Is Santander My Only Choice?

TractorFactor

Hi

We have a Santander 123 Lite account that we use to pay our bills from.

It's a joint account.

Moved from Lloyd's as they were a pain when we wanted to open multiple accounts - we both had to attend an appointment in the bank and watch a video about coercive behaviour.
I understand why but we've been married for nearly 10 years now - it seems banking together is getting harder and harder! 

Anyway, as we use this as a bills account, it seemed the 123 was the best at ongoing rewards in terms of cash back.

We don't use any savings features.

Is there another bank that we should consider? Halifax would give us £5 every month but that's more or less what we get now anyway.
Lloyd's, despite being a pain at least would give us some cinema tickets or something.

Anyone else to consider for longer term gains rather than short term rewards?
(yes, I've looked at the best banking bit and it seems Santander may be our only choice.)

Bridlington1

TractorFactor said:

Anyway, as we use this as a bills account, it seemed the 123 was the best at ongoing rewards in terms of cash back.

[...]
Halifax would give us £5 every month but that's more or less what we get now anyway.

Lloyd's, despite being a pain at least would give us some cinema tickets or something.

In this instance I'd be using Santander for the cashback, Halifax for the £5/mth and Lloyds for the cinema tickets.

There's no obligation to use only one bank, and I would discourage you from using only one bank to make life easier if one suffers IT issues, freezes your account etc.

TractorFactor said:

Anyone else to consider for longer term gains rather than short term rewards?
(yes, I've looked at the best banking bit and it seems Santander may be our only choice.)

Have a skeg at NatWest/RBS, you can get £3/mth (after the fee) from each of them if you log into their app, deposit £1.25k/mth and pay out 2 or more direct debits of £2 or more.

It's also worth noting you can have 3 Halifax Reward accounts to get £15/mth in total from them.

gt94sss2

TractorFactor said:

We have a Santander 123 Lite account that we use to pay our bills from.

It's a joint account.

Anyway, as we use this as a bills account, it seemed the 123 was the best at ongoing rewards in terms of cash back.

We don't use any savings features.

Is there another bank that we should consider?

You will need a replacement for the Santander 123 Lite account as it hasn't been available to new customers for years and they are now stopping it for existing customers

https://www.santander.co.uk/personal/support/current-accounts/changes-to-your-current-account

Options could include a different Santander account, Lloyds, Halifax or NatWest.

Newly_retired

I have a 123 Lite account and I have not been informed about the changes in August! Thanks for the link.

friolento

Newly_retired said:

I have a 123 Lite account and I have not been informed about the changes in August! Thanks for the link.

It seems most account holders have not been individually informed. It’s just on the Santander website 

GeoffTF

friolento said:

Newly_retired said:

I have a 123 Lite account and I have not been informed about the changes in August! Thanks for the link.

It seems most account holders have not been individually informed. It’s just on the Santander website 

Nobody here has reported that they have been informed of what is currently something Santander is "planning" to do.

friolento

GeoffTF said:

friolento said:

Newly_retired said:

I have a 123 Lite account and I have not been informed about the changes in August! Thanks for the link.

It seems most account holders have not been individually informed. It’s just on the Santander website 

Nobody here has reported that they have been informed of what is currently something Santander is "planning" to do.

In accordance with the General T&Cs for current accounts, Santander have until June 20 to inform account holders personally of the change taking effect from August 21

TractorFactor

Bridlington1 said:

TractorFactor said:

Anyway, as we use this as a bills account, it seemed the 123 was the best at ongoing rewards in terms of cash back.

[...]
Halifax would give us £5 every month but that's more or less what we get now anyway.

Lloyd's, despite being a pain at least would give us some cinema tickets or something.

In this instance I'd be using Santander for the cashback, Halifax for the £5/mth and Lloyds for the cinema tickets.

There's no obligation to use only one bank, and I would discourage you from using only one bank to make life easier if one suffers IT issues, freezes your account etc.

I didn't say I only use Santander.

We have other accounts but they're not joint. I didn't want to muddy the waters by talking about other accounts as I only want to talk about this one.

I also don't want to have 20 joint accounts.