New £175 bonus for switching to Halifax Reward (29 Nov 2022)

flaneurs_lobster

comeocome said:

My understanding is we only have to transfer 1500 GBP into the account each month and can waive the 3 GBP charge in month. Fine, but I will just spend it and transfer 1500 GBP away afterwards. (It didn’t say you have to maintain 1500 GBP in it at all times.) 

Not interested in the 5GBP rewards by maintaining 5000 GBP in it. That’s 0.1% interest… 

If you are not wanting any of the "Rewards" then I'm not seeing any benefit in maintaining this account and having to do the £1500 hokey-kokey each month.

Spending £500/month on the debit card is an alternative to keeping £5000 in the account for the fiver. You are quite right, that £5K is far better off at ~2.5% elsewhere.

flaneurs_lobster

AmityNeon said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

Like @dreamypuma I've little interest(!) in the rewards but I'll do the necessary for a month or so for a fiver. Want to see if using the debit card to fund a Revolut account counts as spending £500. 

It does count but be prepared for payment blocks and verification calls because Revolut is a hotbed for fraud.

Fair enough, glad to see that the guardians of my cash are not only showering me with cash gifts but also stopping me funding dodgy doings.

Did transfer £1K to a Revolut card a couple of months ago (albeit from BoS) with only the standard SMS verification required.

flaneurs_lobster

dreamypuma said:

Thanks that gives me some confidence. Will paying my Virgin Credit card count towards the £500, or does it need to be traditional swipes and taps of the card and online goods? If so I think I can make the £500 criteria.

If you can pay your Virgin CC using the debit card (as opposed to bank transfer) then I can't see why not. I'll have a trawl of the T&C later to see if there's a definition of what constitutes "spending" on the debit card for the purposes of getting the fiver.

StevenGude

flaneurs_lobster said:

comeocome said:

My understanding is we only have to transfer 1500 GBP into the account each month and can waive the 3 GBP charge in month. Fine, but I will just spend it and transfer 1500 GBP away afterwards. (It didn’t say you have to maintain 1500 GBP in it at all times.) 

Not interested in the 5GBP rewards by maintaining 5000 GBP in it. That’s 0.1% interest… 

If you are not wanting any of the "Rewards" then I'm not seeing any benefit in maintaining this account and having to do the £1500 hokey-kokey each month.

Spending £500/month on the debit card is an alternative to keeping £5000 in the account for the fiver. You are quite right, that £5K is far better off at ~2.5% elsewhere.

Is it possible to downgrade to a standard current account, whilst waiting for another switch offer to appear on the market?

flaneurs_lobster

StevenGude said

Is it possible to downgrade to a standard current account, whilst waiting for another switch offer to appear on the market?

I'm somewhat hampered by not yet having online access to my new Halifax account, so difficult to explore the options. A simple search of their online help for "downgrade" returns nil results.

Nevergonnaretire

Went for this one myself last Friday. Still waiting for my activation id for online banking to actually see anything (postal strikes probably haven't helped) but I have received a text with a switch completion date of next Tuesday so somethings happening!

flaneurs_lobster

Nevergonnaretire said:

Went for this one myself last Friday. Still waiting for my activation id for online banking to actually see anything (postal strikes probably haven't helped) but I have received a text with a switch completion date of next Tuesday so somethings happening!

If you get your debit card before your activation code then you can set up automated telephone access, lets you check the balance (and a bunch of other stuff I haven't even looked at).

Nevergonnaretire

flaneurs_lobster said:

Nevergonnaretire said:

Went for this one myself last Friday. Still waiting for my activation id for online banking to actually see anything (postal strikes probably haven't helped) but I have received a text with a switch completion date of next Tuesday so somethings happening!

If you get your debit card before your activation code then you can set up automated telephone access, lets you check the balance (and a bunch of other stuff I haven't even looked at).

Ah that's good to know cheers!

Lou76

Signed up on 29th November, after reading this thread, and my account was created almost straight away.

Set up a switch (8th December switch date) using a spare Lloyd's account [same group as Halifax] I had only set up for switching purposes.

Received my activation code today, logged into the app, and the £175 bonus was credited to my account on 2nd December. 🙂

Very happy with Halifax so far. 😆

ETA: many thanks to @Alex9384 for posting, and alerting me to the switch.

Sensory

comeocome said:

Not interested in the 5GBP rewards by maintaining 5000 GBP in it. That’s 0.1% interest… 

It would be 1.2% interest (£60 annually), but no one does should do that; £500 debit card 'spend' is how it should be done. As long as it's classified as a 'DEB' transaction then it's eligible, which is essentially any time you use your debit card to debit your account (so not a bank transfer, standing order, direct debit or open banking).

£180 a year when holding 3x Reward accounts, whilst leaving savings elsewhere to earn higher interest.