Santander Work Café? Has anyone used it ? How does it work

MSE_James

Thank you @adindas  - I hadn't been aware of the Santander Work Cafes and went to check out the London one yesterday (I'm not at MSE on Wednesdays). It was quite busy. A good place to spend a few hours catching up on admin. 

MSE_James

There's now another one in Cheapside in the City of London which I went to yesterday, but it closes at 4pm which to my mind is a bit on the early side. 

Theleak250

So what benefits is there for Santander customers if anyone can go in?

MSE_James

Santander customers get a discount at the coffee counter at some (most?) of the locations.

TheBanker

Theleak250 said:

So what benefits is there for Santander customers if anyone can go in?

I think one benefit is that it also serves as a Santander branch, so customers can speak to staff about their accounts. I suspect Santander are trying to find ways to keep the branches financially viable as an alternative to closing them down. 

Olenna

adindas said:

Presumably the same with Virgin Money in the past where they had a few lounges in Central London. VM Customers with card could get Free Wifi, Coffee, Tea Cookies for free.

https://www.santander.co.uk/business/work-cafe?icid=AT168_WorkCafe_Homepage_ExpC

But what confuse me with this Santander is that in the ads Santander, it does not indicate whether it is free or not to enter and use facility. Also it said it is to be used by anyone. From this information I could only guess you will need to rent it. Does anyone have further information about this ?? Thanks

Whenever I tried them, the VM lounges were just full of old grannies too cheap to go to a M&S café or Starbucks with some VM leaflets around the edges of the room. Whilst, the Santander offering seems closer to the Capital One cafés in the USA. Basically looks like a branch of Starbucks with a dedicated banking area within.