Since I learned about the bank switch game in November, I’ve made over £1200 from switching 7 times. I’ve also opened some new accounts for rewards. At the moment, I’ve got over half a dozen current accounts and a handful of e-money accounts, most with the soul purpose of extracting bonus money.
Am I being smart by playing the system, or dumb by having my money all over the place?
(this topic could become a place for posting new rewards & incentives, basically I just want to be reassured I’m doing the right thing)
Once I’m done with a certain bank and have the cash, I CASS it back into one I intend to keep, so I’m not just left with dozens of accounts I’ll never use.
Yes. It’s fairly trivial with a bank like RBS. I must have opened half a dozen RBS accounts and immediately switched them out during the last round of deals I was eligible for.
Worth exercising caution with this. RBS (NatWest Group in general) perform a hard search for every additional account.
LBG don’t, but both NWG and LBG can be unforgiving and ban you for life from all their products if they look at your account history and decide that you’re taking the mick.
Wouldn’t be surprised if Chase did a U-turn, too.
I just keep two-three accounts dormant these days so I have something to switch if I need to. I’ll probably pop £5 through them every 6 months or so.
How many bank accounts are you using at the moment?
They do remove them quite soon after, however. According to Clearscore, they’ve removed 3 hard searches from my report (I’ve opened 4 a/c’s with the group in the last couple months).
Actively, 3 bank accounts. Monzo, Chase, and RBS. I’ve essentially got multiple accounts with my Chase and RBS apps, but with RBS I only actively view one, and I don’t reallly view all my Chase ones as their own account, despite that being the case, because of how the virtual card works.
Dormant I’ve got Barclays, First Direct, and Nationwide.
I’ve also got what I’d describe to be dormant accounts with most e-money fintechs too.
Hard searches remain visible for lenders for 12 months from the date they are performed. For some ClearScore removes them for you after 6 months but they’ll remain visible with other CRAs for the full twelve.