Alliance & Leicester advice/recommendations needed please

roddydogs

Why close your a/c- just leave £1 in , phone them up and say "I am not able to transfer in £500 pm for a while, they will turn you a/c to a "Non fee paying a/c" so you dont get the £5 pm charged. Also its still there for you, yopu can switch back anytime u like. I have done this as NR now pays 6.49 plus bonus, and i dont have to keep paying £500 in and out PM.

YorkshireBoy

maytaurus wrote: »

oh and then find out how to claim back my money on MSE

You may find it easier, quicker, and less stressful to invoke A&L's official complaints procedure.

You're guaranteed an outcome in 8 weeks, and if you're not happy you can take it to the FOS.

Got to be better than going the MCOL route hasn't it?

chesky369

I had absolutely no problem closing my current account about a fortnight ago. They transferred my regular saving money (the year was up) into the current account, I opened an e-saver account, called them and asked them to transfer the £3k + into the e-saver and close the current. All done in one 'phone call and I've just received a cheque from them for £1.60p which was the outstanding balance. Checked on-line and the e-saver is my only account with them. Simple.

Tony_R

I applied for the A&L account on Tuesday, I am currently with Lloyds.

I chose to let them swith my salary to them, my Direct Debits and to close my Lloyds account.

I haven't yet received any paper work through the post. I am having doubts whether I have made the right choice. Am I able to back out, and just stick with Llloyds and find a savings account elsewhere?

free4440273

FWIW, just read in Saturday's Money section (of The Times) that A&L , according to Times readers, was "the bank the with highest Scrooge factor....for high charges and failing to keep balances up to date, [and] putting account holders at greater risk of breaching their overdraft limits" (I quote verbatim). Never used A&L myself; don't think I ever will.

munk

@blizeH: Don't think it's been mentioned above, but are you aware that the A&L Direct Saver and the eSaver accounts are both restricted in that you don't earn any interest in any month in which you withdraw money? Obviously this won't bother you if you're not touching the money for a long time, but if you're planning on using one of those saver accounts to 'top up' your main lloyds current account regularly then you'll get absolutely zero in interest which isn't good!

Personally I use a Sainsburys savings account to drip feed into A&L:

1. First of all, top up the al current a/c to £2500.

2. On 13th of each month, £250 is automatically transferred from the A&L direct current a/c into the A&L regular saver (don't know if this is the same for all or if it's different for each account holder, adjust as reqd).

3. On or just after that date ^^, transfer £500 out of the a&l current a/c over to the sainsburys saver a/c. At the same time, transfer £750 from the sainsburys saver a/c into the a&l current a/c.

Note - as you earn interest you'll have to tweak the figures slightly to keep the current a/c just under £2500. Also of course this presumes you're not making any other payments out of the a/c, again otherwise you'd need to tweak the payments.

With the above you basically keep your a&l current a/c as close to the £2500 as possible to make as much interest as possible and at same time avoid having to pay the £5 usage charge (by paying £500 out of the a/c). Slight PITA, although tbh if you only use the a&l accounts to 'make the most money' (ie you don't use it day to day) then it's really very easy to do this once a month.

YorkshireBoy

@munk,

You're forgetting that these days the A&L 12% Regular Saver is only available with the 1.5% paying Premier account...NOT the 6.5% paying Premier Direct account.

munk

Mmm that's interesting then - when I signed up in October I signed up for the 'Premier Current Account' which as you say included the availability of the 12% regular saver account. My reason for going with the 'plain' Premier Current was that I could get £50 cashback via quidco and that offer didn't seem to be available for the 'Premier Direct Current Account' (so bloody confusing 'Premier Current Account' vs 'Premier Direct Current Account'!!). I presumed that this was because the Direct current account was internet only and so instead of getting £50 cashback, instead you got a higher interest rate.

Anyway, after the cashback had gone through about a month after signing up, I just phoned up and asked if I could change my plain current account into the higher interest rate paying Direct current account. They said sure, no problem and it was done. The payments into the 12% regular saver weren't affected either.

Not sure if this is a 'loophole' as such, but it worked out ok for me anyway getting both the £50 cashback (at the cost of one month at the lower current account rate of 1.5% or w/e it was) and then after that first month switching over to the higher Direct a/c at 6.5% interest whilst at the same time keeping the 12% regular saver deal.

To summarize the confusion above:

1. Sign up for the plain 'Premier Current Account' via:
http://www.quidco.com/alliance-leicester-premier-current-account/
to get £50 cashback. Set up for your regular savings payments is part of the registration process iirc.

2. After the cashback is paid (mine was paid very quickly within a month), ring up alliance and ask to migrate your current account to 'Premier Direct Current Account' (internet only) to benefit from the higher 6.5% interest rate instead of the basic 1.5% rate. Regular savings shouldn't be affected (weren't with me anyway).

Savings_Dave

Hi - another lurker and newbie...great forum and some amazing advice

I'm with A&L and opened a Premier Direct Current Account and also a Direct Saver account in October - got my £50 Quidco cashback too. I'm currently funding the current account with £500 a month (always maxed out with £2.4kish) and then transfering the excess over to the Direct Saver.

I already have maxed out my Cash ISA with NS&I on day 1 this year and so was looking for somewhere else to earn a higher %. First was ING Direct but it turned out to be poor compared with others - so I tried A&L (at the time highly recommended)

I've had no problems with A&L - mainly because I use my accounts purely as savings. I have no overdraft on the account or any DDs etc. I suppose the problems seem to happen when you want to move or close them :rolleyes: The welcome pack and account info was slow to arrive - but that was probably the postal service at fault

Just waiting for the interest rate drop to catch up

YorkshireBoy

munk wrote: »

Mmm that's interesting then

It's very interesting!

2. After the cashback is paid (mine was paid very quickly within a month), ring up alliance and ask to migrate your current account to 'Premier Direct Current Account' (internet only) to benefit from the higher 6.5% interest rate instead of the basic 1.5% rate. Regular savings shouldn't be affected (weren't with me anyway).

You'll obviously know by now if you're getting 6.50% AER on your PD account, but you'll have to wait until next October to see if they'll pay you 12% AER on the regular saver...or some other (pitiful) rate instead.

Best of luck.