Make £1,000s from switching bank? | Will government back track on Plan 2 Student Loan hike

This week on The Martin Lewis Podcast, is a bank account bonanza. Eight current accounts are now paying £175 or more to switch, and in some cases the rewards don't stop there. A number of packaged bank accounts are effectively paying you to sign up too, meaning you could get travel insurance, mobile phone cover and breakdown protection for the whole family thrown in — benefits that can easily be worth £500 a year or more. Martin cuts through the jargon, answers your questions and reveals the top bank account best buys right now. Plus, the long-awaited Treasury Select Committee report into Plan 2 student loans has finally landed. The report says many borrowers were effectively misled, echoing Martin's long-standing argument that the Government has a "moral duty" to reverse the planned increase in repayments for existing borrowers. Martin explains what the report says, what it means politically, and whether it could make a practical difference to those affected. And in this week’s Tell Us, we're uncovering the insider secrets of the restaurant trade. From the best ways to get value for money to what staff really think about the wine list, those who work in restaurants share their tips and tricks. If you want to ask Martin a question, you now can! His Question Time podcast lets you ask Martin absolutely anything and everything (within reason!). So, if you’ve always wanted to know how many potted plants he has in his house, if his clocks are all precisely synchronised (or not), or have a very complicated question about your finances, email it to [email protected] mailto:[email protected].

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:10Speaker 01

  Welcome to The Haunted Library.

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  Join me, Colin Morgan, as I read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. A story of science and ambition, loneliness and longing, and what it truly means to be human.

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  Listen to The Haunted Library wherever you get your podcasts, or find us on YouTube.

• 0:39Martin Lewis?

  It has the best terms possible of any form of lending out there. Eighty-six per cent of people who switched bank accounts said it was easy and hassle-free. But this really is, you know, lemon squeezing. So that's where it fits into the panoply of loaves. I personally think this Plan Three is immoral and a breach of natural justice. Hello, I'm Martin Lewis and this is the cunningly named The Martin Lewis Podcast. I do wonder what that's going to be about. And this is our big topic episode, where each week we lead on one main subject to help you save. Usually, it comes from my BBC Radio Five live show with Adrian Charles, but this week it's pod-only, so you won't be getting any of that. It's a special one just for you lucky, lucky podcast listeners. And in today's episode, it's a bank account bonanza.

• 1:24Martin Lewis?

  Eight accounts are currently paying you over £175 to switch, and rarely we're seeing some packaged accounts paying too, meaning you can effectively get free travel insurance, mobile phone insurance and breakdown cover for the whole family, often worth over £500 a year or more. I'll talk you through all of that, and how you can multiply switch to make thousands of pounds, answer your questions and give you the best buys. Plus, the longer-awaited Treasury Committee report into Plan Two student loans has come out. It says they were missold, and it's matching my language on saying the government has a moral duty to reverse its planned increase in repayments for the millions with outstanding student loans.

• 2:07Martin Lewis?

  We'll go through what that means, both politically and practically, in detail too. And in this week's Tellers, it's all about insider secrets and tips from those who work in restaurants, including should you order the house wine or the one second down on the list? Play the theme tune.

• 2:43Martin Lewis?

  Hello everybody and welcome to this big topics episode of the podcast. Now normally I'm doing this on Radio 5 Live with Adrian, but this week it's Wimbledon 15 all. And that means that's not on air. Instead, you've got me doing impressions of Wimbledon and I am joined by podcast producer Simon. Now, those of you who listen regularly will know Simon is normally our super substitute coming on at the end, once the hour with Adrian has finished, and he's there to pick up the pieces and ask the questions that haven't been asked. This week, he's been promoted to the main team. He is the Anthony Gordon of the Martin Lewis podcast. How are you feeling about that promotion, Si?

• 3:22Speaker 03

  Well, fitness wise, I don't perform well at altitude. We'll see if we've got a flowering meat, but I'm delighted to be here. The sun's out.

• 3:28Martin Lewis?

  Are you trying to say that because of the speed I talk, I suck all the breath out of the air?

• 3:32Speaker 03

  To be fair, it wouldn't matter what you were to do today. The sun's out. England are doing well in the football. Arthur Ferry's doing well at Wimbledon. I'm feeling very positive about things. And you'll like to hear a funny thing happen to me on Saturday.

• 3:47Martin Lewis?

  Go on.

• 3:48Speaker 03

  I went to the cricket on Saturday. I was getting the tram there.

• 3:51Martin Lewis?

  Is this England India?

• 3:52Speaker 03

  It was England India in the T20 international.

• 3:54Martin Lewis?

  When they absolutely romped them all over the place.

• 3:56Speaker 03

  They did. And also 15 year old Vibe Avseeravanti made his debut. So it was all very exciting. I was getting the tram and as I got into centre of Manchester, a stag dude got on the tram where I was sat. It was about 15 lads.

• 4:08Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 4:09Speaker 03

  The stag was bald, so they were all wearing bald caps. And now, as you know, it basically looked like I was part of the stag dude for the journey. Ended up getting selfies with them at the end.

• 4:22Martin Lewis?

  So, welcome to my world.

• 4:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:26Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, but not for the hair in my case, or almost. I think we should move on. Right. So the big stuff we're going to do today is we are going to be talking about bank accounts. And the reason I want to do that, because there are eight banks willing to pay you at least £175 to switch. And yes, we'll be talking about serially switching, where some people make thousands of pounds from doing so. We'll be getting into the impact on your credit score. And we're focusing really on answering your questions today because we're not on the radio. Instead, we're going to be less structured to really do it about the hundreds and hundreds of questions you've sent in about bank account switching. But the real reason for doing this right now is packaged bank accounts rarely have switching bonuses. Now, a packaged bank account is where you pay, say, £15 a month

• 5:10Martin Lewis?

  and you get for the bank account, but you get worldwide travel insurance for the family and mobile phone cover for the family and breakdown cover for the family thrown in. So for those people who would be buying those insurances anyway, they can be a really good deal. And right now, we do have a few packaged bank accounts that are paying you to switch. So the amount they're paying effectively covers that fee, which means you're getting the insurances for free. And that's really why I've chosen to do this as the subject today. But also, you have sent in hundreds of questions. And what I want to focus on is getting all of your questions answered. I'm going to structure it that way. Before we do that, though, we're going to get into news we've had this week about student finance.

• 5:51Martin Lewis?

  The student loan news this week is that the influential cross-party Treasury Committee of MPs has published its report titled "Student Loans Broken and Unfair?" Question mark. In my view, there shouldn't be a question mark. And this is on the back of seeking evidence from people, primarily about Plan Two student loans. Now, those are the loans for people who started university in England and Wales from 2012 up until started in 2022. And it is the outstanding loans that are out there, far more than any other loans in the country. So it's the big one. And these are the ones where the interest rate that's added to your balance is above inflation. There's been a lot of anger about this. Now, the report, the Treasury Committee, has had over 52,000 submissions from the public.

• 6:35Martin Lewis?

  It's also had detailed evidence from student and consumer groups, including me and MoneySavingExpert.com. We put in a large submission to this about all the problems that are wrong with student loans, and it is report is out this week. It has said a number of interesting things. Simon, I think we've got questions on this, haven't we?

• 6:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've had quite a few. I've actually put a few examples out.

• 6:54Martin Lewis?

  Okay, before we get to those, let me give you a summary of the report and roughly my view on this. Now, I think the three most important things in this report are, first of all, they have said that the Chancellor has a moral duty to reverse the planned freeze next year on the repayment threshold for Plan Two student loans. And I was delighted to see the word moral in there, because that echoes very strongly what I've been saying pretty much ever since the Chancellor announced this in a budget. I personally think this planned freeze is immoral and a breach of natural justice. This is why, if you're going to say we're going to change the way that student finance works in future, well, while

• 7:36Martin Lewis?

