Santander Select

WillPS

dr_adidas01 said:

GeoffTF said:

artyboy said:

GeoffTF said:

The "World Elite" MasterCard costs £15 per month. I expect that you have to pay more for a "Master of the Universe" card.

World Elite is a MC brand packaged by a few banks for their high(ish) tier customers, the fee comes (mostly) from the fact that airport lounge access gets thrown in. I think HSBC has or had something similar. For that matter, the old Capital One card that gave 2% cashback (happy days) was also World Elite...

With Barclaycard, it seems that you just have to pay the fees to get an MC branded card:

https://www.barclaycard.co.uk/personal/credit-cards/rewards-credit-cards

You just have to be high tier for parting with your money.

Or you could have the free Avios Mastercard: 

https://www.barclaycard.co.uk/personal/credit-cards/avios

Not issued as World Elite.

GeoffTF

The Santander website still hosts this page:

https://www.santander.co.uk/select/support

"The Select Current Account is no longer available to open from 20 June 2023."

They seem to have back tracked here.

WillPS

GeoffTF said:

The Santander website still hosts this page:

https://www.santander.co.uk/select/support

"The Select Current Account is no longer available to open from 20 June 2023."

They seem to have back tracked here.

No, they haven't - the Select account is NLA, along with 123 and 123 Lite.

The Select customer grouping remains and is still being pushed.

The OPs underlying account has not changed.

GeoffTF

WillPS said:

GeoffTF said:

The Santander website still hosts this page:

https://www.santander.co.uk/select/support

"The Select Current Account is no longer available to open from 20 June 2023."

They seem to have back tracked here.

No, they haven't - the Select account is NLA, along with 123 and 123 Lite.

The Select customer grouping remains and is still being pushed.

The OPs underlying account has not changed.

This is confusing. You you are right that it was the Select Current Account that became NLA, along with the 123 and 123 Lite. I had (and still have) a 123 Lite Select. It may never have been possible to apply directly for one of those. I had assumed that Santander was not accepting new Select customers, which was wrong. You seem to be able to apply for any Santander current account and get upgraded automatically to Select if you satisfy the criteria (at no extra cost).

The OP wrote that he has been offered a Select account for £2 a month more than his 123 Lite (which costs £2 per month). (The Edge accounts cost £3 per month and the Edge up £5 per month.) I have never had to pay extra for my Select account. As I said, confusing.

WillPS

GeoffTF said:

WillPS said:

GeoffTF said:

The Santander website still hosts this page:

https://www.santander.co.uk/select/support

"The Select Current Account is no longer available to open from 20 June 2023."

They seem to have back tracked here.

No, they haven't - the Select account is NLA, along with 123 and 123 Lite.

The Select customer grouping remains and is still being pushed.

The OPs underlying account has not changed.

This is confusing. You you are right that it was the Select Current Account that became NLA, along with the 123 and 123 Lite. I had (and still have) a 123 Lite Select. It may never have been possible to apply directly for one of those. I had assumed that Santander was not accepting new Select customers, which was wrong. You seem to be able to apply for any Santander current account and get upgraded automatically to Select if you satisfy the criteria (at no extra cost).

The OP wrote that he has been offered a Select account for £2 a month more than his 123 Lite (which costs £2 per month). (The Edge accounts cost £3 per month and the Edge up £5 per month.) I have never had to pay extra for my Select account. As I said, confusing.

The OP assumed they would be moved to the Select account, which has the same fee as 123. I believe they were incorrect in that assumption.

friolento

I used to be a Select customer but haven’t been for quite a while now. I am a 123 Lite customer and use that account extensively. I can’t remember now how I lost my Select status but I never missed it because it never made a discernible difference for me. 

I don’t care for the appearance of the debit card as I generally use ApplePay so the card rarely sees daylight. I also don’t use much cash and thus the highly daily ATM limit (was it £750?) was of no value for me

Things like so-called special prices for insurances etc don’t turn me on as they generally are just especially expensive.

I very recently needed to call Santander about something, can’t remember now why. They offered to make me Select again if i agreed to take a call from their Select team. As they couldn’t convince me that the current Select would be any different to what it was before, I declined the offer for the call. 

GeoffTF

friolento said:

I used to be a Select customer but haven’t been for quite a while now. I am a 123 Lite customer and use that account extensively. I can’t remember now how I lost my Select status but I never missed it because it never made a discernible difference for me. 

I don’t care for the appearance of the debit card as I generally use ApplePay so the card rarely sees daylight. I also don’t use much cash and thus the highly daily ATM limit (was it £750?) was of no value for me

Things like so-called special prices for insurances etc don’t turn me on as they generally are just especially expensive.

I very recently needed to call Santander about something, can’t remember now why. They offered to make me Select again if i agreed to take a call from their Select team. As they couldn’t convince me that the current Select would be any different to what it was before, I declined the offer for the call. 

The Select ATM limit is £1,000 at a Santander ATM. You will most likely hit lower limits elsewhere, but should be able to do multiple withdrawals up to £1,000, using multiple ATMs if needs be. That has very little value to me.

The only significant benefit is the possibility of a better telephone service, at the cost of listening to their sales pitch occasionally. Again this is of little value to me, because I only ring them when I absolutely have to, and the standard service should be adequate anyway. Overall, I agree. It is basically a nothing burger. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see the direction in which things are going.

Futuristic

I've never had a sales pitch from them, I was upgraded to "select" but only have normal account but at the time had a lot of savings in their instant access when it had higher rate. They picked up the phone near immediately even for processing a blocked transfer (which previously could take over an hr) so that was nice. 

Rollinghome

GeoffTF said:

The OP wrote that he has been offered a Select account for £2 a month more than his 123 Lite (which costs £2 per month). (The Edge accounts cost £3 per month and the Edge up £5 per month.) I have never had to pay extra for my Select account. As I said, confusing.

No, Santander's email simply said that they were "upgrading" me to "Select". No details, and even the phone number it gave wasn't theirs.  Seems they've a lot of old files that they haven't rinsed from the server, and the only references I found after googling were about what I now know was a now defunct Select current account. I assumed that was what they were referring to, rather than just the chance to be pestered by one of their salesmen.

They haven't sent any more about it, and what I've since found is unpriced and of no interest.  But if I ever have a strange yearning for Santander financial services other than banking, which is unlikely, they'll be the first to know.

GeoffTF

Rollinghome said:

Seems they've a lot of old files that they haven't rinsed from the server, and the only references I found after googling were about what I now know was a now defunct Select current account. I assumed that was what they were referring to, rather than just the chance to be pestered by one of their salesmen.

Nothing fundamental has changed since the days of the Select Current Account, which was a 123 account with Select status. Select status was and still is a free add on. The main benefit for the customer is the Select phone number, which is positioned as offering a better service than the standard number. The main benefit for Santander seems to be that they get the opportunity to pitch their financial advice or Private accounts when you ring them if you are holding or moving large sums of money. Both have happened to me.

The main change is that the Select service no longer comes with a relationship manager (the Private service does). I never contacted mine anyway. There are also changes to the process by which Select status is added to accounts.