A&L- Don't get caught out

sav4it

I'm not very keen on A&L. They seem quite different to other banks online and I wouldn't ever want to use them as my main bank after being used to Nationwide and LloydsTSB.

I've opened a Premier and a Premier Direct account ( £100 from quidco on its way to make up for the hassle).
I've funded the P with £500 and wanted to transfer across to the PD to earn the extra bit of interest using the "quick" :rolleyes: transfer link yesterday morning.
Checked this morning and nothing had changed. Nearly tried to do the transaction again but instead decided to send a secure message to find out what was wrong and apparently the transfer will take place on Monday and funds will be available Tuesday.
What's quick about that?
A&L's explanation for the quick transfer is:
Quick transfer provides an easy way to make a one-off payment/transfer to leave today to someone you have paid before or to another of your registered accounts.

masonic

They are not linked accounts, so the transfer takes 24 hours (from the date it it processed) to complete as per the T&Cs. I always thought the 'Quick' in the quick transfer relates to the speed that you can fill out the simplified web-form, not the speed of the actual transfer. Some payments will take the usual 3-4 working days to arrive.

Have you sent money between the two accounts before? Because what you've copied and pasted from their website only applies if you have.

mleonard79

Hi Sav4it,

As Masonic rightly says the "quick" part refers to the ease of filling out the transfer details not the speed of the transfer. Having said that transfers between A&L account in general are reasonably quick. Just to check as well - I hope you are not trying to meet the £500 funding requirement of the Premier Direct Account by sending £500 from your Premier Account as this will not count towards the required funding (trasnfers in from any other A&L account whether it is yours or not do not count towards this.) If you were just trying to get another £500 in for the interest then fair enough but I thought I'd point it out just in case.

Regards

Michelle

masonic

sav4it wrote: »

Masonic, I interpreted the blue bit differently to you ie both accounts are registered to me so would leave same day not the person paid before bit....

I think you'll find that 'registered' refers to accounts that have been registered as a linked account of your current account (which allows you to do instant transfers between the two accounts). I don't think it's even possible to link two current accounts (only a current account and a savings account), so the 'paid before' part of that statement would therefore apply.

Edit: I guess the key question is, did you have to enter your account number to make the transfer, or did the other account already appear as a payee in the drop-down list?

It's probably also worth pointing out that you can always check your Activity Summary (under Other Services) to check for transactions you think you've made that don't yet show on your statement.

Milarky

sav4it wrote: »

This is my plan for next month via Post Office transactions. Withdraw £250 cash each from Nationwide and PD and pay into P. Next day withdraw £250 cash each from Nationwide and P and pay into PD thus funding 2 A&L accounts with only £500 external money each month. Sweep spare £250 back from P to PD until the day before the RS due date.( edit: maybe a couple of days before to be on the safe side in view of above)
That should work, shouldn't it?

You don't even have to involve the Nationwide account (except for paying in extra funds to cover things going out) You just withdraw £250 from PD and pay it into P and withdraw £250 from P and pay it into PD (this also assumes that one of the two accounts has an available balance of at least £250 at the outset. If you are running both 'on empty' at the same time you can't do that of course.)

I wonder if anyone has been able to link the same 'Plus saver' account to the two current accounts? There is no reason why they can't share a common 'linked account' and that would allow indirect instant transfers of the sort desired. However I would be uneasy asking for this since you were not meant to have two 'premier' current accounts at one stage (but having just looked at their site under each account description it doesn't seem to say that anymore)

Milarky

It's not cheating - it's totally legitimate and meets the paying-in criterion. I did this while I had both accounts after the end of the 0% period on one of them (You are using your 0% overdraft too I assume?) It amused the people at the PO sometimes - but that's all

masonic

sav4it wrote: »

Masonic, I interpreted the blue bit differently to you ie both accounts are registered to me so would leave same day not the person paid before bit....

Coming back to this, I've just realised we both misinterpreted the statement. It is not some sort of guarantee. They are just trying to state the limitations of quick transfer. See...

Quick transfer provides an easy way to make a one-off payment/transfer to leave today to someone you have paid before or to another of your registered accounts.

Translation: Quick transfer provides an easy way to make a payment, providing you want to set up a one off payment that is not future dated, and providing you don't need to set up a new payee.

They can never send payments out to external accounts at the weekend, so the whole 'leave today' bit must refer to the money being debited from your account, not necessarily being sent forward to the destination.

---

On the subject of the Plussaver, I have a feeling you'll only be allowed to have one linked current account as is the case for other A&L savings accounts, but it can't hurt to ask I guess.

YorkshireBoy

sav4it wrote: »

1. Allowing a withdrawal seconds after paying it in at a Post office counter(P).

See condition 26.6

2. A withdrawal and a deposit of the same amount in the same day still counting towards the partial funding requirement(PD).

Why wouldn't it do? I think you're looking for something that isn't there!

3.Anyone know how many days before the RS payment, the SO needs to be set?

As with all accounts, unless you have an overdraft facility the money has to be in the account the banking day before the RS payment is due. With weekends and bank holidays to contend with, anything other than a manual payment each month is (potentially) asking for trouble. The alternative (cautious approach) is to deposit well before the due date and lose out on a small amount of interest in the PD account.

I have to say though, that this seems an awful lot of work for such a small return. Wouldn't you be better off closing the PD account (once you have secured the £50 Quidco payment), and keeping this £2.5K somewhere else, ie a 'clean' savings account? The difference, in Sainsburys for example, would be £2,500 x 0.25% x 0.8 = £5 per year after tax.

Milarky

sav4it,

Taking out/paying in. Be assured it does work - having worked for me every time. As YB says there is no reason it ought to be otherwise. 'Cash' is always treated as not coming from A N other A&L account even when it does.

I take it you use the PO counter service to withdraw from NW and pay into A&L. You can avoid a separate SO altogether here on the second day and simply take out the £250 already in the P account and pay it back in (as described.) You have now funded both accounts for the month and left £250 ready for the RS withdrawal - which must be at least the next day - because its a pre-arranged payment.

P to RS transfers take place Monday to Saturday (Sunday is excluded.) This makes me question whether paying in Friday for Saturday would be treated as 'cleared' by the A&L systems - or if paying in Saturday for Monday would be?. If in doubt allow two days before collection for paying in to the P.

masonic

Milarky wrote: »

This makes me question whether paying in Friday for Saturday would be treated as 'cleared' by the A&L systems - or if paying in Saturday for Monday would be?. If in doubt allow two days before collection for paying in to the P.

I think a standing order or future-dated manual payment would need to go out on a Thursday (credited Friday) for it to be available in time for a Saturday debit, and a Friday payment (credited Saturday) would be needed for a Monday debit.

Manual payments (not set up in advance) aren't processed until the morning of the next working day, so you'd need to allow yet another working days buffer, so Wed (processed Thurs, credited Fri) for a Saturday debit, etc.

For cash deposits it may be ok to leave it until a day later (Fri->Sat, or Sat->Mon), assuming the money shows in your Available Balance the same day.