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

StevenGude

Applied 1st Dec
Switch due 12th 
Bonus paid today!

comeocome

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.

Indeed. Halifax’s switch offer doesn’t require the account to stay open for X amount of time right?

flaneurs_lobster

comeocome said:

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.

Indeed. Halifax’s switch offer doesn’t require the account to stay open for X amount of time right?

Correct. Once you have the cash you could switch it to another bank for their signup bonus.

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?

Just got access online and yes, there seems to be a simple method to swap the Rewards account to a standard one (or upgrade to the Turbo version).

AlwaysLearnin

pfpf said:

dcs34 said:

pfpf said:

peoples experience!
are Halifax on the ball regarding dates of a previous incentive? i know some banks are better than others at this.

Only one way to find out.

Rustled up a donor account today and have just requested a switch to my second existing Halifax account (I have had the April 2020 reward on my first Halifax account, so this might test if they are tracking individual accounts rather than the account holders). 10 days from today is the 13th, so 6 days to test out.

i set the ball rolling last week to "find out" 

Any news?

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.

@AmityNeon You are very wise, paid £500 to Revolut using debit card, now Revolut is blocking my attempts to transfer it back to my "normal" current account (same name, big bank, had this current account for over 30 years).

Not sure how one goes about convincing a call centre that I'm not doing bad things with my 500 quid.

alibean121

In my experience you’re better with Yorkshire or Skipton Building Society savings accounts for debit card topup. Or paying a credit card bill.

comeocome

flaneurs_lobster said:

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.

@AmityNeon You are very wise, paid £500 to Revolut using debit card, now Revolut is blocking my attempts to transfer it back to my "normal" current account (same name, big bank, had this current account for over 30 years).

Not sure how one goes about convincing a call centre that I'm not doing bad things with my 500 quid.

Oh wow. That’s shocking. I just moved to the UK and had to convert and transfer some euro savings in my Dutch bank account to GBP in my UK bank account (HSBC) via Revolut and Transferwise. It involved multiple large sums. Never had any issues!

flaneurs_lobster

comeocome said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

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.

@AmityNeon You are very wise, paid £500 to Revolut using debit card, now Revolut is blocking my attempts to transfer it back to my "normal" current account (same name, big bank, had this current account for over 30 years).

Not sure how one goes about convincing a call centre that I'm not doing bad things with my 500 quid.

Oh wow. That’s shocking. I just moved to the UK and had to convert and transfer some euro savings in my Dutch bank account to GBP in my UK bank account (HSBC) via Revolut and Transferwise. It involved multiple large sums. Never had any issues!

Wasn't too bad in the end, started an online chat and after a few "are you absolutely sure that no-one has asked you to move this money?" questions it was sorted. Only took 10 minutes and I guess it's kind of reassuring that at least the AIs are looking out for us.

AmityNeon

alibean121 said:

In my experience you’re better with Yorkshire or Skipton Building Society savings accounts for debit card topup. Or paying a credit card bill.

Assuming payments aren’t blocked, Revolut is the faster method as deposits are instant and the money can be moved immediately elsewhere (e.g. higher interest savings).

Credit card bills if available may be too small in value (especially if holding multiple Reward accounts), or better used to fulfil regular the direct debit requirements of other current accounts (e.g. Barclays, NatWest, RBS).