  I may not like it, while we may not like it, it is a political choice that an elected government has chosen to do. But that is not what it is planning to do next year. What it's planning to do is to freeze the threshold on existing Plan Two loans, which effectively increases the amount those with those loans must repay each year. That is a retrospective, one-sided contractual change that would not be allowed in almost any other circumstance or sector. And worse, the people that it affects signed up to those contracts in many cases when they were 18 years of age with little or no explanation of what they were getting into. That's why I call it immoral and a breach of natural justice,

• 8:20Martin Lewis?

  because it is a retrospective change going back in some cases to contracts signed 14 years ago. No commercial company would be allowed to do that. The regulator would strike that down, and it is fundamentally unfair that this government is choosing to do that from next April, freezing the repayment threshold for three years. The net effect on a rough calculation, and it depends on what the rate of inflation would be, is after Over three years, a typical student would be paying £300 a year more each year back. And over the course of a student loan for a typical student, it will add thousands of pounds to the amount paid back. I don't think it's fair to do that retrospectively.

• 9:03Martin Lewis?

  The second thing they've said that I think is interesting, and I'm delighted to see, is they have said that the government should effectively be bound by the same consumer duty for student loans as a commercial lender, with the proper fairness rules that commercial lenders have. It's only talking about the promotion of student loans, how they're marketed. I personally think it should be all student loan behaviour, that's not what they're saying, it is what I'm saying. And what's both delightful but really frustrating for me on this particular issue is I have been proposing this for over a decade. I actually ran a campaign on it when the coalition government in 2015 announced a repayment freeze then. I actually tried to take them to court and with a judicial review,

• 9:48Martin Lewis?

  but the lawyer's advice was we wouldn't win because of the way that it was drafted. So instead, we did a campaign. I got an MP to put in an amendment to the student loan regulation suggesting that student loans should be governed by the FCA and the equivalent of the consumer duty at the time. That MP, interestingly, was Wes Streeting, he was just a backbench MP then. He's been a member of the cabinet during the time that this freeze was put in, which seems slightly ironic to me. So I'm delighted that this group of MPs is now suggesting that these terms should be locked in, but really frustrated because we have seen horrific degradation of student loan terms for Plan Two over all these years. And if we'd had that rule in since 2016, we would never have got in the nightmare position that we're in right now.

• 10:33Martin Lewis?

  And it's worth me saying that even with those changes, even if they came in place, and I do think the reversal of the repayment threshold will happen, both because of this report, but mainly because we have a new regime coming in, and I think that new regime may be more sympathetic to this argument, so I'm hopeful it will be reversed. But student loans are fundamentally broken. The repayment threshold should be many thousands of pounds a year higher. The interest rate should be reduced. It should link, as the committee say, to CPI inflation or RPI inflation. Maintenance thresholds need uprating, certainly in England. And the whole system, including the way it's communicated, needs a fundamental reset. I need to be plain about what this committee is. It is a committee of cross-party MPs. It is not the government.

• 11:18Martin Lewis?

  This is a recommendation to government. The government doesn't have to follow it. But obviously, with the change of administration we have coming in over the next months, this is a sweet spot time to see a change coming in there.

• 11:33Speaker 03

  Hi, producer Simon here. The government have sent us this statement. The Treasury Committee's inquiry makes an important contribution to the debate on improving the student finance system and lays bare the confusion and broken system inherited by this government. We will continue to look for ways to make the system fairer for students, graduates and taxpayers in a financially sustainable way. And we'll respond to the committee's report in due course. Back to the pod.

• 11:59Martin Lewis?

  So Simon, I think I've probably, I've said enough. Let's do some questions on it.

• 12:03Speaker 03

  Well, the first question we've got. Hi, I'd like to ask a question about Plan Two student loans. With the increase in conversation around Plan Two loans and the unfair interest rate, it was raised by Luke Charters in Parliament in the past few weeks. Do you think it is a mis-selling scandal? There's a lot of talk about how if a bank was to sell someone this type of loan, that would likely be investigated. I know it's described more as a tax, however, it seems like only really a tax on maybe more working class people, as likely they may never pay it off and always be paying unfair interest rates. We know the Martin Lewis team always try and pioneer for better, fairer changes with finance with MPs and businesses. Is this something Martin will be talking about with them in the future? Kind regards, Subira.

• 12:46Martin Lewis?

  Okay, I want to split that into two. First of all, let's look at the mis-selling point. Luke Charters is a Labour MP. I've spoken to him about student loans in the past. The Treasury Committee said that these loans were mis-sold. So let's be really plain. The Treasury Committee, cross-party group of MPs, said that these loans were mis-sold. And they were specifically talking about the way they were communicated in official communications in the early days. However, what they've said, and I do have a tendency to agree with them, although not I'm a lawyer, is they were mis-sold, but this isn't mis-selling. And that may seem a really strange duality, but unfortunately... It doesn't look like the government can missell loans because the regulations for misselling in loans, because there's no consumer duty, there's no regulation around it.

• 13:27Martin Lewis?

  So morally, certainly, I think they were missold in some cases. But I think it will probably be very difficult to have a misselling case about it, although some lawyers may disagree and ultimately that would move into the legal sphere. If some group action lawyers decided to take this on and think that they could find that there was, you know, legal precedent in order for taking this on. You've heard me say I tried to do this in 2015 and it's a very similar issue. And the advice that I paid for, the expensive advice I paid for at the time, was very, very plain to me that there was not a leg to stand on. So I was very pleased at the time I actually got the government to backtrack on the repayment threshold through political pressure as opposed to through having to go to court.

• 14:10Martin Lewis?

  Let me take this second question of is it a tax? I would never call it a tax, but I wouldn't call it a loan either. I think certainly the Plan Two system should be called a graduate contribution scheme. And I need to be honest, some of the reasons I hear people complaining about Plan Two, I think just show what a political football this has become and how fundamentally understood Plan Two loans are. Now, that doesn't mean there aren't many reasons to complain about Plan Two. Since the day it was launched, I've said on principle I don't think that there should be above inflation interest rate on student loans. Although in practical terms, that isn't actually the problem for most people, the problem is the repayment threshold. Let me try and explain, though this is tough. The thing to understand about student loans is the only thing that dictates what you

• 14:54Martin Lewis?

  repay each year is how much you earn above the repayment threshold. That repayment threshold is currently just over £29,000. So if you earn just over £39,000, you repay 9% of everything above the threshold, that's £900 a year. And you repay £900 a year, whether your total debt and interest is £30,000, £60,000, £90,000, or hey, £3 million. The only thing that impacts what you repay each year is how much you earn above the threshold. The only thing that the amount you have borrowed plus interest impacts is whether you will clear the loan in full before it wipes.

• 15:38Martin Lewis?

  And the loan on Plan Two wipes after 30 years.

• 15:43Martin Lewis?

  Now, if we look at the maths at the moment, the vast majority of people on Plan Two loans, over three quarters of them, are predicted not to repay in full over the thirty years. In which case, if extra interest is being added on top and you're not going to repay in the thirty years anyway, that interest, while psychologically damaging, is not financially damaging because you won't have to repay it. The vast majority of people on Plan Two loans will not repay all of the interest added. Many of them won't repay any of the interest added because they won't earn enough over the threshold to repay what they borrowed in the first place. So, the question is said it's about working class.

• 16:25Martin Lewis?

  This gets even more complicated because what you have to understand when you do the maths on student loans is there's people on the way in and people on the way out. What dictates how much you repay, in most cases, with the exception of the very, very wealthy who don't need to take student loans in the first place because their parents can pay it off for them, and that, I accept, is a real problem. But if we talk about those who do take student loans, it's not how much money your parents had going in, that does have a slight impact on the amount of maintenance loan and the borrowing you have, it's really how much you earn coming out. So, it's about what you earn on the back end that dictates how much you repay. And it is only the highest earners who will repay in full over the thirty years.

• 17:04Martin Lewis?

  The rest will be repaying and therefore should contemplate this as a effectively nine percent additional tax. It isn't a tax, it's a loan contract, it doesn't, but that's why I'd call it a graduate contribution scheme, but psychologically it works like a nine percent additional tax. And why do I explain this in this way? Because I've seen a number of people complaining about student loans on TV, and I totally get why, I'm not having a go at them at all. But when I hear someone saying, "My debt, because I took out an undergraduate loan and a master's loan, is eighty-four thousand pounds and the interest is going up really rapidly and I'm paying off five hundred quid a year and I'll never be able to repay it and I don't know and it's causing me all types of problems." I just want to say, "Stop! Stop!"

