Nationwide Flex Direct

[Deleted User]

kaMelo said:

The OP says £1000 pay in is not a problem so why not just open a new Flex Direct rather than upgrade your present one.
Keep your current cards, branch access etc and also get 2% for a year on Flex Direct.

The only real benefit from the Flex Direct is if you benefit/use the interest free overdraft for the year to reduce borrowing costs. 

The 2% is not much above available elsewhere, so not really a true 2% saving 

MouldyOldDough

OK. I won't bother then!! 

carinjo

Jumping in a bit late here. My OH and i opened seperate flexdirect accounts in october (no minimum pay in or any d.d.). In january we opened a joint flexdirect account (using 7day switch). We got the £125 about a week after the switch done. 
I have since moved 2 d.d. from joint to my single account, will do the same with OH account in next few months, with S.O. cash from joint to cover d.d. in single accounts. 
This was all to get the £125 and set up the single accounts for future bank bribes, most which require 2 d.d. Any minimum income required taken care of by S.O. moving cash in and out as required.
We used the £125 to pay for holiday to spain.

It didn't take much more than a couple of coffees in front of laptop to sort out.

Only thing i will add: when i tried to withdraw cash from a counter last week (needed specific denominations), i was told the account is really for online use only, not for coming into the bank. but the lady was very nice about it. On their website it does say there is a £500 limit for withdrawels in bank for Flexdirect, so am choosing to ignore the "rule" of online account only.

k_man

MouldyOldDough said:

Zanderman said:

MouldyOldDough said:

Daliah said:

You can upgrade your FlexAccount to a FlexDirect any time you like. I am not sure you would get the 2% interest as this is for new customers only - you'd have to ask Nationwide. I am 100% sure you will not get the £125 switch bonus for the upgrade as this is only available if you switch a non-Nationwide account to Nationwide. You would qualify for the £125 if you did switch a non-Nationwide account, and you and your partner could each make such a switch.

Nationwide do offer £100 to new customers to open a flex direct account and £125 to existing customers for the same thing and 2% is offered to both for 12 months

https://www.nationwide.co.uk/current-accounts/switch/

But what I want to know is - is there any ongoing advantage/disadvatage to changing from flex to flexdirect ?

Nationwide offer the incentive (whether £100 or £125) for switches into Nationwide from a bank account elsewhere.

They do not offer either amount for anyone changing the status of an existing account. 

OK I understand now

So whether I change accounts or not is purely down to the 2% for a year, 1% after 12  months compared to ZERO

What else have I missed in relation to differences in running the accounts ?

After 12 months it is only 0.25%, not 1%, so still better than ZERO, but only just:

https://www.nationwide.co.uk/current-accounts/flexdirect/

After the first 12 months, it’s 0.25% AER (0.24% gross a year) variable