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

TOP_CAT

Halifax has lifted the bar with the new reward account its alot more admin for not alot .
Perhaps its not going to work for myself but will for others .
Those with joint accounts and personal ie three accounts will be doing alot of spending and account admin .
Thats why it looks like a purge .
Its not one size fits type of account with a reward  thats for certain 

General_Grant

TOP_CAT said:

I have a club lloyds  but that doesnt require a 500 spend each month or need to hold a balance .
It doesnt pay much except shopping rewards and cinema tickets and costs £3 if you dont fund the 1500 per month

But you need two DDs if you want to earn interest on your credit balance.

Ed-1

TOP_CAT said:

Club Lloyds...
costs £3 if you dont fund the 1500 per month

So will the new Halifax Reward Account.

TOP_CAT

Yes thats right same or very similar as Natwest and Halifax ie the older hoops and hurdles we all jumped  .
This new account is tougher though  alot wont park 5000 or spend 500  on DC  a month during a world wide pandemic .
I guess we are talking what suits the individuals needs personally but imo these new hoops an hurdles wont fly long term  like the older versions have done .
Its too high a holding balance or too high a spend per month .
Which plays into Halifaxs not paying the fiver.....so then the majority of people/customers will  just walk away, to much faff .

Fingerbobs

jeepjunkie said:

colsten said:

crumpet_man said:

£500 spend on the Halifax debit card will get you £5, so how are you losing £2.50 by not using a 0.5% cashback card?  You would be up £2.50.

For the first month I may make multiple £500 purchases to ensure the reward is triggered, i.e. pay credit card bill, top-up starling, pay into savings account.  Hopefully, there will be some feedback on here as to which method worked for others.

Hopefully people will NOT trot out how they spent £500. It should be fairly obvious why not. This is a public forum.

Exactly, just put normal stuff through he account   I'm not sure why so many think normal spending is such a faff etc...

People may not spend as much as £500 every single calendar month on normal stuff.

badger09

Fingerbobs said:

jeepjunkie said:

colsten said:

crumpet_man said:

£500 spend on the Halifax debit card will get you £5, so how are you losing £2.50 by not using a 0.5% cashback card?  You would be up £2.50.

For the first month I may make multiple £500 purchases to ensure the reward is triggered, i.e. pay credit card bill, top-up starling, pay into savings account.  Hopefully, there will be some feedback on here as to which method worked for others.

Hopefully people will NOT trot out how they spent £500. It should be fairly obvious why not. This is a public forum.

Exactly, just put normal stuff through he account   I'm not sure why so many think normal spending is such a faff etc...

People may not spend as much as £500 every single calendar month on normal stuff.

Agreed. There is absolutely no way I do (or would) spend £500 every month on 'normal stuff'. Though I guess that depends on jeepjunkie's definition of 'normal stuff'

General_Grant

jeepjunkie said:

TOP_CAT said:

Yes thats right same or very similar as Natwest and Halifax ie the older hoops and hurdles we all jumped  .
This new account is tougher though  alot wont park 5000 or spend 500  on DC  a month during a world wide pandemic .
I guess we are talking what suits the individuals needs personally but imo these new hoops an hurdles wont fly long term  like the older versions have done .
Its too high a holding balance or too high a spend per month .
Which plays into Halifaxs not paying the fiver.....so then the majority of people/customers will  just walk away, to much faff .

Yeah, Personally I think 12 months is a long time to park £5k given other opportunities with better returns as I mentioned earlier. But spending and getting the £60pa looks good, well £75 as I chuck it in the wife SIPP, by debit card obviously, lol.

If other, better, opportunities come along for instant access cash then you can of course remove the £5K from Halifax.  You don't have to keep it there for a full year if you want to take advantage of other opportunities you just wouldn't get the £5 in a month when you didn't keep it there.

Money_Man_Steve

Not sure if this has been mentioned already, but these changes now apply from 1st July 2020, not 1st June as per the original post.

colsten

Money_Man_Steve said:

Not sure if this has been mentioned already, but these changes now apply from 1st July 2020, not 1st June as per the original post.

This has been discussed, and the consensus was that the changes for some people apply from June 1 2020, as they were advised by letter from Halifax, despite of what the Halifax website says. To handle the confusion, people might wish to continue their DDs into July 2020, and to ensure that their monthly deposits are at least £1,500 from June onwards.

phillw

Fingerbobs said:
I don't see how anyone would find out which specific "purchases" qualify without risking their reward payment anyway. 

I personally highly doubt that any MCC6012 transactions would count, but I wait to be proved wrong.

It does seem like it's impossible to make an informed decision, which wouldn't be so bad but you are stuck with your decision for 12 months.