a Halifax Clarity credit card (as a replacement for my Santander 123 cashback credit card). I agree that, with the £5 monthly reward cashback, it looks like a good deal, provided you can fund the Reward current account with £1000 per month and you can spend the requisite amount per month on the credit card (I can, or most months anyway). There is no fee, so failing to cross the necessary hurdles in any month would not be a disaster).

However....I decided to try out my likelihood of acceptance on the MSE tool before applying. It returned the news that I was only 30% likely to be accepted. I cant understand this. My only borrowing of any sort since the mid 1990s (when mortgage paid off) was my Santander cashback credit card taken out in April 2015, full balance paid off timeously every month. I had no difficulty in getting accepted for that. i have no defaults or judgements on my record.

I have decided to stay put with the Santander card meantime, rather than risk rejection by applying for the Halifax Clarity card.

Just wondered if you (or anyone) might know what is going on. Maybe I should build up a bit of good history with Halifax first (Reward current account only opened last month)? How accurate is the MSE card acceptance tool? It doesn't ask many questions (eg no question about desired credit limit).

colsten

Deleted_User wrote: »

However....I decided to try out my likelihood of acceptance on the MSE tool before applying.

Did you try the acceptance test Halifax themselves offer? http://www.halifax.co.uk/creditcards/clarity-card/