Santander 123 rises to 1.5%

Astria

Nationwide have just offered me Flexible Savings @ 2.10% with upto 3 withdrawals per year, 2% if you want unlimited withdrawals, or 4% if you agree to no withdrawals (fixed bond), so I opened all 3, Chase I really don't care about any more. I'll still transfer money to them to use my 1% cash back until it expires then probably close the account.

I'll wait for my Santander cashback then probably drop that to the 'lite' account to save £2/month and drop the balance to about 2K as 1.5% isn't worth £2.

[Deleted User]

jimjames said:

Astria said:

phillw said:

I certainly wouldn't keep 20k in santander, if you're that forgetful then enough for 2/3 months tops.

Why ? because of the 1.5% rate? I know places like Yorkshire bank offer 2.5%, but I think I've got enough bank accounts and don't really want more for such a small amount of extra interest.

Virgin pay 2% on their linked saver now. I can't see the fuss about Santander when it's lower and costs too

The rate uplift doesn't just apply to the 123, it also applies to their Select/Private products which my old folks use extensively in Spain, Portugal and the US. I doubt they'd use Clydesdale or Al Rayan for a few extra pounds.

badger09

Astria said:

Nationwide have just offered me Flexible Savings @ 2.35% with upto 3 withdrawals per year, 2% if you want unlimited withdrawals, or 4% if you agree to no withdrawals (fixed bond), so I opened all 3, Chase I really don't care about any more. I'll still transfer money to them to use my 1% cash back until it expires then probably close the account.

I'll wait for my Santander cashback then probably drop that to the 'lite' account to save £2/month and drop the balance to about 2K as 1.5% isn't worth £2.

I have the Triple Access Online Saver 15 paying 2.10% What version were you offered @ 2.35%? Previously, Nationwide increased the rate on mine from 1.75%. 

Edit
Just had a look online and I can’t see any account paying 2.35%

Astria

badger09 said:

Astria said:

Nationwide have just offered me Flexible Savings @ 2.35% with upto 3 withdrawals per year, 2% if you want unlimited withdrawals, or 4% if you agree to no withdrawals (fixed bond), so I opened all 3, Chase I really don't care about any more. I'll still transfer money to them to use my 1% cash back until it expires then probably close the account.

I'll wait for my Santander cashback then probably drop that to the 'lite' account to save £2/month and drop the balance to about 2K as 1.5% isn't worth £2.

I have the Triple Access Online Saver 15 paying 2.10% What version were you offered @ 2.35%? Previously, Nationwide increased the rate on mine from 1.75%. 

Edit
Just had a look online and I can’t see any account paying 2.35%

My apologies, I've just checked and it's indeed 2.10%, I must be getting confused with another account that's 2.35%, or for some reason I combined the 2.25% of virgin money with the 2.10% of nationwide and got 2.35% !

It does make me think why a lot of people would bother with the limited withdrawals just for an extra 0.1% though.

badger09

Astria said:

badger09 said:

Astria said:

Nationwide have just offered me Flexible Savings @ 2.35% with upto 3 withdrawals per year, 2% if you want unlimited withdrawals, or 4% if you agree to no withdrawals (fixed bond), so I opened all 3, Chase I really don't care about any more. I'll still transfer money to them to use my 1% cash back until it expires then probably close the account.

I'll wait for my Santander cashback then probably drop that to the 'lite' account to save £2/month and drop the balance to about 2K as 1.5% isn't worth £2.

I have the Triple Access Online Saver 15 paying 2.10% What version were you offered @ 2.35%? Previously, Nationwide increased the rate on mine from 1.75%. 

Edit
Just had a look online and I can’t see any account paying 2.35%

My apologies, I've just checked and it's indeed 2.10%, I must be getting confused with another account that's 2.35%, or for some reason I combined the 2.25% of virgin money with the 2.10% of nationwide and got 2.35% !

It does make me think why a lot of people would bother with the limited withdrawals just for an extra 0.1% though.

No need to apologise. Rates are moving so quickly, it’s difficult to keep up. 

BUT you’ve confused me even more now. The Virgin M Plus current account & linked savings accounts are now @ 2.02%. 

Where are you seeing 2.25%?

Astria

badger09 said:

Astria said:

badger09 said:

Astria said:

Nationwide have just offered me Flexible Savings @ 2.35% with upto 3 withdrawals per year, 2% if you want unlimited withdrawals, or 4% if you agree to no withdrawals (fixed bond), so I opened all 3, Chase I really don't care about any more. I'll still transfer money to them to use my 1% cash back until it expires then probably close the account.

