Virgin Money 12%

Bazzalona13295

The way I see it is the chance to put £1000 away for a year and get 11% or 12% is too good an opportunity to pass up (although the immediate reduction is really poor).

I'm pretty much out of switching options for the foreseeable, Virgin was the last one left so even if its 'only' £40 its still better in my bank account.

All these little gains add up.

Nasqueron

FD regular saver is 7% but obviously max £300 a month

Paying in £300 a month gets you £135 interest
Paying in £216.67 a month (the £1000 moved to Virgin instead) gets you £98
Therefore you lose £37

Having the £1000 in Virgin for 12 months, in simple terms, gets you £120 interest (it's 12% as stated above, 10% bonus + 2% base changing to 10+1% bonus + 1%) as it's done on the whole balance from day one. Therefore for literally 2 minutes effort of doing a switch from a donor account, you gain £83 difference. Obviously I haven't done the calculations on having the money in an easy access account to drip feed the FD account which will bring the difference down.

Regardless, this is MSE, all about saving the pennies. As this is a topic about a bank switch, if you don't want free money, don't apply for the account and don't follow the thread

WillPS

Nasqueron said:

FD regular saver is 7% but obviously max £300 a month

Paying in £300 a month gets you £135 interest
Paying in £216.67 a month (the £1000 moved to Virgin instead) gets you £98
Therefore you lose £37

That'd be a silly way to use it though, as you'd be missing out on around half the benefit of the 12%/11% compared to putting in the £1k upfront. Even if you don't have that amount and only have exactly £300/month to save you'd be better off putting all £300 in VM in the first free months, then £100 to top it out in the fourth month and then move the rest to a reg saver.

Nasqueron said:

Regardless, this is MSE, all about saving the pennies. As this is a topic about a bank switch, if you don't want free money, don't apply for the account and don't follow the thread

I'll post my opinions on whatever I like ta; they don't all have to be in agreement with yours.

I'm sitting this one out and hoping for a better one down the line. Even £50 cash would probably be an improvement.

PRAISETHESUN

Nasqueron said:

FD regular saver is 7% but obviously max £300 a month

Paying in £300 a month gets you £135 interest
Paying in £216.67 a month (the £1000 moved to Virgin instead) gets you £98
Therefore you lose £37

Having the £1000 in Virgin for 12 months, in simple terms, gets you £120 interest (it's 12% as stated above, 10% bonus + 2% base changing to 10+1% bonus + 1%) as it's done on the whole balance from day one. Therefore for literally 2 minutes effort of doing a switch from a donor account, you gain £83 difference. Obviously I haven't done the calculations on having the money in an easy access account to drip feed the FD account which will bring the difference down.

Regardless, this is MSE, all about saving the pennies. As this is a topic about a bank switch, if you don't want free money, don't apply for the account and don't follow the thread

Don't get me wrong - I've jumped on this offer as well, even though it is fairly convoluted and paltry in comparison to other offers. Free money is free money after all. But I also agree with others in that it is a bit of a faff and that might put people off. It's up to them to decide if it's worth it for them.

adindas

I am aware that to get 10% interest on up to £1,000 balance you will need to switch you bank account with two direct debit. Just want to gather an opinion and learn from other people. I have an account with two direct debit ready to switch as it is sitting idle doing almost nothing. If you still have £1,000 to benefit from interest by opening this account. 

I personally see this might not be worthy considering the requirement for two DDs and credit check but I might have missed something. Do you think it is worthy to switch to this account. What would you decided suppose you need to make this choice. If there is the pro and contra reasoning for this, it will be very much appreciated.

Rawrzy

adindas said:

I am aware that to get 10% interest on up to £1,000 balance you will need to switch you bank account with two direct debit. Just want to gather an opinion and learn from other people. I have an account with two direct debit ready to switch as it is sitting idle doing almost nothing. If you still have £1,000 to benefit from interest by opening this account. 

I personally see this might not be worthy considering the requirement for two DDs and credit check but I might have missed something. Do you think it is worthy to switch to this account. What would you decided suppose you need to make this choice. If there is the pro and contra reasoning for this, it will be very much appreciated.

