Virgin Money Current Account

Brewer20

xlnc99 said:

ahh, thanks. Not sure if i can get these perks or not but not worth investigating it for some wine and £20. Was hoping it would be something amazing.

Anything special about using the card abroad?

It's not just some wine, it's £180 worth of wine. Ok some say it can be bought for less but if you like wine and buy it then it's worth the switch. Don't use the cards when switched so don't know about the perks, don't go abroad either, I'm only in it for the wine, hic.

fabsaver

xlnc99 said:

In a nutshell this thread has 82 pages! About 1000 posts! Instead of reading through each post can someone summarise why this thread has got so much attention. What is so special about Virgin bank? I have been with them for over a year (i never use it),  i find them useless. Am i missing a trick with Virgin?

1. Market beating 2% interest on £1,000 and possible to open multiple accounts.
2. Free wine for switching, not available to existing customers unfortunately.
3. Fee free overseas use possibly makes it a keeper, assuming we can start travelling again in the future.
4. Most importantly they are sufficiently useless to make account opening and other simple tasks complicated, thereby generating much discussion on here.

xlnc99

£180 worth of wine is an odd perk. Never seen a bank offer something like that but kudos to Virgin for trying something new. ITs a shame i cant switch, maybe ile do it with another account later on. The 2% interest on multiple accounts sounds intriguing, im sure Virgin will limit this if they haven't already.  Fee free overseas use defo makes it a keeper for me. biggest perk for me.

As for Virgin being useless - i agree!  All of virgin products, be it broadband etc have the worst infrastructure in place. ITs impossible to get hold of customer service an when you do they wont solve the problem. Then to take it higher it the chain its even worse and more time consuming.

I would never ever risk putting a huge amount of money in a Virgin Account. At least all the mainstream lenders are very easy to get hold of and ask questions/sort out issues.

Brewer20

Quite a statement about all Virgin products being useless, mine have been totally the opposite. Broadband/TV/phone for instance has been fine. A few hiccups along the way in regards prices rising but easily solved by a phone call. I even rang them during this pandemic, they answered in a reasonable time span and couldn't have been more helpful. It took longer to make an appointment via the doctors surgery booking line than to get £15 knocked off of my VM bill.
As for the banking side, I'm yet to find out but I'm only in it for the switch deal, I don't think I'll be transferring my complete day to day stuff over to them.

Brewer20

fabsaver said:

xlnc99 said:

In a nutshell this thread has 82 pages! About 1000 posts! Instead of reading through each post can someone summarise why this thread has got so much attention. What is so special about Virgin bank? I have been with them for over a year (i never use it),  i find them useless. Am i missing a trick with Virgin?

1. Market beating 2% interest on £1,000 and possible to open multiple accounts.
2. Free wine for switching, not available to existing customers unfortunately.
3. Fee free overseas use possibly makes it a keeper, assuming we can start travelling again in the future.
4. Most importantly they are sufficiently useless to make account opening and other simple tasks complicated, thereby generating much discussion on here.

Do the multiple accounts pay 2% too or just the first one?

clive0510

I transferred my current account to virgin from tsb,mainly because tsb stopped paying me interest on the balance. virgin give me 2.2% on the 1st 1k. and I've also got a case of wine on its way. so for me is actually a no brainer. the savings account is handy. I shall probably leave 2k in there as an emergency fund. job done.

fabsaver

Brewer20 said:

fabsaver said:

xlnc99 said:

In a nutshell this thread has 82 pages! About 1000 posts! Instead of reading through each post can someone summarise why this thread has got so much attention. What is so special about Virgin bank? I have been with them for over a year (i never use it),  i find them useless. Am i missing a trick with Virgin?

1. Market beating 2% interest on £1,000 and possible to open multiple accounts.
2. Free wine for switching, not available to existing customers unfortunately.
3. Fee free overseas use possibly makes it a keeper, assuming we can start travelling again in the future.
4. Most importantly they are sufficiently useless to make account opening and other simple tasks complicated, thereby generating much discussion on here.

Do the multiple accounts pay 2% too or just the first one?

All of them 

colsten

clive0510 said:

I transferred my current account to virgin from tsb,mainly because tsb stopped paying me interest on the balance. virgin give me 2.2% on the 1st 1k. 

Typo, I suppose - it's 2.02% AER but the max you can realise in Virgin is 2.0% gross as the interest doesn't compound in the account. You can, of course, skim off the interest every month, for example into the attached savings account or some other savings account but in the current climate it's tough (not entirely impossible for small amounts) to achieve 2.02% AER. 

clive0510

colsten said:

clive0510 said:

I transferred my current account to virgin from tsb,mainly because tsb stopped paying me interest on the balance. virgin give me 2.2% on the 1st 1k. 

Typo, I suppose - it's 2.02% AER but the max you can realise in Virgin is 2.0% gross as the interest doesn't compound in the account. You can, of course, skim off the interest every month, for example into the attached savings account or some other savings account but in the current climate it's tough (not entirely impossible for small amounts) to achieve 2.02% AER. 

yes indeed.it amounts to a couple a quid a month. but tbh I would sooner be receiving a couple of quid interest for doing nothing, as apposed to paying somebody interest for doing nothing. 

MDMD

Brewer20 said:

Quite a statement about all Virgin products being useless, mine have been totally the opposite. Broadband/TV/phone for instance has been fine. A few hiccups along the way in regards prices rising but easily solved by a phone call. I even rang them during this pandemic, they answered in a reasonable time span and couldn't have been more helpful. It took longer to make an appointment via the doctors surgery booking line than to get £15 knocked off of my VM bill.
As for the banking side, I'm yet to find out but I'm only in it for the switch deal, I don't think I'll be transferring my complete day to day stuff over to them.

With a lot of Virgin Products it does depend on who runs it - Virgin Media and Virgin Money are two completely different companies. Virgin Media is owned by Liberty Global,  Virgin Money is a public company (although the Virgin Group does have a small minority shareholding).

Similarly, Virgin wines is also just a brand name, being owned by a private equity / management consortium.