Lite version of Santander 123 account is launched – how does it stack up?

davethorp

vanilla8 wrote: »

How annoying! I would like to switch as just spent all my savings on new house so only cashback i'm really earning to negate the £5 fee is my santander mortgage

Yeah I'm annoyed as we only earn the cashback so 123 lite would be perfect for us especially since our cashback has reduced following the fee hike earlier this year.

Their twitter claim it is because you can't downgrade accounts which sounds like a crock to me because they were perfectly able to downgrade accounts for anyone who rejected the fee hike back in January. The more likely explanation is they don't want to make it easy for anyone who doesn't earn the interest each month to pay them £4 less a month for effectively the same account.

The only alternatives I can see are to either use the switching service to switch out from 123 and then back in to 123 lite which is still a bit of a ballache or switch to natwest reward which would work out better for us anyway but any time we apply for that we get accepted online only for the infamous AVU department to override the decisions of their computers, which makes the computers pretty redundant but hey

PeteActually

davethorp wrote: »

So existing 123 customers can't switch to this according to their twitter without closing down the 123 account and applying for a new 123 lite. Major ballache especially with bringing direct debits over when all it should really take is two clicks of a mouse at santander's end

I downgraded from the full 123 account to the 123 lite account over the phone yesterday - no problems!

The advisor originally told me to do it online, but it's only possible to change to the 123 lite account over the phone or in branch.

davethorp

PeteActually wrote: »

I downgraded from the full 123 account to the 123 lite account over the phone yesterday - no problems!

The advisor originally told me to do it online, but it's only possible to change to the 123 lite account over the phone or in branch.

It's possible their twitter got it wrong then. Or the advisor who helped you did. I've raised it as a formal complaint now so hopefully should get sorted for me one way or another

EDIT - Link to my conversation with them on twitter can be found at https://twitter.com/santanderukhelp/status/756401914498129920

davethorp

Twitter did have it wrong. They've apologised for giving me incorrect information and our account has now been converted from 123 to 123 lite

So just to clear up it is possible for existing customers to convert from 123 to 123 lite. You have to do it over the phone or in branch though

Tammykitty

Tammykitty wrote: »

I am happy with this and will now move back to Santander


I only have my rates (£100 a month) and Sky TV (£30 a month)


I don't pay anything else by direct debit

EarthBoy wrote: »

You'd earn £1.90 per month cashback, minus the £1 fee, so you'd come out with 90p. Why are you going to Santander for 90p per month when you could earn £5 per month with the Halifax Reward account?

Or I can have both.


I also have a mortgage and life insurance which gets paid by DD, but doesn't attract cash back

smithers1981

Just 'downgraded' lengthy phone call but all sorted, don't have savings in the account but account worthwhile due to santander mortgage, and now only £1 fee, easy £4 a month saving.