A&L 5% interest account

susy_2

For a while now, I have been reading about the A&L 5% interest account on mse and the Lloyds 4%. There are a few things I am not clear about.

1) Do you have to transfer your existing current account or can you just open a new one?

2) My earnings come from several sources and sometimes in cheque form - I do not really want to change my banking details with all my companies. Does the 'paid in £1000 per month', have to come from earnings or could I just deposit £1000?

3) If I can deposit £1000 per month manually, is there any reason why I cannot draw it out again (leaving a small amount in) and re-deposit it again next month? and so on and so forth?

Can anybody in the know help me with these questions?

muddy697

i would like to add another question to this list if i may,
the interest free overdraft for 12 months. does this mean that there is no charges and no interest for using the allowed limit during this time?
thanks
Jacqui

Maddie

Hi Susy and muddy

I am in the process of opening the Alliance & Leicester Premier Plus Account so can answer your questions on that one;

1) You do not have to transfer your current account, they send out a form to fill in to transfer direct debits, but I'm not going to bother. They will also close your old account for you and contact your employer to give them your new bank details, if you want them to.

2)As long as you put in £1000 a month it doesnt matter where it comes from, I do not currently earn enough to pay in £1000 a month, but will by September. I asked if I was ok to just but some extra money in for the first few months and was told that this was fine.

3)Yes you are allowed to take the money back out again.

muddy697,

The interest on the overdraft is 0%, and my leaflet states that the monthly fee for an authorised overdreft on this account is £0, so I'm pretty sure that its totally free. They have given me an overdraft of £200 if thats useful to know (I have an income of £12k gross).

They have also sent me a form to sign for their credit card, I rang up to check if I have to get the card and they said no, just dont send that form back.

The only strange thing about the account is that you don't get statements by post, only through online banking, that's good for the enviroment though!

I've found their call centre staff to be helpful so would recommend ringing up if you want to double check anything.

Milarky

It's definitely the case that A&L simply check the total amount of monthly credits from non A&L sources and only require you to pay in £1000+ per month to meet the account conditions. So, yes, the simplest way to do this is draw out the cash and pay it back in. If you want to use the overdraft facility you have to pay something in first and then withdraw it again. If you are going to use the overdraft whilst interest free [keep an ongoing negative balance] then you can't access the credit rate of interest, of course.

The best 'revenge' is to use A&L's online saver account [5.35%] - linked to the PP bank account - to hold your 'stoozed' [in the credit card parlance] overdraft. You can instantly transfer the money to the bank account, this amount you can withdraw over the counter and give back to the teller to be paid back in. Do this enough times, and you will soon reach the £1,000 monthly figure - at which stage you can move the overdraft back into the online saver and earn interest on it there for the rest of the month.

[This works basically, because they assume people will use the account as a bank account - rather than chase cash back and forth. And the are correct, most people will just pay the cash in and use it as a bank account]

Some other points:

The 5% credit interest is only up to balances of £2,500 [but not really a problem as the Online saver can take up to £25,000]

Their 'statements' are just ongoing account summaries, really - what you get online anyway - they do not have the 'appearance' of finished paper statements - if that bothers anyone.

'Set up and pay' does not seem to work as well with A&L as with other banks - i.e. you can 'set up' a payee immediately, but can only instruct payment from the next working day. Minimum amounts of £1 on payments/transfers

A really good feature is that everything done online is retained after a session had ended [with other banks it gets wiped clear after logging out] and remains permantly viewable - or at least with a very long retention period. This I haven't seen anywhere else but is invaluable if you as the customer want to query a past action - or check later on what you have done.

MarkyMarkD

Milarky wrote:

'Set up and pay' does not seem to work as well with A&L as with other banks - i.e. you can 'set up' a payee immediately, but can only instruct payment from the next working day. Minimum amounts of £1 on payments/transfers

I don't know what you mean here, Milarky. I've made bill payments to new payees and done it all at the same time.

muddy697

thanks everyone so much for your help. im going to check out the location of the leeds branch today. i think its a bit nearer than my old bank - which could be a lunchtime bonus!

madfrenchgirl

I dont get it, i applied for it and they refused me!!!! I earn 1100 pounds a month, dont have bad credit at all, never had any debts... !!!!!!?!?!?!?!

jo_b_2

madfrenchgirl wrote:

I dont get it, i applied for it and they refused me!!!! I earn 1100 pounds a month, dont have bad credit at all, never had any debts... !!!!!!?!?!?!?!

It might sound obvious but are you on the electoral register? When I applied last year, I wasn't because I had recently moved house.

The best thing to do would be to phone customer services and ask why you were refused and whether the decision can be reconsidered. I did that and got accepted. Has to be worth a try.

Maddie

Milarky wrote:

The best 'revenge' is to use A&L's online saver account [5.35%] - linked to the PP bank account - to hold your 'stoozed' [in the credit card parlance] overdraft. You can instantly transfer the money to the bank account, this amount you can withdraw over the counter and give back to the teller to be paid back in. Do this enough times, and you will soon reach the £1,000 monthly figure - at which stage you can move the overdraft back into the online saver and earn interest on it there for the rest of the month.

This reminds me, I don't think that they class money transfered from other A&L accounts as being part of the £1000. I know that is not what Milarky is saying, but just thought I should make it clear.

Canny_mal, thanks for that, £50 would be lovely , I will pm you my details when I get home.

Maddie

susy_2

Milarky wrote:

The best 'revenge' is to use A&L's online saver account [5.35%] - linked to the PP bank account - to hold your 'stoozed' [in the credit card parlance] overdraft. You can instantly transfer the money to the bank account, this amount you can withdraw over the counter and give back to the teller to be paid back in. Do this enough times, and you will soon reach the £1,000 monthly figure - at which stage you can move the overdraft back into the online saver and earn interest on it there for the rest of the month.

Thanks Milarky. I hadn't really looked at their savings account, but I have now which raises more questions.

1) I don't really understand why you have to have a current account connected with the savers account? Does this mean you cannot put cash into the savers account or take cash out? If I wanted to make a withdrawal from the savings account, would I have to transfer from the savings account into the PP account and then withdraw the cash from that account and would this be instant? What you said made it sound like that, but it seems a long way around things.

2) If the savers account pays more than the PP account, is it worth moving the money back and forth at all?. Should I just open their basic current account, connect it to the savers account and just use it for 'stoozing'?

3) Do I open the PP account or other A&L account before applying for a savers account?

Murray

Canny_mal wrote:

On a slightly different note I've only just discovered that A+L offer £50 to anyone who recommends the Premier or the Premier Plus Current Account to a 'friend' But better yet the person opening the account also gets £50. The payments are added to each persons account within 8 weeks of the new account being credited with it's first minimum monthly deposit.

For more info copy and paste this link into your browser (not a direct referral, just a link to a page on the A+L website)......

http://www.alliance-leicester.co.uk/currentaccounts/index.asp?page=recommend-friend&ct=curraccmenu

It seems incredibly straight-forward and you can take advantage of it even if you've already gone ahead and opened your account (as long as it wasn't more than a few weeks ago I suppose!)

Thanks for this info!

I would like to open 2 of these accounts, 1 for me and 1 for my partner. Does anybody know of any reason why we cant recommend each other? I cant see anything in the T+C's saying that we cant but it does seem a bit too good to be true!!