• 17:47Martin Lewis?

  This student loan system, Plan Two specifically, was set up to be a graduate contribution system where you contribute in proportion to your earnings. The fact that you're only repaying £500 a year is because you are not earning very much, that is what you are supposed to contribute. Now, unless you have a really big earnings spike, if you've got an undergraduate loan and a master's loan on top, you are never going to get close to repaying what you borrowed. If you're only repaying £500 a year at the moment, you're never going to get close to that. And most of this loan is actually going to be wiped off after 30 years. So for you, you shouldn't even be looking at your statements because they are irrelevant to you.

• 18:28Martin Lewis?

  You should just contemplate, I'm going to repay 9% of everything I earn above £29,000 each year. It's a bit like a tax. And the reason that's so important to understand is because what everybody's saying on Plan Two is cut the interest rate, cut the interest rate, cut the interest rate. Cutting the interest rate will help those higher earners who'd clear within 30 years because they would repay less. It will help some people who are close to repaying in 30 years because they would now repay in full, so they would repay less. It will not help most low to middle earning graduates because they will not repay in 30 years and so much interest has already been added now that cutting the interest rate from this point onwards will not change what they repay in future.

• 19:12Martin Lewis?

  The real problem for them is the repayment threshold was meant to move and be much higher than it is. And you should in reality be repaying 9% of everything you earn above £35,000, £36,000 a year. And in practical terms, that would lower your repayments, give you more disposable income, get you on the housing ladder quicker because you'd have more disposable income and more ability to save. So, I'm not opposed to lowering the interest rates because I think it's wrong on principle that we have interest rates above inflation and it should be linked to CPI. But if you gave me a limited amount of money to improve the system as it is now, and I phrase that very carefully, I wouldn't be cutting the interest rates, I would be increasing the repayment threshold because I think that would help where help is needed. I mean, great, give more money and let's do both.

• 19:56Martin Lewis?

  But I think it's important to understand that. Okay, so what next on student loans?

• 20:00Speaker 03

  Well, so we've got this one here. Hi Martin, hope you're well. I'm reaching out to get some advice on my student loan repayment. I started studying in 2017 and graduated in 2021.

• 20:11Martin Lewis?

  Plan Two then?

• 20:12Speaker 03

  Yep, therefore I'm on Plan Two.

• 20:14Martin Lewis?

  Okay, yeah.

• 20:14Speaker 03

  My current student loan balance is £66,451, which has increased by almost £10,000 since I started working. I am expecting a bonus at the end of May, which will be 20% of my salary. I am paid £49,800 per year before tax. I've investigated how much the student loan company will take out of my pay at the end of this month, and it looks like it'll be around £1,000. Please can you advise on how best to avoid this student finance payment? As I am fine with paying tax, but paying for a loan that is going to continuously increase doesn't seem right to me. I've looked at possible pension options that I am willing to explore. Look forward to hearing from you. Thanks, Giles.

• 20:57Martin Lewis?

  Giles, this is very difficult because your student loan contributions come from your gross tax, they come from your pre-tax income, and there is very little you can do to change them. Now, you have irregular income because you're going to get a £10,000 rough bonus. Now, what's interesting is, while we talk about the student loan being 9% above the £29,000 rough threshold each year, actually practically, when you're on PAYE, pay as you earn, it's 9% above the monthly threshold, which is what I think about, what would it be? It'd be about £2,400 a month. So you repay 9% of everything you earn above £2,400 a month. If you had irregular income, so that in some months you weren't above £2,400, but your

• 21:42Martin Lewis?

  total in the year was below £29,000, you can reclaim that back. But as you earn over £29,000, so you should be repaying, then if you have irregular income, it's a nightmare because you have to repay 9% of the £10,000, as if you were earning that across a year effectively, as if you've got that each month, because it's just 9% above. And there is nothing you can do about that. You mentioned pension. There is a slight option here. Unlike most things where increasing your pension can take you down the tax band, it doesn't work in student loans, with the exception of salary sacrifice.

• 22:20Martin Lewis?

  So if you have a salary sacrifice option at your employer, which literally means you say, I want to increase my pension by £2,000 and to do that, you're going to reduce my salary by £2,000 and instead put the money in my pension for me, which gives you as well as the tax gain you normally get on a pension, it gives you a national insurance gain too, which is why people do it, then that would reduce your income for student loan purposes. But I think it would be quite difficult to organise for a one-off, so it is a very difficult thing to do, I'm afraid. The only thing I would say to you is if you're earning £50,000 and you graduated in 2021

• 23:02Martin Lewis?

  and you're getting £10,000 of bonuses, while it is incredibly difficult to work this out, you are likely, if your career trajectory continues, because it sounds like you're doing well, to be in that group of people who would repay in full in the 30 years before the loan wipes out. Now, it's an immensely complicated calculation, I've built an AI calculator to do it, but even then, it just depends on how your salary progresses over the years. But it would sound like you're certainly a candidate to be in that group who will repay. So if you were a lower earner, it would be really frustrating because the extra payments you made towards your student loan would probably not save you any money in future because you'd still just keep repaying 9% of everything you earned for 30 years, but you're not.

• 23:47Martin Lewis?

  So if I can give you a little bit of silver lining to the cloud, at least that money may be reducing the total amount of interest you pay because you repay off in full over 30 years. But other than salary sacrifice on pension, I can't think of much else that would reduce the amount that you paid.

• 24:02Speaker 03

  And the final one we're going to do this week on student finance.

• 24:05Martin Lewis?

  Yep.

• 24:06Speaker 03

  Dear Martin, I hope you're well, everyone wants to know that you're well.

• 24:08Martin Lewis?

  I am well, I'm very well, I'm very well.

• 24:11Speaker 03

  I am 26 years old and have a Plan Two student loan. My balance has risen from approximately £29,000 in 2022 to over £32,000 in 2025.

• 24:22Martin Lewis?

  Yep.

• 24:23Speaker 03

  Despite repayments being deducted through PAYE, according to my statements, interest added each year has exceeded my repayments, causing the balance to grow.

• 24:32Martin Lewis?

  And that is going to be the case for most people on Plan Two loans, especially if you've had them a long time and you haven't repaid that much off because the interest has built up on the balance. But I refer you to what I said earlier. And I do this not to make a political point. These loans are expensive, a 9% additional graduate tax effectively, which is what it will feel like is expensive. But I do it to do the point that the way you need to contemplate it from a personal finance perspective, if you're in that position is you're going to pay 9% of everything you earn above the threshold for 30 years. You don't need to worry about the interest. You are not obligated to pay it off. There is no moral responsibility to pay off the loan. They were not designed to be paid off by everybody. They were designed only to be paid off by those who earned enough to pay them off in the period.

• 25:14Martin Lewis?

  And that language, that conversation seems to have changed into, you know, people need to pay off what they borrowed. They were never meant to have been called loans. They're not called loans in other countries. They're called graduate contribution system. The reason they're called loans is because Tony Blair didn't want to introduce another tax. So they had to come up with another form of phrasing, rather than something that was akin to a tax that made it feel like a loan, because he didn't want to be introducing a tax. It's a language issue. And the way that we've named him and the nomenclature about student loans, I think has been a real problem, especially for Plan Two. Plan Two, more than any of the other plans, is more like a time limited graduate tax. It isn't because it's a contract, but is more like a time limited graduate tax for most people than any other. Sorry, carry on with the question.

• 25:56Speaker 03

  Well, so Annie, I think she's concerned about being part of that section who will pay off. So my earnings have been around £40,000 plus a small annual bonus. But I'm shortly moving into a role paying approximately £70,000 per year.

• 26:09Martin Lewis?

  Game changer, yeah.

• 26:10Speaker 03

  Given my age, outstanding balance of around £32,000 and expected salary increase, does it now make financial sense to make voluntary overpayments? Or should I continue to only make the compulsory repayments? I'd be grateful for your thoughts as I am struggling to understand whether the loan is likely to be repaid in full and whether overpaying would save me money in the long term. Kind regards, Annie.

