Halifax / Marcus or AA?

JustAnotherSaver

With Marcus dropping their rates & Halifax changing their setup, i'm looking at where to place my money and want to check i'm getting this right.

I remember reading from a thread that with the change to Halifax, £5k split across the accounts would be equivalent to 1.20% on that account .... roughly.

My Marcus is sitting at 1.20% AER / 1.19% gross

Just had a look now and my AA is sitting at 1.28%gross

So rather than spreading my money throughout Halifax and rather than keeping it in Marcus, it would seem better to just chuck the lot in to the AA, correct?

Am i missing anything?

Obviously there's things like £500 Halifax spend and all these hush-hush criteria tick boxing that we''ll refuse to talk about on a forum but since we're refusing to talk about it i wont know what they are so i'm left with the option of £5k across the Halifax accounts since i wont be spending £500 on them.

crumpet_man

I'd leave it in Marcus and use the debit card spend for the £5 reward at Halifax.  Double win.
The extra 0.08% at the AA will get you £8 a year extra on £10k.

Archi_Bald

It depends on how much savings you have, when you need or want to spend the money, and how much effort you want to put into managing it.

The usual recommendations include

• NS&I Income Bonds, may be also Premium Bonds
• Regular Savers
• Fixed term savings
• Instant access savings, including interest-paying current accounts

As always, you don't have to back just one horse. A combination of the above may suit your needs. I would personally do the debit card spend at Halifax for the £5 as I have the time and inclination.

JustAnotherSaver

Income bonds/premium bonds - don't know anything about these so haven't dipped my toe.

Regular Savers - i have many/most/all of the good ones.

Fixed term - would rather not fix

Interest paying current accounts - such as TSB, have them.

Regards the debit card spend, for what's involved i'd need to spend £2,500-£3,000 per month to hit the criteria on each account. Even if we just simplify it massively and go across only two accounts, that's £1,000 spend. I would seriously doubt we'd spend that.

I contacted Halifax to ask about D/Ds qualifying and was told they will 100% not and it needs to be a debit card spend. Fair enough. We wont hit the required figures in that case.

There may or may not be workarounds but to be honest, i can't be bothered with uppity people and their attitude wanting to keep these workarounds all hush-hush to themselves so it is what it is & for the time being i've no idea about these workarounds that are occasionally alluded to on here.

Archi_Bald

JustAnotherSaver said:

Income bonds/premium bonds - don't know anything about these so haven't dipped my toe.

Premium Bonds: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/premium-bonds/, and there is a thread on this board where people report how much / how little they won

Income Bonds: good summary https://www.nsandi.com/files/asset/pdf/income-bonds-brochure.pdf, plus there's a lively discussion on this board about it at the moment as it's the top-interest "instant access" account for now. A good account if you can live with the the peculiar features it comes with.

Zanderman

I'd make the most of your 1.2% in Marcus whilst it lasts.
They've just closed for new easy access accounts, and their new fixed saver is 1%, so 1.2% (though variable) isn't too bad in the circs.

JustAnotherSaver

Zanderman said:

I'd make the most of your 1.2% in Marcus whilst it lasts.
They've just closed for new easy access accounts, and their new fixed saver is 1%, so 1.2% (though variable) isn't too bad in the circs.

Is there a reason why you'd go with Marcus over AA when AA's numbers are higher?

In my mind it boiled down to AA or Halifax, depending on how they really do stack up. I know some will do the spend so they'll have the best of both worlds but as i said, i simply wont spend enough to qualify via that route.

I often miss something though so wanted to check whether i'd missed something in this case.

Curious why you go for Marcus over AA though. I don't actually have to close the Marcus account - i can withdraw all bar £1 of it.

Yorkshire_Pud

I had an AA savings account paying 1.43% but it was nearly all bonus and now it’s 0.2%.
In fact I closed it.

JustAnotherSaver

Yorkshire_Pud said:

I had an AA savings account paying 1.43% but it was nearly all bonus and now it’s 0.2%.
In fact I closed it.

Well yeah, if my AA was paying 0.2% I would even be considering putting money in there over the Marcus acc. 

wiseonesomeofthetime

I would check the dates that the bonus elements of your Marcus and AA expire.

Like @Yorkshire_Pud, I had an AA @ 1.47%, however, 1.27% of that was bonus and expires this week. 0.2% is useless as I'm sure you'll accept.

My Marcus us currently at 1.15%, but the 0.10% bonus expires October, reducing to 1.05%. That's way higher than the AA one.

General_Grant

JustAnotherSaver said:

. . .

I remember reading from a thread that with the change to Halifax, £5k split across the accounts would be equivalent to 1.20% on that account .... roughly.

. . .

So rather than spreading my money throughout Halifax . . ..

Just in case you are thinking about Halifax new Rewards account - it is not £5K split across accounts but the term you are thinking about is £5K (or more) maintained in a single account throughout the month.