Leaving Santander 123

Legacy_user

I've been looking at my transactions for the past few months and it seems I'm paying my £5 fee but only really getting about £3.50 in cashback on average. There's no other benefit to me so I'm wondering should I switch? Is it worth me going into branch to discuss it with them and see if they'll offer me any further benefits to stay or will they simply just let me cancel? Any advice welcome, thanks

xylophone

If you don't keep enough in the account to earn a decent rate of interest, consider switching to another current account that better suits your needs.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/compare-best-bank-accounts

KingS6

I wasn't under the impression that you can haggle with your current account provider for additional perks, even if you visited them in branch. The nature of current accounts are that they are usually set products.

When you say will they offer you incentives to stop you leaving, what do you have in mind?

With regards to switching, if you are continually losing money every month because the fee outweighs the cashback, it's best to switch ASAP.

System

It's not the interest, it's the cash back element on my direct debits. My hubby has the majority of our direct debits these days, we've thought about switching them over to my account but to be honest that's not really what we want.

In terms of products, I don't really know. I was think maybe some phone insurance or travel insurance or something like that? I just wondered if that was normal practice or not.

EssexExile

What do you mean "It's not the interest"? I get about £40 a month from Santander, it doesn't matter whether they call it cashback or interest, it's all money. If you've not got enough in there to get that then move somewhere else.

phatbear

the cashback to me is an added extra its the fact they have probably the best interest rates on balances upto £20000

LXdaddy

Oh yes it IS about the interest. Between our three 123 accounts we get more than £125 of interest each month. We do pay £15 of fees and we do have cashback for direct debits but the main thing is 3% interest on up to £20K in each account.


If you have less than about £8K in the account then the cost of the makes it not attractive - move to an account that pays 4% or 5% on a lower balance without a fee.

Ballard

I doubt very much that any bank would haggle to keep an account which only has a relatively small balance. For starters there's no real income for them and secondly they know that there's every chance that you'd tell all and sundry about your deal and everyone would want to haggle.

Save yourself some time and switch your account elsewhere.

WineDarkSea

Depending on how much you have in the bank I would move the money elsewhere, unless you've exhausted the other interest paying current accounts. I'm in a similar situation of my cashback not covering the fee anymore but I've got most of the other available accounts so the £12k left in the 123 would be tricky to relocate, plus I'll have three nationwide flex direct accounts to relocate and one regular saver when those deals end. The £1 plus not covered by cash back is probably worth it due to the 20k limit. Other accounts which charge in exchange for perks have much higher fees and either no interest or some but on a smaller amount - eg nationwide flex plus pays 3% on 2.5k for £10 per month.

colsten

phatbear wrote: »

the cashback to me is an added extra its the fact they have probably the best interest rates on balances upto £20000

They actually don't offer the best interest rates for up to £20,000. Splitting your £20,000 across several accounts will pay you at least £60 a year more as there are plenty of accounts that pay interest and don't charge £60 a year. Play your cards right, and it's upwards of £200 or more.

Anthorn

MissSJL wrote: »

I've been looking at my transactions for the past few months and it seems I'm paying my £5 fee but only really getting about £3.50 in cashback on average. There's no other benefit to me so I'm wondering should I switch? Is it worth me going into branch to discuss it with them and see if they'll offer me any further benefits to stay or will they simply just let me cancel? Any advice welcome, thanks

From what I see, a lot of people who left Santander 123 due to the £5 fee went to Natwest Reward. Personally I maximise cashback and interest with both a TSB Classic Plus and a Natwest Reward. The only problem I have is that at times the Natwest account is so damn slow especially debiting debit card transactions. But some people would like that.