New Switch Offer Frequency?

john10001

Roughly how often will a bank do a switch offer with say the straight £200 or whatever it is hard cash?

Is it a fairly frequent thing I.e. Monthly? Fighting for customer market share? Or is it less frequent I.e once a year?

Not done a current account switch before but my present bank has gone downhill quite a lot so I'm likely to leave soon. 

eskbanker

There's no discernible pattern, some will rarely/never do them and others will be more frequent - unless you're waiting for an offer from one specific bank, there'll usually be a range to pick from....

john10001

Thanks. I was thinning of going with either Barclays or Lloyds but it looks like only the latter presently has a switch offer. 

eskbanker

john10001 said:

Thanks. I was thinning of going with either Barclays or Lloyds but it looks like only the latter presently has a switch offer. 

It was Barclays that I was thinking of when referring to banks that rarely/never have switching offers!  Having said that, my memory can't always be relied on, so not beyond the bounds of possibility that they have had incentives before....

Rob5342

I'd switch to a bank that offers what you want long term and ignore any switching offers, and have a secondary account that you switch round the other banks when they have offers.to get the switching money.

Bridlington1

If you currently only have the one current account I'd be tempted to keep hold of it for the sake of adding longevity to your credit reports, even if you end up rarely using it in the end. As mentioned above you could open a donor account (a second account with your existing bank often works well for this depending on the bank) and use this for grabbing the switching incentives. Also it may be wise to keep a spare current account with another banking group anyway in case you have any major issues with your current bank, e.g. account gets frozen for a long period of time, bank decides to close your accounts etc.

As for frequency of switching offers I would be tempted to take the timings of individual banks' switching offers with a slight pinch of salt since their frequency can suddenly change. I seem to recall Virgin Money used to offer various switching incentives on a constant basis, with one being launched immediately after the old one was pulled, only for them to suddenly stop offering switching incentives about a year ago and they have yet to return to the switching game. TSB failed to offer any switching incentives for a while, only to suddenly start offering switching incentives about a year ago. 

Bridlington1

@john10001
Barclays have now launched a £175 switching offer. See:
https://www.barclays.co.uk/current-accounts/switch-offer/?campaign=CASS_Q4_HomepageBanner&chnnl=DSPP&cid=&msrc=DisplayDV360&asid=%7Badgroupid%7D/

boingy

Bridlington1 said:

@john10001
Barclays have now launched a £175 switching offer. See:
https://www.barclays.co.uk/current-accounts/switch-offer/?campaign=CASS_Q4_HomepageBanner&chnnl=DSPP&cid=&msrc=DisplayDV360&asid=%7Badgroupid%7D/

Nice spot.
I switched away for Barclays in May and after a quick peruse of the T&C it looks like I can still qualify for this one. Just when I thought I had run out of switching options...

eskbanker

eskbanker said:

john10001 said:

Thanks. I was thinning of going with either Barclays or Lloyds but it looks like only the latter presently has a switch offer. 

It was Barclays that I was thinking of when referring to banks that rarely/never have switching offers!  Having said that, my memory can't always be relied on, so not beyond the bounds of possibility that they have had incentives before....

Yesterday's post aged well then!

boingy

Not that I've done lots of switching this year but I just had to look up where my "switching DDs" currently are!
This switching lark can be addictive.

Clicker9180

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/compare-best-bank-accounts/#switch

Right now both Lloyds and Barclays have 175£ switch offers but expiring very soon so I'll only have time to do one. Which bank offers these switch offers more frequently, which one is rarely doing it?