• 26:34Martin Lewis?

  So really interesting question, Annie. It's quite similar to the one before. So if you're going to be moving, you're 26 years old, you're going to be on £70,000 high salary, right, and you're therefore on a high career plan. So on a base look, it looks like you would clear in full over 30 years. Again, it's really complicated. There is no right answer. There are a number of things you need to contemplate. Will your career progression continue at this same rate? Will you be taking a long time off for maternity or paternity if you're a man? Because that affects it. Maternity and paternity is really interesting if you're taking substantial time off. If you're a low to middle earner who won't clear within the 30 years, then it's actually arguably beneficial to you because it just means you're making less repayments

• 27:16Martin Lewis?

  over that period and you would never have to pay them back anyway. So you won't ever have to catch them back up. If you're a mid-high to high earner who will clear in full over the 30 years, then it's negative for you because the interest rate is being added. So it's quite an interesting one to follow in. My guess, can only be a guess, you will pay in the 30 years. So then the next question is, is it worth paying this loan off? The loan interest rate for someone earning £70,000 is 6.2% currently. That is higher than most mortgages, lower than most personal loans, lower than most credit cards that are at 0%. So that's where it fits into the panoply of loans. It has the best terms possible of any form of lending out there.

• 28:00Martin Lewis?

  Because unlike any other lending, if you stopped working and your earnings dropped below the threshold, you would not have to repay it, you would not have debt collectors chasing you, there'd be nobody coming after you. And that is important to contemplate. So there is a little bit of a premium that you would put on the interest rate. Again, I'm not talking politically in a personal finance decision, in terms of whether you would pay it off. So the first thing I would say to you is you have to question, would you be getting any other more expensive borrowing? Would you be looking for a car loan or credit card debt or something in the future? In which case, you would be far better to take the money you have now, put it in a high interest savings as you possibly can get. So current top savings is 4.5%. So if we take that 4.5%

• 28:44Martin Lewis?

  5% from the 62.2% that you're paying on your student loan. The net cost of not paying it off is 1.7% interest. But if that meant it would prevent you getting a much higher interest rate debt in future, say on a car or something else, it could well be worthwhile. The second thing to remember is if you make voluntary overpayments, once it's done, it's done. If you make an involuntary overpayment, and some people, up to 5 million people, have overpaid unnecessarily their student loans because things are wrong with it. You know, for example, I talked about it earlier. If you earned too much in a month but weren't earning enough over the year in order to pay it back, you can get that back as a, because it was a, an involuntary overpayment. But voluntary overpayments, you can't get the money back.

• 29:25Martin Lewis?

  So what I'm trying to say, yes, mathematically, it probably makes sense to overpay at the moment. But not if you would have other, more expensive debts in the future. And not if there's a chance that there would be a substantial change in the future. So your real question is, for the 1.7% gain, and that's what I call it. It's the difference between the top savings and the current interest of the student loan. Is it worth locking that money away so that you can never get it back? Only you can decide that. I'm not trying to make a point. I'm not trying to say no. I'm saying that's the decision that you're making. And if you want the flexibility of keeping that money so that you can reduce future borrowing

• 30:07Martin Lewis?

  that might be more expensive elsewhere, or you could keep that money in case you needed a bigger mortgage deposit to reduce the amount that you would pay on your mortgage and bring your mortgage rate down, then I think the 1.7% may be worth paying to keep that money liquid for yourself rather than locking it into a student loan. I hope that wasn't too convoluted, but that's the decision you need to make and only you can make that, Annie. I wish you the best.

• 30:32Martin Lewis?

  Now, moving on to our big topic of the week, although I've gone very long on student loans. So it might be a split major this week, I think, between the two of them. We don't have a mastermind because Adrian's not here, so I will have used my mastermind time on student finance. It seems somewhat fitting. Simon, I know we've had just scores of questions on banks and bank accounts. So I'm going to let the questions lead. I'm going to try and keep my answers short and sharp. Let's get straight to it.

• 30:54Speaker 03

  Why don't we start with the success, just to show how powerful this can be. Jason got in touch. He did it earlier this year, based around your advice. Super easy. Moved to Nationwide, who gave us £175 for moving, plus two £100 Nationwide fare share amounts.

• 31:09Martin Lewis?

  That's its loyalty reward for existing customers, yeah.

• 31:11Speaker 03

  So a total for moving of £375 effectively gave us free worldwide travel insurance, plus much more via their packaged accounts.

• 31:19Martin Lewis?

  We'll be talking more about packaged accounts later, but yeah, that's an example. And some people have gained thousands of pounds from this, from multiple switching. Anyway, where are we going?

• 31:28Speaker 03

  Well, let's get into the question. Might as well start with the basics. Carl, right, I'm a 56-year-old, never switched bank accounts, so I'm an oldie. People in their 50s, we don't refer to as oldies on this podcast.

• 31:38Martin Lewis?

  Well, it's absolutely banned, and if you do that, Simon, then there'll be a virtual kick under the desk, even though...

• 31:43Speaker 03

  Hey, that was on Carl. That was on Carl. He wants to know, what happens with your wages going into the bank with all the bills that you have to pay out? And I have a credit card and all my bank accounts with them. What happens to these?

• 31:56Martin Lewis?

  Okey dokey. When you switch bank account, you will use the current account switch service. It's called seven-day switching. Slight misnomer, it's seven working days. I tend to think of it, it's 10-day switching. The bank account you're switching from will be automatically closed. The money will be moved across automatically. Your direct debits will be moved across automatically. Your standing orders will be moved across automatically. Any money paid to that old bank account will be automatically forwarded to the new one. Otherwise, I would still suggest gradually over time, you tell people to pay your new bank account, and you give it the new bank account details. You don't rely on that going on, you know, in perpetuity.

• 32:39Martin Lewis?

  Within a year or two, you should easily have been able to tell everybody. But you don't need to hurry about doing that. The only thing that is not switched for you is what's technically called recurring payments, which are subscriptions where you gave the long number on your debit card. You can also do them on a credit card. Typically used on, you know, Netflix's and Amazon Primes. But all that will happen in that case is you would get, if you forgot to tell them, is you get a message saying, your payment card is no longer working. Please give us a new payment card. And then you could just switch it to your new card. So that isn't really a big problem. As in terms to your credit card, well, I can think of only one or two credit cards which are linked to the bank account. Virtually every credit card is a separate product.

• 33:21Martin Lewis?

  You can have a credit card at one bank and your bank account at another bank. So it should not affect that in any way. As you said, you had all your bank accounts with them. Well, you would only be switching one bank account. And you're generally switching your main bank account. So it should all work. And listen, I do questions on this. I think the last stat I gave, and maybe a few percent out, was 86% of people who switched bank accounts said it was easy and hassle free. And most of the rest said it was okay. And very few have problems. I mean, I'm not saying there won't be a problem for someone. But this really is, you know, lemon squeezy.

• 33:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, and let's not worry about percent. 74% of statistics are made up on the spot, aren't they?

• 33:58Martin Lewis?

  That's absolutely correct. Mine is, it's definitely in the eighties. I'll tell, one I was going on my head, because I've done it a few times, was whether 83% or 86%. Either way, it's more than four in five people.

• 34:09Speaker 03

  Simone wants to know, can I switch if I only have a basic bank account?

• 34:13Martin Lewis?

  Depend on the bank you're with, but generally, yes. If your bank is a member of the current account switching service, which most of the big names are, in fact, almost all of the big names are, then yes, you should be able to switch a basic bank account.

• 34:23Speaker 03

  Chris asks, use your old one until the new one arrives or keep both? No need to decide just because you switch bank accounts, question mark?

• 34:31Martin Lewis?

  Well, when we're talking about switching to get paid, with the exception of packaged bank accounts, because you're paying a fee for them, so they may not mandate it in some cases. You have to be switching an account, so your old account has to be closed. The only circumstance is they won't close your old account is if you've got an overdraft that you're not repaying when you close it. And they may keep it open, but generally, part of the process is your old account is closed for you.

• 34:55Speaker 03

  And Becky has a question. When I was going through the questions yesterday, so many were based around this.

