Natwest Rewards joint account - rewards for only one holder?

matty_art

Hi all,

I was thinking of switching my wife and I's joint account from TSB over to Natwest now that the interest on TSB has reduced. My calculations were on the basis that all bills would go out of the account including both mobile phones etc- however in the T&Cs I've happened across the below:

"If you have a joint account, each of you will have your own MyRewards. Joint account holders can earn Rewards on their own debit card. Only one joint account holder can earn Rewards on household bill payments.
You’ll choose which account holder will earn Rewards on household bill payments from your Reward current account when you open it.
If you have another joint account when you open your Reward current account, one account holder will be chosen automatically to earn Rewards on household bill payments from that joint account."

Does anyone know exactly what this means? Is it that you only get cash back on bills which are set up in the name of one account holder so we'd need to make sure all utilities etc are set up in one person's name? I think we have that except for mobile phones, but this clause is not that clear.

bigadaj

Why do you want to,switch, there is no incentive as far as I'm aware.

If the natwest account is beneficial to you then it seems most sensible for one of you to open a natwest account and set up a standing order from the TSB account and then change the bill payments manually.

matty_art

I thought switching would just be easier than contacting all the utilities companies, council etc and making the changes myself.

Is there a disadvantage to switching then? I was planning to keep the original account open in any case, slight hassle in pushing standing orders through but less hassle than changing all the DDs I thought...

YorkshireBoy

My understanding, having just read the details (not an account holder though) is that it doesn't matter whose individual name the DDs are in, only one of the account holders can amass the Rewards. In effect, you'd get the Reward for your wife's phone bill.

The benefit of switching is that should anything go wrong you're covered, for both financial loss and credit report damage through missed payments by DD.

The downside, or course, is the old account must be closed...which it sounds like you don't want to do.

matty_art

Oh ok - so I'm guessing it means that you have to set up a separate rewards account on the NatWest Rewards system which is linked to your bank account and can only be in one name - then the rewards balance amasses in there until you convert it?

Seems that you can still do the old style switch which takes 30 days and leave your account open (rather than the 7 day switch that closes it) so I'll look into that.

YorkshireBoy

matty_art wrote: »

Oh ok - so I'm guessing it means that you have to set up a separate rewards account on the NatWest Rewards system which is linked to your bank account and can only be in one name - then the rewards balance amasses in there until you convert it?

You each get a Reward 'pot' for individual debit card spend Rewards. But you, as a couple, nominate only one of these to receive the DD cashback Rewards.

Seems that you can still do the old style switch which takes 30 days and leave your account open (rather than the 7 day switch that closes it) so I'll look into that.

There's absolutely no guarantee/protection afforded with a partial switch, so you may as well do it yourself...and you should!

gingercordial

It means we (partner and me) both get cash back on DDs out of the joint account regardless of the name, but I am the only one with a login to go in and exchange the rewards for vouchers or tell it to pay the accumulated balance into our account. It's purely that only one of you gets to do the admin side.