Santander 123

[Batshittery]

I am thinking about opening a Santander 123 account to obtain cash back on the bills I pay. I'm trying to decide if it is worth paying £5 a month or to have the Lite account and only pay £1.

Does anyone know if the cash back applies to paying monthly for Now TV and Netflix? I have tried searching their website but having no luck.

Thank you

Just to add, I went on the Santander website about a year ago and there was a calculator where you put in your outgoings which qualifies for cash back/interest and it will tell you how much you will get each month so you can see if the £5 fee is worth it

There are additional offers for meals out etc throughout the month along with cash back on shops, presently sky £50 back. H&M, Spar, various pubs, hotels etc.

We tend to get make the £5 charge back each month and then the interest rate on top at 1.5%

The car insurance was cheapest for us and there was an offer on the time of x amount cash back.

We have our house insurance with Santander. Very good policy for the price.

DP has an expensive mountain bike that always causes insurance issues but they've covered it no problem and we're getting quite a bit of cashback too.

I think I'll switch to the light account and open a separate savings account, buy more premium bonds and/or overpay the mortgage because we might finally be at the stage when I can't beat the interest rate with savings.

@BarbaraofSeville What savings account are you thinking off?

Oh we have separate savings so not worth it thank you.

I like them so far we have had no issues

I saw this yesterday as Santander 123 accounts are changing. Just incase it helps anyone here :

The high street bank will be cutting current account interest to 1% on its popular 123 account this spring, and introducing a single overdraft interest rate of 39.9%

The bank's now revealed that from 5 May 2020, it will be cutting its savings rate to 1% AER and capping its cashback at £5 per month in each of its cashback categories, for new and existing customers. The £5 monthly fee will remain the same.

Martin Lewis, founder of MoneySavingExpert.com, said: "Santander 123 is now a dead duck current account. There’s little reason for anyone to stick to it. In May it cuts interest to 1%, that’s substantially less interest than the top paying easy access savings.

Well they have to pay Ant and Dec somehow.

userxx

Not sure yet, will reassess in April. I think there's some instant access accounts that pay around 1.3%, but that could change in the next few months especially as there's rumours of a base rate drop. I did sign up to an ISA with Coventry that pays 1.5% but I didn't actually get round to putting any money in it so I don't know if that rate's still valid.

Might put a bit more into premium bonds as the average payout is starting to look quite attractive, but again, that might fall, due to base rate and also because there's a rule that the government can't use it's position to beat the banks with savings rates (in case anyone is unaware, when you buy PBs, what you are actually doing is lending money to the government).

I think we will hold off overpaying the mortgage for now as the rate is only 1.1% and I like to keep spare money liquid in case it's needed for home improvements etc. Another option is to boost DPs pension in case his plan to die before he gets old doesn't pay off.

@BarbaraofSeville Good idea to wait until April, think that's what I will do. No point chasing rates and going through the faff of opening accounts if they are going to be reduced. Will sit tight and see how things pan out.