• 34:59Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 35:00Speaker 03

  She says, doesn't it affect your credit score? I always get a pat on the head for not opening any new accounts.

• 35:05Martin Lewis?

  That should stop you sitting in cow fields. Yes, carry on.

• 35:09Speaker 03

  Does it not count if you are opening and closing accounts rather than just having loads of accounts open?

• 35:14Martin Lewis?

  Let's be plain, switching bank account can have a short term minor effect on your credit worthiness. You would see it if you go to a credit reference agency's credit score. Remember, those are not, you know, they're not gospel. They're just that credit reference agency's loose indication of how a typical lender looks at you. It will have a short term impact because most lenders like evidence of longevity and that uncertainty can be an issue. But it's not a big deal. It does not last long. I would not be switching my main bank account in the three to six months before I had a mortgage application coming. I probably wouldn't be switching my main bank account in the three months before I was making a balance transfer for a large amount of money, in other words, a big debt shift

• 35:57Martin Lewis?

  or making an important loan application. Otherwise, I wouldn't be bothered. I would just go and do it and get the money paid in because after six months, unless you've got major problems and you're defaulting on other debts or missing other debt repayments, it shouldn't really be an issue. So it does affect your creditworthiness, but generally only for the short term. So as long as you're not timing it before a very important application, it shouldn't be a problem.

• 36:21Speaker 03

  Perfect. So let's get into the specific deals now. Sam wants to know who has the best deals currently for switching?

• 36:27Martin Lewis?

  I'm going to run through this really quickly because there are so many offers. I'm not going to dot my i's and cross my t's. I'm not going to go through eligibility criteria. I will only mention this as a fee. There are some great websites out there that list all of these that you should go and look on for the details. But of the standard fee-free accounts available out there that you can switch to that will pay you to switch right now. Maybe put a music bed underneath all this, Simon. You've got £220 from HSBC Bank Account. That's relatively rare, so it's quite interesting that it's doing that because we want lots of these different accounts available for the people who've switched before to be able to get the bonuses. You've got its sister bank, First Direct's first account, that is giving you a free £200. That ends on the 15th of July.

• 37:12Martin Lewis?

  It drops down to just £175 then. So if you're going to do this one, you want to do it relatively quickly. It also gives you a 0% overdraft up to £250. It has a top debit card for spending overseas and has a 7% regular savings account. The thing most people go to First Direct for, though, is it is the top-rated bank for customer service. In my last poll, 92% rated great, and it's giving you £200 to switch to it. You've got Barclays at the moment that's giving people a free £200, an optional half-price Apple TV. You've got NatWest Rewards that's giving a free £200 plus possible £36 a year cash back. For that, you have to have a certain amount of money going in and you have to use its mobile app, but it's not that complicated. You have Santander Edge. This is the only one of those I'm listing that charges you a fee. It's £3 a month.

• 37:57Martin Lewis?

  It's giving you £180. To come to it, it's big boost. It's my top pick for bills because if you pay your bills from it by direct debit, you get cash back of 1% up to £10 a month from that. And the cash back you earn from that normally outweighs the £3 a month fee that you have to pay for someone with typical bills. It also gives you a 6% easy access savings account, but only on up to £4,000. You've then got the Coop Bank current account, which is a £325 quid plus £25 a month for three months. So if you do that right, that's £200 quid, as long as you fulfill its criteria. Nationwide Flex Direct is £175 free. Bank of Scotland Classic is £175 free. And if you're a higher earner, HSBC Premier that gives £500 for free. That's the biggest switching bonus I've ever seen,

• 38:42Martin Lewis?

  but you've got to be earning over £100,000 a year to get it. It also gives you access to free family travel insurance and digital, i.e. virtual online GP access 24/7. So if you earn over £100,000, quite interesting as there's no fee on that bank account. NatWest Premier Reward is giving higher earners a free £250 quid and a decent £8 a month cash back. To get that, you must also have a minimum £100,000 a year salary. So you can see there are so many banks right now willing to pay people to switch. It's worth doing your reading about the eligibility criteria. Some require minimum pay-ins. Most require you to have a couple of direct debits being switched across. All of them require you to use their switching services, all of the non-Premier accounts, that is. So you have to close your old bank account down. But there's a lot of choice out there.

• 39:28Speaker 03

  Well, speaking of choice, John, considering switching from First Direct to Nationwide due to First Direct closing First Directory, is Nationwide the best choice?

• 39:38Martin Lewis?

  As you're talking about First Direct closing its First Directory, that's effectively its packaged bank account. I'm going to talk about those later. I'm going to hold that in abeyance for now and we'll come to that when we do the packaged bank account section later, if that's all right.

• 39:49Speaker 03

  Paula wants to know, I have two accounts with Santander, both current accounts with monthly charges. One is a joint account with my husband. Can I do a switch of both accounts as a one-time process? Is this more complex to switch a joint account? Thank you.

• 40:05Martin Lewis?

  They are separate bank accounts. You cannot do it as a joint process. They would have to be done as a separate process each. Let me just run you through. Some banks will give you the switching bonus on joint bank accounts. Some won't. So HSBC won't. First Direct will. Barclays won't. NatWest will. Santander will. Just to give you a flavour, you can check the rest out for yourself. Right, Simon, we're doing very well. We're getting through them. You know, super sub you are. We're doing quicker than Adrian. I've got so many questions. Keep ramping them up, mate.

• 40:38Speaker 03

  Trying to set my personal best for most questions asked in an hour. Viv wants to know, can you get a credit card attached to your new bank account post? Switch easily.

• 40:46Martin Lewis?

  Credit cards and bank accounts are almost always completely separate. And generally, you won't find the place offering you the best bank account will be the same place that's offering you the best credit card. So first of all, your old credit card won't have been closed down in almost all cases. And yes, you can go and apply for a new credit card if you want to apply for a new credit card, but I wouldn't stick with the same bank. I'd go and make sure you get the best credit card for you for whatever it is you want to use it for. Look at me doing short answers, Simon. Keep going.

• 41:14Speaker 03

  And MBG, which I assume stands for Martin's Biggest Giza.

• 41:17Martin Lewis?

  Nice.

• 41:18Speaker 03

  I have a Help to Buy ISA as well.

• 41:21Martin Lewis?

  Shall I answer it all like this? Go on, keep going. All right.

• 41:24Speaker 03

  I have a Help to Buy ISA as well as a regular saver account with my current account. My worry is I could lose my regular saver and Help to Buy ISA if I switch. Can I keep those savings accounts? Or do I need to know if the switch to bank offer a Help to Buy ISA? They are dead products, so it's tricky.

• 41:40Martin Lewis?

  Well, all right. Let me give you the information. I don't think, I can't do that.

• 41:45Speaker 03

  You're not from round here, are you?

• 41:46Martin Lewis?

  No. I don't think it's an issue with the Help to Buy ISA. Help to Buy ISAs are standalone products, not normally linked to bank accounts. I'm not aware of any Help to Buy ISA providers that require you to have a bank account to do it. I mean, in the worst case, you should always check. But in the worst case, all you would do is you would just transfer it to a new payer. There's guides online to the best paying Help to Buy ISA. You can transfer a Help to Buy ISA even though it's a dead product. So that's you apply to open a new Help to Buy ISA. And on the application form, you fill in the transfer details and it will move the Help to Buy ISA across for you. So that isn't an issue. The regular saver is probably more of an issue. Most of the best paying regular savers accounts, that's where you can normally for, say, a year, put in £200 or £300 a month and get a high rate of interest.

• 42:30Martin Lewis?

  Up to 8% is the best paying with Santander Reg at the moment. They are normally linked to bank accounts. So you would lose your regular saver, would be my guess. But you would probably be able to open a new regular saver at the new bank that you move to. And frankly, the interest earned on regular savers, because the whole point of them, we give you 8% interest. We give you 7% interest, but only on a tiny amount and you have to drip feed it in. So the interest you actually get on a regular saver over a year, you know, it's normally 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 quid. Even if you max it out, even at the high interest rate, you're going to be earning more just with the one switch of a bank account than you would in the regular saver. So even if the new place that has a regular saver has a lower interest rate, overall, you're probably still going to be massively up.

