Santander - changing statement date

blue.peter

Does anyone here have recent experience of getting Santander to change their credit card statement date?

Generally, I've found card providers quite happy to change statement dates for me. But I'm having a little difficulty with Santander, and would appreciate hearing from a voice - or voices - of experience.

I took out a new card a week or two ago. When I got access to Online Banking, I saw that the statement date had been set to 5 September (and, presumably, the 5th of subsequent months, or thereabouts). From my point of view, this is such inconvenient timing as to make the card useless. It should be easy enough to get them to fix it, I thought.

First attempt: was told that it couldn't be done until the first transaction had gone through. I've never heard that one before, but OK.

Thursday 11 August: trip to supermarket with new card.

Second attempt (Saturday 13 August): On the phone for 17 minutes (mostly on hold, but also set up voice recognition), but the chap I eventually spoke to said that he'd got the statement date set to 20th of each month +/- 1 day. That's fine, so I thought that it was resolved.

This morning (Monday 15 August): online banking still says that the next statement is due 5 September, so I phoned again. This is where problems started. I had awful difficulty understanding the lady who answered - it sounded as if she was talking through a cushion. I'm therefore not at all sure what she said. I *think* that she told me that they couldn't change the date of the next statement from 5 September (I'd expected it to be brought forward to 19 August), but that the one after that would be produced on 20 September.

Is this correct? Or did I get hold of the wrong end of the stick?

Ebe_Scrooge

blue.peter said:

I saw that the statement date had been set to 5 September (and, presumably, the 5th of subsequent months, or thereabouts). From my point of view, this is such inconvenient timing as to make the card useless.

Why is that so inconvenient - and so inconvenient as to make the card useless?  I get that it's quite handy to have the payment due date to coincide with payday, but if you're struggling to budget to the extent that you can't cope with the default payment date, then I would question the wisdom of taking out a card in the first place.

blue.peter said:

This morning (Monday 15 August): online banking still says that the next statement is due 5 September, so I phoned again. This is where problems started. I had awful difficulty understanding the lady who answered - it sounded as if she was talking through a cushion. I'm therefore not at all sure what she said. I *think* that she told me that they couldn't change the date of the next statement from 5 September (I'd expected it to be brought forward to 19 August), but that the one after that would be produced on 20 September.

Is this correct? Or did I get hold of the wrong end of the stick?

Sounds like it could be correct.  Admittedly it sounds a little slow, but do remember that the automated batch systems that process statements, payments, etc. can be pretty complex.  And it may well be that they have a monthly batch run that processes all statements, so any changes can take up to 2 months to take effect, depending on the specific timings.

blue.peter

Ebe_Scrooge said:

Why is that so inconvenient - and so inconvenient as to make the card useless?  I get that it's quite handy to have the payment due date to coincide with payday, but if you're struggling to budget to the extent that you can't cope with the default payment date, then I would question the wisdom of taking out a card in the first place.

Who said anything about struggling to budget? There's no struggle here. I've been running credit cards for 45 years, and know how to use them. I said "inconvenient", not "unmanageable". I could adapt to a statement date of 5th, but would prefer not to have to do so. The plan was to replace another card that I'd like to dump with the Santander one. However, I see no benefit to doing that if the existing card is on a timetable that suits my modus operandi but the new one isn't.

Not everyone is on the same income/payment timetable; not everyone manages their finances in the same way. I simply want to get the Santander one into line with my existing timetable because that'll be easier for me. If I can't, I'll either stick with the card that I was planning to drop or find another.

Ebe_Scrooge said:

Sounds like it could be correct.

Yes, I agree that it's plausible, for all the reasons that you set out. But that wasn't my question. What I want to know is whether Santander does actually do this.

born_again

Odds on it will change once the 1st statement will have been generated & will be the statement date going forward.

gilly1964

My understanding is Santander statements work on a two monthly cycle, so any changes made will never take effect from the next expected date.  This also applies if converting to DD payment from manual payments

If you check your statement you will see 
Statement Date
Payment Due Date
Next Statement Date

blue.peter

gilly1964 said:

My understanding is Santander statements work on a two monthly cycle, so any changes made will never take effect from the next expected date. 

That's helpful - thank you.

blue.peter

This gets even stranger.

I was expecting the first statement to be generated on 5 September - i.e., Monday of this week. Well, some time on Monday, the next statement date shown on the summary page of Santander's online banking changed from 5 September to 21 September. That's within the range that I was expecting, and is fine. The strange thing is that the 5 September statement still hasn't been produced, and it's now four days later. The next payment date is shown as 17 October, which is consistent with a statement date of 21 September (bearing in mind that 21 September + 25 days = 16 October, but that's a Sunday).

It's beginning to look as if I'm getting an extended period before getting my first statement, instead of having a statement month shortened by the change in production date (as I was expecting).

born_again

Can happen.
Enjoy the extra long period before payment

blue.peter

blue.peter said:

It's beginning to look as if I'm getting an extended period before getting my first statement, instead of having a statement month shortened by the change in production date (as I was expecting).

Today is 22 September. Santander did generate my first statement today (effective close of business yesterday). I did get an extended interest-free period on my first few transactions (totalling all of £22!).

So it seems that Santander does change statement dates by extending the statement period, rather than shortening it. Or at least they do in some cases: I can't say whether or not it always happens. But what happened to me wasn't what I'd have expected, and isn't (IME) normal for the industry. I'm not complaining. I was just confused.