Hopefully the banks don’t fix up the loopholes too much. I’d still like to try and claim most of them at least once.
Santander I can’t do because it’s household direct debits (otherwise I’dve done their previous offer), but I can still do the next Club Lloyds and RBS switch offers as long as they don’t switch it up too much.
I’ve had two from Santander. I do actually use it as a proper account though.
Did they ever sort notifications out properly?
I could get around it easily if I were eligible.
I guess not yet.
So today I have had weird scenario with Santander. I opened a regular saver account of 8% last month and set up a Standing order to come from my Current account every 2nd of the month. On Friday I checked the app and it was showing that I had no existing standing orders set up.
I was like fine, I set up a new one to go out every 1st of the month. That went out fine yesterday for £200, no issues.
I have now received a text that I have insufficient funds in my account to pay my standing order, to put funds in by 2pm.
I check the account and the list of standing orders shows one standing order, the one for 2nd of the month, the one for 1st is not showing yet it was set up and paid yesterday.
I have now cancelled the one of 2nd that was showing. I am not putting any funds in the current account as that would put me above the £200 max monthly limit for the regular saver.
If the banks want to stop the abuse, what they could so is say that you’ve got to meet X criteria for six months before the money is paid. So you’ve got to have 2x direct debits, 5x card transactions, and deposit £1k every month for 6 months, and then they’ll give you the money.
The Co-op Bank did that for their last offer. You got the initial £100 at the start, but the remaining £75 was paid in three instalments of £25 for meeting that criteria over three months.
NatWest group have done the 120 days wait before with two DDs, £1250 payments. That is when I did both NatWest and RBS at the same time.
If I know I am eligible, I can do the waiting game and still not use the account. Even leave the day I get paid.
Yeah this is the one I’m actively doing right now. Got 2x more £25 payments to get.
Well once the deposit + debit card spend is hit, the ongoing direct debits are cheap. I use a £1 and 50p one. £1.50/month until you get the £200 isn’t a bad deal!
The debit card payment ones are a pain as I don’t use the debit card every month never mind multiple times a month.
I’ve found making a few cheap in-app purchases in Google play works great.
PayPal also accepts small top-ups, but you have to be careful that the bank counts these transactions.
Co-op does, Nationwide doesn’t.
I took the £100 and ran
I did the transactions via topping up T212 with a pound 10 times in a row
I used to do it with £1 daily Amazon top-ups but they’ve put the minimum up to £5 which is more than I’d spend with them most months.
Apple account top up does for me.
I try to vary my payments as they could get suspicious about five similar payments and not pay the bonus.
I don’t partake in all of this stuff as it seems like a lot of hassle but these chats probably index to Google so you’re giving your friendly foe your blueprints!
So we shall see something like “payments to Amazon, Google and Apple are excluded?”