He said you could get over £2,000 in bonus cash
Martin Lewis has called on bank customers to check whether they’re eligible to pocket hundreds of pounds in extra cash. He issued the clarion call after one of his fans bagged over £750 in additional cash. Mr Lewis said you could even get a four-figure sum in total.
The savings expert encouraged people to check whether they can secure one-off payments by moving their current account to a different provider. During a recent episode of his BBC podcast, two listeners revealed how they’d landed substantial bonus cash simply for switching banks.
One listener named Vish shared how he’d pocketed £400 for transferring to a Barclays Premier Account. This particular offer has now ended, with Barclays previously offering £200 for switching to a Barclays Bank Account or £400 for moving to a Premier Account.
Customers could also have secured up to £500 for transferring their ISA savings to Barclays under the former deal. Following the success story, Mr Lewis reminded listeners that switching incentives are still available.
‘It pays to switch’
He said: “It pays to switch. There are about three bank accounts who are willing to pay people at the moment. Many of them have disappeared. Santander has got one, Nationwide has got one and first direct has got one. They are all paying at least £175.”
Santander is offering £200, Nationwide is offering £175 and first direct is also offering an £175 payment if you’ll switch to them.
Another listener revealed they’d pocketed over £750 by cleverly exploiting bank switching offers, using a strategy known as a “mule account”. Mr Lewis shed light on this savvy technique: “A mule account is where you have an account you’re quite happy with that you’re using for your day to day banking but you want to do regular switching to get the free bonuses.
“So you set up a spare account, an account that you’re not really intending to use that much. You have a couple of direct debits going out from it, because you normally need those to qualify. You pay money into it once you’re switching because they have minimum switching requirements, so you pay that money in but you just take it out the next day.
“Then you use that account just as a mule if you like, to move from one place to another, so that you can switch and get the benefits.”
In the case of this particular listener, they started with a no-offer account with Starling bank, switched to first direct and bagged £175, moved to Lloyds Bank and scored £200, hopped over to Barclays for another £200, then finally landed at NatWest for £175 plus some additional bonuses. This smart manoeuvring netted them a total of more than £750 in bonuses.
Mr Lewis described this as a “good haul”, although he said others have pocketed over £2,000 in total bonuses.
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