• 43:15Speaker 03

  We're getting the full range of your accents, aren't we? East End.

• 43:19Martin Lewis?

  That's right, Calber.

• 43:21Speaker 03

  It's a matter of time before we do the Adrian one before the end of the programme. But before we get into that, I want to do multiple switching.

• 43:27Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 43:28Speaker 03

  So we're going to start with a success.

• 43:29Martin Lewis?

  Love a success.

• 43:30Speaker 03

  My wife and I had two switch accounts, which both had a few direct debits and standing orders that we purely use for switching. We seem to have ran out of banks we qualify for, but in total have claimed over £2,000 between us. It baffles me why people wouldn't do it. If you feel loyal to your bank, just set up another account and use that one to switch. I've got my Lloyds account, which I set up in 1993.

• 43:54Martin Lewis?

  Well, I think that proves the point. So most of the serial switchers who make big money out of it, they tend to be couples and they do it together. So that, you know, they both have separate accounts. Currently, we just talked about HSBC paying 220 quid. So if you switch two accounts into that right now, that's 440 pounds that you're earning. And then you do it again and again. And you can see why I say people make thousands of pounds from this. And Joe isn't alone. This is a constant mailbox thing for me. It's also something that many of the team in Money Saving Towers, they're doing it all the time and they're just trying to grab and get the bonuses up. There are techniques for doing that, but I'll hold those because I suspect some of your questions might elicit those bits from me.

• 44:33Speaker 03

  Well, Kate may well be one of them. She asks, which banks are best to open up extra dummy accounts with, i.e. banks that don't have good switching bonuses?

• 44:41Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so yeah, this is what we call the burner account or the mule account or the dummy account. The idea is, what many of the people who do regular switching do is because it's a hassle to actually move the whole way you organise your life again and again and again. They have one bank account and then they have another bank account that they're just using for switching and fulfilling the switching criteria. So they normally have a couple of direct debits going out of it. So as Kate is rightly asking, the account you want to start with, if you're going to be multiple switching, for your burner account should be one that doesn't normally offer a switching bonus. Because the fact that you've had that account would prevent you getting a switching bonus in future, so you don't want to use up one of your switching bonuses.

• 45:24Martin Lewis?

  I would suggest something like Starling or Monzo, one of the easy to open digital banks that are part of the current account switching service, would be a good place to start this. So you open up one of those, you make sure when you're looking at the way that you do this, you'll make sure you have a couple of direct debits going out of it and enough money to make sure that you can pay those. You know, small direct debits you would have each month, in most places, two direct debits of at least two pounds going out of it each month will qualify you in the switching service. Occasionally you You need three, so you need to check that. So then, once you've got that set up, you then use that to switch to a new bank that's paying you a switching bonus. Checking its eligibility terms, I mean, some banks will say they need require you to have a thousand pound total paid in. So you add a thousand pounds.

• 46:08Martin Lewis?

  Once you open the bank account, that fulfills the criteria. You've switched bank account from your, from your burner account. You've got a couple of direct debits going from it. Once a thousand pounds has been put in, you can then take it out the next day if you choose to. You don't have to keep it in there. You wait until you get your switching bonus and then you move it all again. That's how you do it. You play the burner bonus game.

• 46:29Speaker 03

  Helen wants to know, how long do you feel it is polite to have a mule account open before switching to another current account? To get the switching bonuses.

• 46:37Martin Lewis?

  Plight to a bank? I would say somewhere between naught point one and naught point four seconds after you have fulfilled all the criteria. You need and got your money. If this is what you're trying to do, it's what you're trying to do. Leaving it open a week or two doesn't really make much difference. The only thing about speed, obviously going back to our credit scoring impact. Multiple switching of bank accounts will have a bigger impact on your credit worthiness. So you need to be doing this in a time where you're not going to be need to making any debt applications in the next year or two, I would say. That's when you should be doing this.

• 47:08Speaker 03

  Leah must be a serial switcher. She wants to know. I want to switch, but I can't remember who I've done it with before. How can I check?

• 47:15Martin Lewis?

  Well, Leah, slight slap on the wrist. This is for people who are good with spreadsheets and keep records. Those are the people who do best at it. But as you haven't, and as I've slapped your wrist, I will also give you a sweetie at the same time. Go and get your credit file, your credit report that's available from one of the three credit reference agencies. Equifax, Experian or TransUnion. And you can get them all for free via lots of different routes out there. And just go and get one of those and that should list all the bank accounts you've had for at least six years, which might help you with it.

• 47:43Speaker 03

  Vicky, I've switched a number of times, but more often than not. I get rejected for the payoff as I've had an account with another bank in their chain in the past. It would be good to know what banks are part of the same group so you could avoid moving within that group.

• 47:59Martin Lewis?

  Oh, Vicky, I wish it was so easy. It is not so easy. Every bank has different terms of what counts in order to get the bonus. Let me give you an example at the moment, and I'm going to take two sister banks. So you would think that they would have the same criteria. For HSBC with its current bonus, it says even if you have had switch cash from HSBC or First Direct before, as long as that switch cash was before 2023 and you are no longer a customer, you can get its switch cash now. But if we take First Direct, same group, to get the switch cash from it, you must be a totally new customer and can't

• 48:43Martin Lewis?

  have had any First Direct product or opened an HSBC current account since January 2018. So yes, knowing which accounts are linked to HSBC and First Direct, NatWest and RBS are linked, Lloyds, Halifax, although the Halifax brand is disappearing, and Bank of Scotland are linked. Yes, knowing them is important, but that's why I always talk about looking up eligibility criteria. I mean Barclays, you can't have received a previous Barclays switch bonus and can't have held a Barclays current account on or before the 9th of June 2026. So they all have slightly different eligibility criteria and you just need to be eagle-eyed on that. The HSBC one I mentioned is interesting because that is a rare bonus and they're in sort of inviting switchers to them by giving the slightly looser criteria

• 49:28Martin Lewis?

  of what counts as being a new customer there. And one addition to that, Co-op, which I mentioned earlier, with £325 plus £25 a month for three months. So that's a total of £200 if you fulfil the criteria to get the £25 a month for three months. Interestingly, it's actually doing something slightly different. It says it will give you £100 extra if you're an existing customer with a mortgage or savings with it switching into it. So as you can see, the criteria are multiple and varied, just like my accents. So we're going to hold banking there for a second. We still have packaged bank accounts to do. Really important for anyone who pays for travel insurance for the family and has family mobile phones and breakdown cover, that can be very, very lucrative. But I think it's time for something different.

• 50:13Martin Lewis?

  Yes, it's time for this week's Tellers. The question I put out there was, have you worked in a restaurant, café or takeaway? What are your insider tips for eating out or in if you do? Best value food and drink, what to avoid, how to get discounts, delivery apps and more. And luckily, we haven't been waiting for the answers to come in. It's grown. We have had a huge number of people. Simon, why don't you read the first one?

• 50:35Speaker 03

  Saul says, I worked in top end restaurants for many years. The biggest mistake people make is ordering the second cheapest bottle of wine. This is something, by the way, so I do this all the time.

• 50:45Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 50:45Speaker 03

  I'm very much guilty of this. I hadn't realised I was getting done here.

• 50:48Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 50:48Speaker 03

  That's actually the wine with the biggest markup. The house wine is the restaurant's flagship wine they use to represent themselves. It's the cheapest on the menu, but usually of excellent quality. People avoid it because it's the house wine, when actually it's usually the nicest and the best value for money at that price point.

• 51:05Martin Lewis?

  It's really interesting because you've often heard the order the second cheapest, but actually we've got Gaynor here who's backing up Saul totally. My Italian husband, who worked for years as a waiter, he never orders from the wine list because he says it's not worth the restaurant's reputation to have lousy house wine. So just order that. So backing it up and there you go, another accent for you. Keep going.

• 51:32Speaker 03

  Next up, your home cleaner Pizza Hut. Don't pay for sweet corn as an extra topping. Get the sweet corn off the salad bar, same as the jalapenos.

• 51:40Martin Lewis?

  Nice little tip there. Tracy, best advice, choose a place with a small menu. Large menus mean frozen or processed and generally poor food. I'm married to an ex chef.

