new halifax switch offer (£175) from 14 march 2023

Saver-upper

Having read this thread, I have just looked at my the Halifax site. My rarely-used account with Halifax is a current account (which I had forgotten! I thought it was a basic account 🙃.)

Can I change this to a Reward current account, and claim the £175?

Orrrrrrr, can I change from a Natwest savings account to Reward Current account?(Guessing not, since it would need to go through CASS?)

Thank you .

notquiteskint

AmityNeon said:

notquiteskint said:

danny13579 said:

notquiteskint said:

If i decide to run this account is a £500 per month transfer to soneone else classed as a spend on your debit card to get the £5 monthly reward?

Yes, or to yourself.

So i could login to online banking send £1500 from my current halifax account to my reward account this would cover the account fee £3 criteria and also the £500 spend criteria to qualify for the £5 reward? then send the cash back to my normal current account the same day.

No, the £500 debit card spend for the £5 cashback Reward requires using the Reward debit card to spend £500.

but once i send the £1500 back from the reward account this would cover the £500 spend criteria?
sorry for the questions and old and novice at this switching

grumbler

danny13579 said:

notquiteskint said:

So i could login to online banking send £1500 from my current halifax account to my reward account this would cover the account fee £3 criteria and also the £500 spend criteria to qualify for the £5 reward? then send the cash back to my normal current account the same day.

Yes, you can move money between Halifax accounts or you could transfer the same £500 three times to and from another account.

Yes to WHAT?! Of course you can move.

The question was whether "this would cover the account fee £3 criteria and also the £500 spend criteria to qualify for the £5 reward"

Fingerbobs

danny13579 said:

Fingerbobs said:

danny13579 said:

notquiteskint said:

If i decide to run this account is a £500 per month transfer to soneone else classed as a spend on your debit card to get the £5 monthly reward?

Yes, or to yourself.

No, this is not correct. The £500 Debit Card spend has to be made up of Debit Card transactions. Transfers will NOT count. 

Well they count for me so I will continue doing it. 

You're using your Debit Card to pay money into one of your other accounts which happens to offer a facility for depositing funds by Debit Card. This is NOT the same as a Transfer. 

grumbler

danny13579 said:

grumbler said:

Yes to WHAT?! Of course you can move.

The question was whether "this would cover the account fee £3 criteria and also the £500 spend criteria to qualify for the £5 reward"

I have answered this part separately above. Take a chill pill! 

You keep calling debit card deposits 'transfers'. Do you really not understand how misleading this is?

TheElectricCow

The £500 spend must be a debit card transaction - any transfers, Halifax CC payments, cash withdrawals, or direct debits will not count towards this.

Naturally if you’re able to pay into a separate account you have elsewhere using your card this would count towards the requirement as it is a debit card transaction not a transfer between accounts.

TheElectricCow

Saver-upper said:

Having read this thread, I have just looked at my the Halifax site. My rarely-used account with Halifax is a current account (which I had forgotten! I thought it was a basic account 🙃.)

Can I change this to a Reward current account, and claim the £175?

Orrrrrrr, can I change from a Natwest savings account to Reward Current account?(Guessing not, since it would need to go through CASS?)

Thank you .

Yes, Halifax do usually allow you to change your account to whichever one you like online through a fairly quick and painless process as long as they accept the application, and once it’s set up as a reward account you’ll then be able claim the £175 after switching another account into it.

You wouldn’t be able to switch your savings account over, but if you have an associated NatWest current account you could use that (although this may make accessing the savings account difficult). 

Some banks will allow you to open up a new second account relatively easily, took under 5 minutes last time I did and it was ready to switch when the debit card arrived just days later, so may be worth checking if that’s an option. The main advantage of that is there’s no additional security/ID checks/online activation letters as you may have to go through if joining a new bank.

Saver-upper

TheElectricCow said:

Saver-upper said:

Having read this thread, I have just looked at my the Halifax site. My rarely-used account with Halifax is a current account (which I had forgotten! I thought it was a basic account 🙃.)

Can I change this to a Reward current account, and claim the £175?

Orrrrrrr, can I change from a Natwest savings account to Reward Current account?(Guessing not, since it would need to go through CASS?)

Thank you .

Yes, Halifax do usually allow you to change your account to whichever one you like online through a fairly quick and painless process as long as they accept the application, and once it’s set up as a reward account you’ll then be able claim the £175 after switching another account into it.

You wouldn’t be able to switch your savings account over, but if you have an associated NatWest current account you could use that (although this may make accessing the savings account difficult). 

Some banks will allow you to open up a new second account relatively easily, took under 5 minutes last time I did and it was ready to switch when the debit card arrived just days later, so may be worth checking if that’s an option. The main advantage of that is there’s no additional security/ID checks/online activation letters as you may have to go through if joining a new bank.

This is brilliant TheElectricCow.
Thank you for such a thorough explanation. 

AmityNeon

danny13579 said:

Fingerbobs said:

You're using your Debit Card to pay money into one of your other accounts which happens to offer a facility for depositing funds by Debit Card. This is NOT the same as a Transfer. 

Fine, if you want to get into semantics about it. I can't be bothered. For me it's transferring money from one account to another using the debit card and it satisfies the £500 requirement. 

It's not about being fussy with semantics. Unfortunately, by equivocating with imprecise language, you've unintentionally misled others into believing they can simply transfer money between their own accounts, i.e. where payment codes can be classified as FPO (Faster Payment Outgoing), MPO (Mobile Payment Outgoing), STO (Standing Order), TFR (Transfer), amongst others, but the only eligible type of transaction that qualifies for the £5 cashback Reward is DEB (Debit Card).

pecunianonolet

The ignorance of some people not accepting what they say is factually incorrect is astounding.

A transfer is a movement of cash from one account to another, usually fee free for sender and receiver (Transaction cost to maintain the service such as keeping and maintain the digital infrastructure applies)

A debit card spend transaction is usually free for the one initiating it (the debit card owner) but the receiver of the cash is having to pay a service fee for the ability of taking money from the account authorised by the debit card owner.

So the direct debit spend requirement is there because retailers, shops, etc. who let you pay by this method pay fees to Halifax. So if we assume a fee of 5% it means Halifax cashes in £25 out the £500 requirement and keeps the £20. (Precisely speaking there are tax implications as it is a bonus and therefore what we get paid is £5 net but Halifax settles a £1.25 / 20% tax on it directly to HMRC so payment is £6.25 gross. So if you are a higher rate tax payer and file a self assessment this technically needs to be reported as income and you would have to pay the additional few pennies on it). if you earn below the free allowance you can claim it back from HMRC Source

To satisfy the direct debit spend requirement you can use various ways. Some building societies allow you to top up a savings account this way e.g. YBS or I believe Skipton but they don't like abuse of this feature and might decide to send you a warning or make you an unwanted customer and terminate your account. Another solution is Paypal Friends & Family payments and that's what I will be using as they don't seem to care and I made thousands of £0.01 payments to fill up Natwest and RBS reg savers in a few weeks. Sending £500 from my account to the OH and returned back to me. Since you can have up to 3 reward accounts per person, makes it 3 monthly transactions for each of us per month for £30 bonus each month for a year totalling in £360 bonus on top of the switch bonus. 

The Paypal solution works fine with TSB as well, just that they have a 20 transaction requirement (20 debit card spend payments, which means I transfer the record sum of £0.20 with 20 x 0.01) and Halifax has a value requirement. No issues to receive the £5 with TSB every month on 2 current Spend & Save accounts.