I'll wait for my Santander cashback then probably drop that to the 'lite' account to save £2/month and drop the balance to about 2K as 1.5% isn't worth £2.

I have the Triple Access Online Saver 15 paying 2.10% What version were you offered @ 2.35%? Previously, Nationwide increased the rate on mine from 1.75%. 

Edit
Just had a look online and I can’t see any account paying 2.35%

My apologies, I've just checked and it's indeed 2.10%, I must be getting confused with another account that's 2.35%, or for some reason I combined the 2.25% of virgin money with the 2.10% of nationwide and got 2.35% !

It does make me think why a lot of people would bother with the limited withdrawals just for an extra 0.1% though.

No need to apologise. Rates are moving so quickly, it’s difficult to keep up. 

BUT you’ve confused me even more now. The Virgin M Plus current account & linked savings accounts are now @ 2.02%. 

Where are you seeing 2.25%?

I think it's best I stop typing

The base rate is at 2.25% not Virgin money. Unless they've reduce the rate recently, which I find unlikely.

ZeroSum

Astria said:

steffangl said:

Daliah said:

Don't forget it costs £4 a month.

This effectively reduces the interest rate to 1.26% on an account that is fully loaded with £20k all the time. That's a little over half of the currently best instant access rate. If you keep less in the account, the 123 interest rate is even worse.

Probably more fair to say it effectively costs £2 a month (as the Lite is £2 covering the cashback element).
That would then make it 1.38% with the full 20k in the account.
But yes, you're absolutely right - still less than other easy access savings accounts available.
You'd think they'd offer some other benefits of going for the full 123 over Lite.

doesn't £2000 break even on the 123 'full' account? Meaning that if you keep anything over that in the account then it's effectively worth the £2/month extra.

Depends. The break even is £2,400. However thats only really applicable if you have DD's around that amount. But given the cashback limits, you can only earn cashback on DD's of just over £900. Fair enough if you've got stupidly high energy costs, but if you've got DD's that aren't eligible for cashback, then you can use them more effectively on other accounts.

Whilst I do get the argument around convenience, what you also have to remember is this is a forum dedicated to saving money. And convenience is something that costs money.

Astria

Depends. The break even is £2,400.

How do you get that figure? £2000 * 0.015 = £30, minus 20% = £24 / 12 = £2.

ZeroSum said:

Whilst I do get the argument around convenience, what you also have to remember is this is a forum dedicated to saving money. And convenience is something that costs money.

Yes, that said, once I get my switching bonus I'll now be changing my account to a lite, so I still get the DDs (which gives more than £2 cashback so that's OK), and moving the rest of the money to a better paying account paying at least 2%.

[Deleted User]

Astria said:

badger09 said:

Astria said:

Nationwide have just offered me Flexible Savings @ 2.35% with upto 3 withdrawals per year, 2% if you want unlimited withdrawals, or 4% if you agree to no withdrawals (fixed bond), so I opened all 3, Chase I really don't care about any more. I'll still transfer money to them to use my 1% cash back until it expires then probably close the account.

I'll wait for my Santander cashback then probably drop that to the 'lite' account to save £2/month and drop the balance to about 2K as 1.5% isn't worth £2.

I have the Triple Access Online Saver 15 paying 2.10% What version were you offered @ 2.35%? Previously, Nationwide increased the rate on mine from 1.75%. 

Edit
Just had a look online and I can’t see any account paying 2.35%

My apologies, I've just checked and it's indeed 2.10%, I must be getting confused with another account that's 2.35%, or for some reason I combined the 2.25% of virgin money with the 2.10% of nationwide and got 2.35% !

It does make me think why a lot of people would bother with the limited withdrawals just for an extra 0.1% though.

The Triple Saver is a standalone account formally paying 1.75%; the Flex Instant saver formally paying 1% and is a bolt-on to a Flex Current Account.

ZeroSum

Astria said:

Depends. The break even is £2,400.

How do you get that figure? £2000 * 0.015 = £30, minus 20% = £24 / 12 = £2.

ZeroSum said:

Whilst I do get the argument around convenience, what you also have to remember is this is a forum dedicated to saving money. And convenience is something that costs money.

Yes, that said, once I get my switching bonus I'll now be changing my account to a lite, so I still get the DDs (which gives more than £2 cashback so that's OK), and moving the rest of the money to a better paying account paying at least 2%.

Lite is £2 a month. Full fat £5
So you need to recover £36 a year which is £2,400 × 1.5%

If you're paying tax on interest, then it's even higher.