I think a lot of people are largely doing it due to the fact they're not expecting a better switching deal from them with nationwide buying them out (assuming the vote goes their way). These days switches tend to be limited by the banks limitations, ie some outright block you from ever having a bonus again once you've already got one, while others have time limits. If there was more hope of a better deal coming a long, then I think people might be more inclined to wait since it's not the best switching bonus.

A hard check isn't a massive cost for most people either. I've gotten accepted for credit cards even with about 8 hard checks on my records from switching bonuses. It's only really if you're going to be applying for something like a loan or a mortgage where it might play into things, or your credit history already has issues, and the hard checks are tipping it over the edge. After all hard checks aren't the only thing lenders look at.

It's also not that difficult to do donor accounts with the likes of Chase allowing you to swap out loads of accounts with no fuss. Plenty of easy direct debits too, like paypal, plum, moneybox, etc. 

WillPS

adindas said:

I am aware that to get 10% interest on up to £1,000 balance you will need to switch you bank account with two direct debit. Just want to gather an opinion and learn from other people. I have an account with two direct debit ready to switch as it is sitting idle doing almost nothing. If you still have £1,000 to benefit from interest by opening this account. 

I personally see this might not be worthy considering the requirement for two DDs and credit check but I might have missed something. Do you think it is worthy to switch to this account. What would you decided suppose you need to make this choice. If there is the pro and contra reasoning for this, it will be very much appreciated.

As noted upthread, 5% can be had relatively easily - so really you need to use that as a base for calculating the advantage.

5% on £1k is £50.
11% on £1k is £110, plus a bit of change for the extra 1% in July only
potential gain is £60.

First of all, if you're at or above your Personal Savings Allowance (making sure you factor in any fairer share bonus from Nationwide), that'll almost wipe out the gain. I'm in this category, and unless I rejigged other savings (and earned less elsewhere!) I would have to pay 40% tax on the whole lot - meaning I'd only be £6 up vs leaving the whole £1k in an ISA - it's a dealbreaker basically. My wife however could still benefit.

Leaving that aside - the big question is how would you feel if VM ran another switching bonus towards the end of the year, perhaps with a better/less strings attached deal? On the flipside, what if the Nationwide deal means this is the last ever Virgin Money switching bonus, since they haven't run them very often?

IMHO if you're a switching regular it's a gamble either way. On one hand, take the £60 bonus (+ some Amazon credit if that's still going) or hold and risk missing out.

My personal take is that it's probably a good offer to miss. But then I passed up on the ~£160 'cashback' offer in Nov 22 because I felt a better offer was to come, and it didn't (and in fact had I taken it and closed the account I'd possibly be eligible again given previous customers aren't excluded this time!).

goatfaced

Bridlington1 said:

Snoop are offering a £30 amazon gift card if you open an M Plus current account through them. This can be had in addition to the switch offer.

They also have a refer a friend offer in which you'll both get a £5 amazon gift card. Note do NOT use this forum to request/exchange referral links.

I can't see it now so I assume I missed it. I referred my son and he went through them so thanks for the heads up. 

MSE_JC

Hi all,

The MSE Money Team reached out to Virgin about this topic and got the following response:

New M Plus and Club M customers taking advantage of our switching offer will benefit from 12% gross on the first £1,000 in their current account up until June 2025. This is because we will give an additional current account bonus to new customers of 1% gross from 1 August 2024 (when the variable rate element decreases from 2% to 1%) until 30 June 2025, on top of the existing 10% bonus and 1% interest rate, so 12% in total.

All the best,

MSE JC

WillPS

MSE_JC said:

Hi all,

The MSE Money Team reached out to Virgin about this topic and got the following response:

New M Plus and Club M customers taking advantage of our switching offer will benefit from 12% gross on the first £1,000 in their current account up until June 2025. This is because we will give an additional current account bonus to new customers of 1% gross from 1 August 2024 (when the variable rate element decreases from 2% to 1%) until 30 June 2025, on top of the existing 10% bonus and 1% interest rate, so 12% in total.

All the best,

MSE JC

Good news, thanks for getting that clarification.