Halifax Reward Account changing to £3 charge with “lifestyle rewards”

onwards&upwards

colsten said:

onwards&upwards said:

I’m not in a position to meet the new requirements, unfortunately.  

If you are meeting the current ones, why can't you meet the new ones? Instead of cycling £750 once, cycle it twice. Delete the DDs, they are no longer needed after June 1. Syphon £500 by debit card into a savings account, and send it back from there to your main current account. Not as automated / automate-able as the current arrangements, but you can get two-and-a-half times as much reward each month.

Hmm, it’s definitely not convenient.  I’ll have to think about it, might do it short term until a decent switching offer comes up.

quirkydeptless

Just signed up for this with £5 for using £500 on my debit card. The auto sign-up described it as "cashback". I think becuase you are now paying a fee for this, there is no tax.

I already have £1500 cycling in and out, so fee already averted.

I have a number of ways to pay £500 into savings, so no problem, just that I have to it manually, but then if I only remember to do it every other month, it's still better than the £2

Freeing up 2DD is nice too.

I'll need that extra £3 a month to help offset my stock market losses

masonic

quirkydeptless said:

Just signed up for this with £5 for using £500 on my debit card. The auto sign-up described it as "cashback". I think becuase you are now paying a fee for this, there is no tax.

It's not taxable if cashback because cashback is treated as a discount on spending and a discount isn't income. I'd wait to see if it is really structured as cashback on your debit card spending.

movingon

I have opened a second PO account and my plan is to start the process on Monday, to practice the in and out £500 method. My first PO account has a linked account as Lloyds, and so will only pay out to Lloyds and I wanted to simplify the transaction manoevering, hence the second account (though I did think you could only have one?)
 I am starting the process now , as I had no end of problems trying to set up the Lloyds DD and manual payments in and out took forever. I figured if I start it all now, and if for some reason, I can't bear the PO and have all that frustration all over again, or forget to do the manual in and outs,  I can think of a plan B, before I have to make a commitment in May.

colsten

quirkydeptless said:

Just signed up for this with £5 for using £500 on my debit card. The auto sign-up described it as "cashback". I think becuase you are now paying a fee for this, there is no tax. 

I don't think it has anything to do with the account fee but with the fact that you are spending with the debit card and getting cashback for that spend.

If you choose £5,000 in the Halifax account for the monthly fiver, it is classed as interest and therefore taxable income.

Ghostcrawler

Note that you will face issues while withdrawing money out from PO if you have multiple accounts. Just recently I also faced the same issue, so had call them up and they identified the root cause as I have multiple accounts.  I was glad that they left it for me to sort out which I have no intention of doing so but after that call I was able to wothdraw from multiple accounts.

colsten

Ghostcrawler said:

Note that you will face issues while withdrawing money out from PO if you have multiple accounts. Just recently I also faced the same issue, so had call them up and they identified the root cause as I have multiple accounts.  I was glad that they left it for me to sort out which I have no intention of doing so but after that call I was able to wothdraw from multiple accounts.

I don't know why anyone is still using the Post Office for their savings. We have seen huge amounts of reports from people who had all sorts of trouble with their PO accounts. The main issues seem to arise with withdrawals.

Ghostcrawler

I understand your view @colsten but PO is the last resort and I needed DD. I faced few issues but at the end I was able to resolve it and also fulfilled my DD requirements.

veryintrigued

colsten said:

Ghostcrawler said:

Note that you will face issues while withdrawing money out from PO if you have multiple accounts. Just recently I also faced the same issue, so had call them up and they identified the root cause as I have multiple accounts.  I was glad that they left it for me to sort out which I have no intention of doing so but after that call I was able to wothdraw from multiple accounts.

I don't know why anyone is still using the Post Office for their savings. We have seen huge amounts of reports from people who had all sorts of trouble with their PO accounts. The main issues seem to arise with withdrawals.

Indeed.

The removal of two Post Office DDs as part of this change is a huge, huge bonus.

General_Grant

Has anyone tried to register more than one sole account (ie not including a joint one) for the new style account?