• 51:50Speaker 03

  Ali, I work in an amazing independent family run restaurant in Newcastle. My tip would definitely be to phone and ask a restaurant if they can do takeout for collection or delivery locally. The food will be the restaurant's price rather than the ones given using a third party. The industry is struggling. I know it's not as affordable to eat out as it was, but I now look at the independent restaurant rather than the franchise. However, I get that's my choice rather than a tip.

• 52:15Martin Lewis?

  Well, it is interesting. I mean, if you order on one of the big delivery apps out there, you will often see that the price is more expensive than it is when you go. Into the restaurant itself, if you're eating in the restaurant. And obviously they've got the delivery costs on top. So it's always worth doing that check to see if you're going to do it straight. If that, if the restaurant itself has its own delivery route that it can bring to you. If you can't go and pick it up.

• 52:36Speaker 03

  My go to takeaway, give you a free garlic bread. If you just go direct to them, that's why we started doing it. I only realised afterwards it's because they're trying to circumnavigate the, the charges.

• 52:45Martin Lewis?

  I, I got lost because I originally said, instead of saying my go to takeaway, I heard my goat takeaway. I couldn't quite listen all the way through because of the image it gave me.

• 52:55Martin Lewis?

  Johnny, worked as a chef for 20 years, now an owner. Try not to order fish on a Monday. It would have been delivered on Saturday at best. Go to Michelin restaurants for lunch. It's when they practise their main meals and most have great deals. Yeah. If you want posh nosh, lunch is the best time to do it generally.

• 53:10Speaker 03

  Voltaire says, in fast food burger places that have stuff sitting in the chute. Order your burger without something to get a fresh one. Also order drinks with no ice as ice can be a third of the volume. It works here and abroad.

• 53:23Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, that's really interesting. Either order without something or get them to add something on. Because otherwise you are just having that stuff that's just sat under the lights for ages. And that way you're getting them to make it fresh. Of course, though, if you're going in for fast, fast food, it won't be as fast to order something specific as it would to order something generic. So it's a trade off. We've got a couple more left. Let's do them.

• 53:41Speaker 03

  ACI have a voice and they're saying something that from my time of working in hospitality, I would say this. They work in a fish and chip shop. A please and a thank you to your server as well as a smile and some empathy. Like it must be hot working behind there. You're doing so well is going to get you a larger portion of chips and the freshest cooked fish.

• 53:59Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, we had a lot of people saying be nice and it's just a general rule for life really. What was your hospitality experience, Si?

• 54:05Speaker 03

  Well, I worked in a pub for a bit and to be fair, be nice, give me a tip. You'll almost certainly get served faster going forward, I would say. That was always the case. I remember the, the pub that I worked in, they would do like a weekly poker night. So then they would have poker, the sort of game where you can't really step away from the table. So they'd all then come at an organised break.

• 54:23Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 54:24Speaker 03

  I always remember the people that give me a tip the week before.

• 54:27Martin Lewis?

  They were the ones you saw, weren't they?

• 54:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:29Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, I was not bad behind the bar. I was the worst waiter ever when I was 15. I worked in an Italian restaurant, didn't really know Italian food, didn't really know the food that was our, I had a handshake when I delivered the food. So like, everything would be shaking. I would, I just couldn't hold the plate still and everything. I'd been there about three days and it was the, I mean, I grew up in the middle of a forest, so there were not many places to work nearby. And I'd managed to get this job and

• 54:51Speaker 03

  Based on, based on being so good on the accent?

• 54:53Martin Lewis?

  No, no, I didn't try the accent when I was in there because there were actually Italian waiting staff in there. Maybe I was 16 and I thought, I'm gonna get the sack here. I'm absolutely terrible. I've told this story before, but then I had the best bit of luck. The till broke. So the till broke and they were all in panic over it. And I remember coming and I had my order and they're, oh, the till's broken. And I said, oh, it's all right. Mine is, mine, you know, £28.52. And they're like, what? I thought, well, it's £28.52. And they said, okay, you be the till. So I basically spent the rest of my summer, uh, which when I was working there, being the till in an Italian restaurant rather than being a waiter, which is quite fitting really for what I do now, I suppose, isn't it?

• 55:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 55:33Martin Lewis?

  It was good preparation. You see, mass can play a part in all types of life you never expected. We've got two more. I want to get them done, then we'll start and we'll go back to bank accounts.

• 55:41Speaker 03

  So Christine, I waited on in an independent Italian restaurant. Just because it's an independent restaurant, doesn't mean things aren't bought in. We used to have so many compliments for the lobster ravioli, but it was bought in frozen. Every time someone said they could tell they were homemade, we'd just reply, I'm glad you enjoyed them. I'll let the chef know.

• 55:59Martin Lewis?

  Ooh, told you food would be secrets that we wanted. We'll finish with Louise. I own my own coffee shop cafe and plateness goes a long way. We have loyalty cards for coffees. If you become a regular, you get freebies now and then. As in your whole meal, free coffees and desserts. We're in Preston, established 20 years. Being a regular earns rewards. I, I will have, I will say this. Sometimes when I'm writing on a Monday, there's a place I go. It's probably about forty minutes walk from where I live. And as you know, I walk everywhere. And I go there to go and write for a couple of hours for lunch on a Monday. It's when I'm writing the weekly email for my website. And in the last six months, they have three times told me I don't need to pay because I'm a regular.

• 56:44Martin Lewis?

  Now, I do need to point out, all of the waiting staff there are not English first language. And I don't believe from the conversations they've had with me, they know who I am. So this isn't always off the telly, let's try and. This is just a, you go there regularly, we want to say thank you for your continued custom. So absolutely backing up what Louise says there. And thank you, I won't, because I can't plug, I can't do advertising, I can't name what the place is. It's actually part of a chain, but it's that particular branch. And thank you to all the waiting staff and restaurant owners and people there for giving us your tips. And I know hospitality is struggling at the moment, I wish you all the best.

• 57:22Martin Lewis?

  Now, we're going to move on to packaged bank accounts. What we're seeing rarely at the moment with these is there are a number with switch bonuses that makes it very exciting and lucrative. Because it effectively means that the products that you normally pay a fee for, because a packaged bank account is effectively a whole load of insurance products that you pay a fee for linked to a bank account. It's more about the insurance than it is the bank account. That the fee that you pay is covered by the switch bonus. So you can almost think of this as free insurance products for a year. Now, normally the type of insurance you get is worldwide family travel insurance. Well, that would cost you seventy to a hundred quid because these are good quality insurance if you paid it standalone. Household mobile phone insurance, so cover for all the family's mobile phones.

• 58:07Martin Lewis?

  Imagine you're living in a house with a couple of teenagers, you've all got smartphones. That could easily be seventy five to a hundred quid per policy. So that's getting us up now to around four, five hundred pounds in total value if you're to buy it standalone. UK and European breakdown cover, well, that's between fifty and a hundred and fifty quid. So you can see that you might be spending easily five hundred pounds a year buying these insurances as standalone. And it would be far cheaper. Even in normal times to pay the 12 to 18 pounds a month fee for these packaged bank accounts, but right now, when they're offering you free cash on top to sign up, and that pays the fee in most cases normally for 10 months to a year, then effectively you're getting 500, 600 pounds worth of insurance, again, only if you would have been buying

• 58:52Martin Lewis?

  that anyway, otherwise it's not worth it, at no cost. And we don't normally see these freebies. So let me run you through just the deals very quickly. You've got Santander Edge Explorer, monthly fee 17 pounds, giving you 180 pounds free cash if you open it, also giving a 150 pounds worldwide hotel voucher. It's got the travel insurance worldwide, the mobile phone cover for up to four handsets, the breakdown cover UK and Europe. It also gives you family remote 24/7 GP access, and the other perks that its normal standard bank account gives. So that's a pretty hot package there if you'd use it. You've got the Coop Bank Everyday Extra account, that's giving you 125 pounds switching bonus plus

• 59:35Martin Lewis?

