Santander 123 current account

[UK345]

Opened up a 123 current account during the week. I have 28 days to set it up so it makes their criteria for getting the 3% interest. I have set up the £500 DD and I have transferred my phone bill over. I only need one more direct debit and I am sorted. My question is does the DD have to come out the account monthly or can it come out every 3 months ? Been looking at ,magazine subscriptions and charity's.

[Greshamst]

The DD would have to come out monthly.

Best thing to do is open up an Tesco internet saver account. They accept direct debits to fund the account, so you can just set up a monthly DD of £1 to your savings account.

[CorradoTDI]

I was told it doesn't - just needs to be setup.

[UK345]

Thanks for the replies. Will the bank know I have set up the DD and SO before money comes in or out the account ?

[Planet Claire]

I transferred my current account to the 123 account last February. I'm sure I was told there had to be 2 direct debits payments per month, but I may be wrong on that. Anyway, as I had just moved in with my OH apart from my mobile phone I didn't have any other bills/DDs to pay. To get around this I also took out their credit card and Santander set it up to automatically pay the bill each month. If you have utility bills to pay then you can set them up using the CC and you will get cash back too.

[Simpo Two]

Planet Claire said:

If you have utility bills to pay then you can set them up using the CC and you will get cash back too.

I looked into this and the cashback is so small as to be barely worth the aggro. As with all these cunning wheezes you have to do the numbers before jumping in.

Mind you I agree 3% on £20K is worth a small amount of aggro - if you want to do battle with Santander customer service if and when it all goes wrong, as I hear they're shocking.

[PF62]

Simpo Two said:

if you want to do battle with Santander customer service if and when it all goes wrong, as I hear they're shocking.

They used to be beyond shocking, and were absolutely abysmal.

However someone within Santander obviously took notice of them appearing on the bottom of every customer service survey and did something about it, and these days they are actually quite pleasant to deal with. Not First Direct standards, but certainly better than HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, standard of service.

[bullitinhead]

Planet Claire said:

If you have utility bills to pay then you can set them up using the CC and you will get cash back too.

You will also get the cashback if you just pay it through the current account.

Bullit

[Planet Claire]

Simpo Two said:

... if you want to do battle with Santander customer service if and when it all goes wrong, as I hear they're shocking.

To be fair to Santander the switch-over was painless and have had no issues so far. I must be lucky as I've been with the bank since I was a baby - money given to me when I was born was stuck into an Abbey National account for me - and I've never had any problems.

[Simpo Two]

PF62 said:

They used to be beyond shocking, and were absolutely abysmal.

However someone within Santander obviously took notice of them appearing on the bottom of every customer service survey and did something about it, and these days they are actually quite pleasant to deal with. Not First Direct standards, but certainly better than HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, standard of service.

Thanks - good to hear. I might just trundle into my local branch and see if they can do better than the the markets managed last year. Even at 0% I'm 5% up...

[saaby93]

Planet Claire said:

I transferred my current account to the 123 account last February. I'm sure I was told there had to be 2 direct debits payments per month, but I may be wrong on that. Anyway, as I had just moved in with my OH apart from my mobile phone I didn't have any other bills/DDs to pay. To get around this I also took out their credit card and Santander set it up to automatically pay the bill each month. If you have utility bills to pay then you can set them up using the CC and you will get cash back too.

Tell how this works
Cant you get 1-2% on utility anyway - is that less than youd get by cashback?
And whoever mentioned Tesco - what was the benefit of that over santander?

[lbc]

saaby93 said:

And whoever mentioned Tesco - what was the benefit of that over santander?

I think Tesco don't charge anything for their account as long as it's in credit, and don't require a monthly credit minimum amount, so you can can use it to setup direct debits to and from other banks with minimum effort.

[e8_pack]

Would it not be a standing order if you arrange it yourself?

I have a Santander, you also get cash back on fuel, 3% with the credit card.

It all adds up, I've saved 889 quid since opening my account 2 years ago, thats total on card and account. Its not been significantly noticeable but it's better than nothing.

[Greshamst]

lbc said:

saaby93 said:

And whoever mentioned Tesco - what was the benefit of that over santander?

I think Tesco don't charge anything for their account as long as it's in credit, and don't require a monthly credit minimum amount, so you can can use it to setup direct debits to and from other banks with minimum effort.

Yep, Tesco wasn't mentioned as an alternative to the 123 account. Just that you can use a Tesco savings account as a direct debit. When you open the Tesco account it offers you to set up a DD to regularly fund it. (Which is a DD form, so definitely is not a standing order)