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

colsten

infoadict said:

Have just received my letter and it states these changes will come into force from 1st June and if you wish to keep your Reward account, then must phone them by 15th May.

However on their website and their PDF, it states the changes are from 1st July and have to call before 12th June?

I want to cancel my DD's, but not too soon and don't want to call to ask, as it's not really urgent.

But which is it?

who knows  . Even within the PDF they use conflicting dates.

It might be safest to keep the DDs going until July, but also making sure that at least £1,500 get deposited in June. And, if you go for the "fiver for £5,000" option, have £5,000 plus the DD amount in your account from June 1 onwards.

crumpet_man

JustAnotherSaver said

On that note wouldn't it be better i went the £500 route on the account rather than the £5k (as i have Marcus at 1.5% now, or 1.45% or whatever they've recently dropped it to) but when the Marcus account drops it could be a different story

Pay the Amex bill with the Halifax debit card/s.

crumpet_man

Can someone remind me if transfers from Bank of Scotland to Halifax count towards the pay in requirements?

General_Grant

crumpet_man said:

Can someone remind me if transfers from Bank of Scotland to Halifax count towards the pay in requirements?

Any transfers count, even from within Halifax.  (They aren't like, for example, Nationwide where deposits to meet the minimum have to come entirely from outside.

DPS-2016

Just got my letter this morning.  
Regarding the 'debit card spend' each month is this only payments made using contactless/chip and pin or are direct debits from your account included?  

Ed-1

DPS-2016 said:

Just got my letter this morning.  
Regarding the 'debit card spend' each month is this only payments made using contactless/chip and pin or are direct debits from your account included?  

Direct debits are not debit card payments.

pedro001

Goodbye Halifax after 30 years. My joint account holder (wife) got a letter but not me from the Bank of Scotland detailing the Halifax Reward changes.  When I opened the account, everything was Halifax but slowly things have merged. Even my local branch, the only convenient bank to me, changed to BOS at some point in time. Every time I do anything I am asked if I am a Halifax or BOS customer. I never use my debit card unless I lose my Tesco Credit card. My cash level in my Reward account pivots around £5000. I see no point in staying with them so I have decided to switch to BOS. No fee, 2 DDs, £1000 in, interest 1%  up to £4000, 2% £4000-£5000.

soulsaver

pedro001 said:

I see no point in staying with them so I have decided to switch to BOS. No fee, 2 DDs, £1000 in, interest 1%  up to £4000, 2% £4000-£5000.

You could do both: Put the £5k in BoS and 'do' hfax with electing the debit card spend. Use the £1500 of the £5k to cycle in and out of the hfax in seconds avoiding the £3 fee... and still getting the full interest from BoS... and spend £500 on the hf DC gaining the £5 reward.

Both Hfax & BoS are on the same logged in page, so peasy.
Read the thread for best DC options (pay the Tesco CC?) ..et voila.

masonic

DPS-2016 said:

Just got my letter this morning.  
Regarding the 'debit card spend' each month is this only payments made using contactless/chip and pin or are direct debits from your account included?  

Do you perhaps mean 'cardholder not present' transactions?

phillw

masonic said:
The do get processing fees for the weird and wonderful ways so far mentioned.

Are you saying they receive the same level of fee you send money to a financial institution as when paying a merchant? That isn't my understanding at all of the fee structure of "cash" vs "purchase" transactions using cards (either debit or credit).
It's clear they are moving away from arbitrary requirements that trigger a payment, to something that funds itself. To cover the £5 for £500 they would need more than a 1% fee.

They also explicitly say on their web site that "When you make a money transfer to another account." is not covered. I know this has been speculated to mean faster payments, but it's in the section "What kind of spending counts towards the offer?" and faster payments aren't a spend on your debit card. So it's already excluded by the terms

"Add the ‘£5 for £500’ offer to your account to get £5 for each month you spend £500 or more on your debit card."