Changes to Reward and Ultimate Reward Accounts

atlantis187 wrote: »

this is an absolute joke.
Cant believe halifax are changing this.

Can someone remeber when the reward account actually launched?
I'm trying to work out how much money we have made from our 5 accounts.

I don't think it's an absolute joke, and I can believe they are changing it. Actually I'm surprised it's taken them this long.

I've been waiting for this since it was launched in February 2009 - they just aren't making any money out of my 3 otherwise-inactive current accounts (2 Halifax, one BoS). It's an annual cost of £75 per account to them (the monthly £5 is paid to us net, remember), for nothing in return - it's difficult to make a margin on a balance of £0.01.

Anyone who genuinely uses the Reward account as their main account will not be affected at all, which is surely Halifax's point. It's only an inconvenience to us grubby MSE'ers and our ilk.

IJP20 wrote: »

I think Halifax mean you need two direct debits set up to stop the account being downgraded but in addition they need to be actually paid to get the £5 reward in a particular month.

Well mine are 10 months/year and 8 months/year and I'm not doing anything about it. These silly rules can get too picky.

I've got my own T&C, which say that the price of my custom is £5/month 12 months/year. If they don't comply, I will close my accounts and they can kiss goodbye to their chances of flogging me a Clarity card.

Glad I kept our AA, Egg, BM and West Brom(WB) savers accounts dormant with £1 in them for the last few years. It's taken me about an hour to change the DDs, though WB has to be by post. Had to set up a Post Office saver for one of them which will have to process through the set up time. Still worth the £240 per year for an hour's work, plus the time it will take to recycle the money in future, though SOs may remove even some of that once I've researched which accounts allow it (Egg only at the moment, as only single withdrawals allowed from the others. Not sure about PO one).

Does anyone know if you need a "Reward Current Account" to keep the "Reward Clarity Credit Card"? Can't remember the conditions for the Reward credit card (also £5/month) which doesn't appear on their website anymore.

Anyway, £60/year is still free money. I have just switched my Halifax CC (max £300ish/month) and phone (£15/month) direct debits to my Halifax account, so the new conditions are not a problem. I just need to remember to keep some money in my account when I circulate £1000 (£750) on the 1st of each month.

I now have 4 "main accounts" with different banks I need to keep on top of. There will come a point where it won't be worth my while but not yet

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

The conditions are laid out in your credit agreement/T&Cs. If you've mislaid them there's a copy on their website...

http://www.halifax.co.uk/creditcards/low-rate-no-fee/clarity-card/terms/ (see section 11)

Thanks! So basically, no impact for existing credit card holders.