  25 pounds a month for three months. Again, it's got the worldwide family travel insurance, the household mobile phone breakdown insurance, and UK and European breakdown cover. Its advantage, the monthly fee is just 12 quid. So you're getting effectively 200 pounds, the 125 pounds free plus 200 pounds on top. The monthly fee is 12 quid. So what's that covering you? About 20 months? It's covering you for about 20 months, the monthly fee with the switching bonus. So again, could be pretty lucrative, that one. And the other one I'll mention is the Nationwide Flex Plus, that gives you 175 pounds for switching to it. Its monthly fee is 18 quid. So what we're talking, just about 10 months there. Its main perk, has the travel insurance, mobile phone cover, breakdown cover of the others.

• 1:00:17Martin Lewis?

  Its major perk is there is no age limit on the worldwide travel insurance. All the others has age limits. The Coop's limit is up to age 79, the Santander Edge is up to 75th birthday. So it's got the highest age limit on top of it. So those are the three top packaged bank accounts. I've run through them at speed, obviously go and do your proper reading and detail about them. Give me some questions, Simon.

• 1:00:40Speaker 03

  Well, first, I've actually got a

• 1:00:42Martin Lewis?

  Love it.

• 1:00:43Speaker 03

  Colin, we used to have a package bank account each until we set up a joint current account for household bills, et cetera. We then made that package bank account cancelling the rest and get the same benefits of two accounts for the price of one. Both our cars are covered in the breakdown and as we're a blended family, there isn't an issue with travel insurance in two names and that includes the children.

• 1:01:04Martin Lewis?

  So that's actually a very important point because sometimes with package bank accounts, the cover is only for the account holder. Now, not the accounts I'm mentioning, but often with the breakdown cover, it's only for the account holder. So even if only one of you were going to do this, if you are in a proper trusting relationship and you need to be because it is a joint bank account, one doesn't have control of it. If you're in a proper trusting relationship, then you could put your partner's name as a joint account holder, even though they won't use it, just so then, for example, if the breakdown cover was only for the account holder and you do it as a joint account, it would cover both of you. So an interesting tip there. What's next?

• 1:01:41Speaker 03

  So Carol's got a question. I use a package account for travel insurance and pay the supplement for pre-existing health issues.

• 1:01:48Martin Lewis?

  That's really important. Often, if you've got a pre-existing condition, you should ask them and you can generally, in some cases, ask them in advance how much you would have to pay extra to cover your condition. It also applies for some of the banks which have lower age limits, that you can pay them extra to have a higher age limit or cruise cover is sometimes extra as well. So you need to check what's in the cover, but often you can do a relatively cheap upgrade if you want to get wider cover. Carry on.

• 1:02:13Speaker 03

  Well, but she says she doesn't trust them after they wouldn't pay out on a lost phone and charge quite big admin charges when you want to upgrade, i.e. for cruises worldwide.

• 1:02:22Martin Lewis?

  Okay, well, you would pay those upgrade charges generally if you were getting standalone travel insurance. The way package bank account actually works is that you'll have an ongoing annual policy that they're just renewing for you each year. It will normally be with a separate insurance company and you will know which insurance company it is with. So you can't necessarily do a read across from the mobile phone cover to the travel insurance because they will be with different policies with different companies. I generally find the feedback I get on package bank account insurance is pretty good. High quality cover, high quality insurance, but there is.

• 1:02:56Martin Lewis?

  Always problems with insurance and claiming that people are unhappy with. But I'm not sure we can do that as a general read that it's not worth doing the bigger picture. And it's worth remembering, if ever you have a problem on a payout, just because you've gone for your travel insurance and you're not paying for it directly, you're doing it through a package bank account, you still have a full right to go to the free financial ombudsman if you think you've been unfairly treated and they haven't paid you out when you should.

• 1:03:17Speaker 03

  So Sabina, I have a question about the package bank accounts and insurance only applies up to 70 years old. What happens then? My dad is fit and healthy with no preconditions. Does he need to take out another policy?

• 1:03:30Martin Lewis?

  He could ask that particular package bank account if he can pay a premium to still be covered after 70. Some do, some don't. Or he could move to a different package bank account. I mentioned Nationwide earlier that has no age limit whatsoever. I think 70 years old is relatively young to be the limit on a package bank account. He might want to go somewhere else. It's a free choice. There's lots of different options. Hope that helps.

• 1:03:48Speaker 03

  And Lyn says, "We are packaged with Nationwide Flex. Both in our 70s, pay extra for health conditions, but feel it's a great deal. We also pay £40 to upgrade our cruise cover. This covers for cabin confinement and missed ports. Last year we missed out two ports in our seven day cruise. Called them and received £150 each for every missed port. £600 in our bank account very quickly. No paperwork needed. More than covered our additional premium. Highly recommend."

• 1:04:17Martin Lewis?

  Oh, what a great way to end on package bank accounts there. Thanks very much, Lyn. I mean, they do work and they're especially good. I tend to find they're especially good in two cases. Family with lots of teens and smartphones because you get them all the mobile phone in. Or travel insurance cover for older couples and families. Because often that can get really expensive and suddenly the cost of the package bank account is about the same as you'd pay just for the travel insurance. Never mind that you get the mobile phone cover and the breakdown cover on top. Is that the last question?

• 1:04:43Speaker 03

  We've got one more question and I've saved the best name till last when it comes to the questions. This one's from Simon. Is the switching war the reason we get paltry interest rates on savings?

• 1:04:54Martin Lewis?

  No, they're totally separate products. I mean, the switching war is because they want to buy in your bank account custom for a simple reason. When you have a bank account, they are, they know more about your finances than any other product that you can possibly have, and they can use it at the core of cross-selling. The biggest measure of banking profitability tends to be the cross-selling index. In other words, how many different products they can sell one individual. And the best way they find to do that is by you having your main current account with them. That's why they're all willing to pay it. Paltry interest on savings is all related to interest rates. I mean, you say paltry interest, the Bank of England base rate is 3.75% at the moment. There are some saving accounts out there at the moment paying 5% interest. So the main reason interest isn't that high is because of UK interest rates. Actually, in relative terms,

• 1:05:39Martin Lewis?

  the fact that you can get 1.25% over base rates is a pretty good deal. The problem is, most people are having savings with their bank account provider. It almost goes to what I said earlier. When I say switch bank account because it's a good bank account, the bank account is good, doesn't mean the savings is good, doesn't mean the credit card's good, doesn't mean the cash ISA is good, doesn't mean the insurance is good. They want to cross-sell you multiple products. I say be proudly disloyal. The best way to get the best deals is to pick every product you get on who is offering that product best, not to have a hodgepodge of everything in one. There isn't really much benefit for doing that. And that seems a good way to end with a clarion call to disloyalty. Obviously not in relationships and obviously not with your producers.

• 1:06:22Speaker 03

  Well, to let the listener know on the Magica Podcast, and your commitment to switching is that producer Matt is now in here and he's gonna, you're gonna switch producers so that you can do the Question Time podcast.

• 1:06:32Martin Lewis?

  We're gonna go and record the Question Time pod and I'm gonna be disloyally loyal to you. Thanks very much for doing that, Simon. Well done, mate. Cheers, everyone for listening.

• 1:06:41Martin Lewis?

  That's it for this week. We tend to put out a new episode every Thursday and Monday, which is our Question Time podcast, where you can ask me absolutely anything and everything, open brackets within reason, close brackets. If you've enjoyed today's show, please tell your friends you've been listening to the Martin Lewis podcast. And why not subscribe and leave us a review too? Then your pockets will be pleased with you and so will we. And if you haven't enjoyed it, and you've been listening this long...

• 1:07:22Speaker 04

  Martin Lewis is the founder of MoneySavingExpert.com. But of course, other consumer and price comparison websites are available. You can get in touch with Martin's podcast production team by emailing [email protected]. The offers and rates mentioned in the podcast are correct at the time of recording. However, if you are listening on demand, it's worth double checking as details can date. Remember to subscribe on BBC Sounds and leave us a review however you listen.

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  Welcome to the Haunted Library. Join me, Colin Morgan, as I read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

• 1:08:13Speaker 01

  A story of science and ambition, loneliness and longing, and what it truly means to be human. Listen to the Haunted Library wherever you get your podcasts, or find us on YouTube.