Just Opened a Brittania Mini Cash ISA

muddyfox470

Ok, I know its not the best on the market, but I have been a member there for quite some time (all my life!), and because they are a mutual they give their bonuses to the customers, i.e. moi (you may have seen ythe adverts - the poor ones about cakes etc.)

Anyway i opened on of their Cash ISAs (paying 4.7%) you need a min of £1 and they will give you 25 membership points for opening the account (and each year) and if you have been with them for more than 10 years they will double the points. The points amount to money, i cannot be too sure of how much each point is worth, but on my savings account it certainly makes it much more attractive.

Anyway i opened up the account with £20, and will probably not add anything else, it isn't the best in the market i know, but i have an Abbey Postal ISA (issue 1) so thats ok.

So basically i am benefitting from their points, so if you are a member there it might just be worth picking up a leaflet (on their Membership Awards) and open account to get a few extra points. It was dead easy to open and took hardly any time. Just remember to take your National Insurance number (my mum didn't).

Ian

(the points system is quite long winded, so you probably want to check it out yourselves, but 1 point is given for every £100 you hold with them in savings and investments etc) If you have a bit of money and the interest rate is only 0.2% difference, or some small amount, the points soon add up, just do your homework!

grumbler

muddyfox470 wrote:

...Anyway i opened up the account with £20, and will probably not add anything else, it isn't the best in the market i know, but i have an Abbey Postal ISA (issue 1) so thats ok.

It is OK if you are not going to add anything to your £20 during the tax year. You cannot put money to different ISAs during the same tax year! So, now you can either put extra money only to the Britania ISA or transfer it somewhere.

MJSW

muddyfox470 wrote:

Anyway i opened on of their Cash ISAs (paying 4.7%) you need a min of £1 and they will give you 25 membership points for opening the account (and each year) and if you have been with them for more than 10 years they will double the points.

I think you are mistaken here. The 25 points for ISAs only applies to Maxi ISAs and Mini Stocks & Shares ISAs. Mini-cash ISAs only earn 1 point for every £100, as you said at the bottom of your post.

Your £20 will therefore not even accrue a whole point.

See http://www.britannia.co.uk/reward/how_to_earn.html

lipidicman

I thought the same Grumbler. It sounded like you had plans to put further savings into the Abbey ISA this year muddy. I hope this wasnt your intention as it wont work!

muddyfox470

Ok Many thanks for all your help people.

I realised the errors of my ways, and i contacted the Membership rewards helpline and they confirmed there was no 25 point bonus.
I went into branch today, and closed down the account (within their 14day clause) so i will be able to put money into my other ISA(s), the money was tranferred to my other britannia account.

The lady at the desk seemed keen for me to leave the account open, but i finally got it closed, took a few minutes to do all in all, and i got 1p interest w00t! lol.

I think this thread can now be closed thanks mods / admins

Many Thanks

Ian

thor

Britannia's poor or average at best interest rates + insignicant membership bonuses
= Poor return
If mutuality is such a good thing then why do Britannia's savers have to suffer to pay for their mortgage rates? Demutualising is the only way for Britannia to put their members first. It could hardly make them any worse!

ReportInvestor

Britannia's record on savings rates in the six years to end 2003 was very poor.

They came in for severe criticism in Financial Mail last year

While not agreeing with thor that demutualisation is necessarily the way forward, it is undoubtedly the case that Britannia pays more attention to new mortgage customers than existing members who are savers. Very un-Nationwide.

But the myth of the Members' Reward Scheme helps Britannia get away with it.

Now they have just bought up the Bristol & West savings accounts there will be even less incentive for them to win new savings money in the market place by offering top rates.