Nationwide Loyalty Price Promise for existing NW borrower

awjc101

Hi,

Just wanted to offer my experience of applying for a new loan with Nationwide and using their Loyalty Price Guarantee. Hopefully it helps anyone in a similar situation. Thanks to MSE I've consolidated debts and paying 2.8%, but it wasn't the simplest process.

Nationwide will only guarantee a like for like loan; however, as I wanted to consolidate a NW loan with another, it was classed as a top-up loan. They can only add £X to the outstanding loan and as my offer was also to the pound, there was a difference of 58p. Because there is a difference, all but negligible, they would not honour the loyalty promise. I couldn't pay the 58p, as this wouldn't count till the following day and then the interest would be different. There was no way for the lady to top-up by 42p to bring it to the pound, so we were stuck.

In the end, I applied for a brand new loan and paid off the original NW loan. I have a strong credit score, so saw this as little risk, but I could see others facing challenges with this. The lady in Nationwide was brilliant, but it took over an hour of conversations with the Loans department to get this arranged.

pompeydiesel

Wanted to share my experience with attempting to use this promise also, as a warning to others. I am a Nationwide current account holder and mortgage holder so was pleased to see my bank offering such a good price promise, with their current loan rate at 3.4% and the best around was Saisbury's offering 3.1%, i could look to get a loan at 2.6% on the price promise saving £100, so I decided it was worth the extra effort and extra credit check.

Firstly Sainsbury's took 2 weeks to do there checks and get the offer letter out to me which shortened my time line i had on the car I had on standby. Also one other bump I had on this journey which is my own fault; previously to learning of this price promise I had already applied for a Nationwide loan of same amount, but slightly different term(i think i was experimenting with terms at this stage) so I knew i would be approved before searching for cars, this obviously is another credit check.

Anyway when I went to the bank firstly after explaining my situation the lady(over remote tv link, letters scanned over by local branch staff) tried to see if they could adjust the term of my original application at Nationwide to prevent unnecessary credit checks, this was not possible and another application was indeed needed . The Sainsbury's offer was checked over by the nationwide lady so we went ahead with the credit checks etc... to get approved for the nationwide loan of same term and amount so it was like for like. All complete, now just for the lady on the remote link to call the price promise team to get the rate reduction....

After 2/3 mins on the phone of checks and balances with regard confirming like-for-like I could tell from the conversation their was suddenly an issue. Turns out as I had added my nectar card details on applying for the Sainsbury's loan, Sainsburys knock off another 0.1%, so 3.1% as opposed to 3.2%. Because of this Nationwide now consider this not to be like-for-like as "this loan is not open to everyone"! You can probably imagine the anger inside at this point :mad:

I tried to argue that although I understood the response but I was still approved for the loan regardless of Nectar card in-use, and the remote lady checked the Sainsburys website to confirm I would indeed have a 3.2% loan if the card details hadn't been supplied. I also argued that a flaw in there statement that its not open to all, is that Nectar cards ARE open to all. I would happily take Nationwides 2.7% rather than 2.6%, they wouldn't have any of it, price promise team say NO! I would be expected to apply again for another loan/another credit check and another 2 weeks for the letter from Sainsbury's.

I didn't want to risk any more credit checks, and I didn't have the time to wait any more with just 1 week left to purchase the car, so I had to lump it with the 3.4% loan!

mjm3346

pompeydiesel wrote: »

I also argued that a flaw in there statement that its not open to all, is that Nectar cards ARE open to all.

Be foolish not to get one for the best rate but some people will simply not sign up to "loyalty" cards and it is not like for like if you have to signup to something else, being a "free" signup makes no difference as you don't have to hold a nectar card for Nationwide.