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

24:52Martin Lewis:Yeah. Despite repayments being deducted through PAYE, according to my statements, interest added each year has exceeded my repayments, causing the balance to grow. And that is going to be the case for most people on Plan 2 loans, especially if you've had them a long time and you haven't repaid that much off because the interest has built upon 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 and 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.

25:31Martin Lewis: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. 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.

26:00Martin Lewis: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 2. Plan 2, more than any of the other plans, is more like a time-limited graduate tax. It isn't because it's a contract, but it's more like a time-limited graduate tax for most people than any other. Sorry, carry on with the question. Well, Annie, I think she's concerned about being part of that section who will pay off.

26:31So 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. Game changer, yeah. 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'll 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.

27:03Martin Lewis:It's a 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.

27:38Martin Lewis: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 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.

28:14that is higher than most mortgages, lower than most personal loans, lower than most credit cards

28:21Martin Lewis:that are at zero percent. So that's where it fits into the panoply of loans. It has the best terms possible of any form of lending out there, 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?

28:58Martin Lewis: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 % from the 6.2 % 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.

29:35Martin Lewis:If you make an involuntary overpayment and some people, up to five 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 an involuntary overpayment. But voluntary overpayments, you can't get the money back. 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.

30:09Martin Lewis: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 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.

30:53Martin Lewis: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.

31:02Martin 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. Well, why don't we start with the success just to show how powerful this can be. Jason got in touch.

31:27He did it earlier this year based around your advice. Super easy, moved to Nationwide who gave us£175 for moving plus two£100 Nationwide fair share amounts. That's its loyalty reward for existing customers. Yeah. So a total for moving of£375 effectively gave us free worldwide travel insurance plus much more via their packaged accounts.

31:49Martin 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 well let's get into the questions might as well start with the basics carl right i'm a 56 year old never switch bank accounts so i'm an oldie people in their 50s we don't refer to as oldies on this podcast well it's absolutely banned and if you do that simon then there'll be a virtual kick under the desk even though hey that was on carl that was on carl yeah he wants to know what happens with your wages going into the bank with got the bills that you have to pay out and I have a credit card and all my bank accounts with them.

32:24What happens to these?

32:26Martin Lewis:Okie dokie. 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.

33:04Martin Lewis:You give it the new bank account details. You don't rely on that going on, you know, in perpetuity. 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 Netflix's and Amazon Prime's. 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.

33:38Martin Lewis: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. 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. Listen, I do questions on this. I think the last stat I give, and maybe a few percent out, was 86 % of people who switched bank accounts said it was easy and hassle-free.

34:14Martin Lewis: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 lemon squeezy. Yeah, and let's not worry about 74 % of statistics are made up on the spot, aren't they? That's absolutely correct. It's definitely in the 80s. One was going on in 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. Simone wants to know, can I switch if I only have a basic bank account? 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.

34:53Chris asks, use your old one until the new one arrives or keep both. No need to decide just because you switch bank accounts?

35:01Martin Lewis:Well, when we're talking about switching to get paid, with the exception of package 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 circumstances 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. And Becky has a question when I was going through the questions yesterday so many were based around this. Yeah. She says doesn't it affect your credit score?

35:32I always get a pat on the head for not opening any new accounts.

35:34Martin Lewis:Well that should stop you sitting in cowfield. Does it not count if you are opening and closing accounts rather than just having loads of accounts open? 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.

36:10Martin Lewis: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 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.

36:42Martin Lewis:So it does affect your credit worthiness, 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. Perfect. So let's get into the specific deals now. Sam wants to know who has the best deals currently for switching. 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.

37:13Martin Lewis: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. It drops down to just£175 then. So if you're going to do this one, you want to do it relatively quickly.

37:47Martin Lewis: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 Reward that's giving a free£200 plus possible£36 a year cashback. 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.

38:20Martin Lewis:You have Santander Edge. This is the only one of those I'm listing that charges you a fee. It's £3 a month. It's giving you£180 to come to it. It's a 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 co-op bank current account, which is a£325 quid plus 25 pounds 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 pounds free bank of scotland classic is 175 pounds free and if you're a higher earner hsbc premier that gives 500 pounds for free that's the biggest switching bonus i've ever seen but you've got to be earning over 100 000 pounds 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.

39:22Martin Lewis:So if you earn over 100 grand, 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 cashback. 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.

39:55Martin Lewis:But there's a lot of choice out there. Well, speaking of choice, John, considering switching from First Direct to Nationwide due to First Direct closing First Directory, is Nationwide the best choice? 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. Paula wants to know, I have two accounts with Santander, both current accounts with monthly charges. One is a joint account with my husband.

40:27Can I do a switch of both accounts as a one-time process? Is this more complex to switch a joint account? Thank you.

40:34Martin 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, so we're doing very well. We're getting through them. You know, super sub you are. We're doing quicker than with Adrian. I've got so many questions. Keep ramping them up me, mate. Trying to set my personal best for most questions asked in an hour.

41:10Viv wants to know, can you get a credit card attached to your new bank account post switch easily?

41:15Martin 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'll 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 answer signing. Keep going. and mbg which i assume stands for martin's biggest geezer nice i have a help to buy isa as well should i answer it all like this go on keep going 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 but a help to buy ISA.

42:08They are a dead product, so it's tricky.

42:10Martin Lewis:All right, let me give you the information. I don't think... I can't do that. You're not from around here, are you? 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.

42:39Martin Lewis: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 two or three hundred pounds a month and get a high rate of interest. Up to eight percent 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.

43:15Martin Lewis: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.

43:45We're getting the full range of your accents, aren't we? East End. That's right, Carver. 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. Okay. So we're going to start with a success. Joe, love a success. 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.

44:20I've got my Lloyds account, which I set up in 1993.

44:23Martin 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, 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 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.

44:56Martin Lewis:There are techniques for doing that. But I'll hold those because I suspect some of your questions might elicit those bits from me. 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? OK, 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.

45:30Martin Lewis: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. 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.

46:06Martin Lewis: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 you can pay those. Small direct debits you would have each month. In most places, two direct debits of at least£2 going out of it each month will qualify you in the switching service. Occasionally, 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 require you to have£1 ,000 total paid in.

46:36Martin Lewis:So you add£1 ,000. Once you open the bank account, that fulfills the criteria. You've switched bank account from your burner account. You've got a couple of direct debits going from it. Once the£1 ,000 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. Helen wants to know, how long do you feel it is plight to have a mule account open before switching to another current account to get the switching bonuses? Plight to a bank?

47:08Martin Lewis:I would say somewhere between 0.1 and 0.4 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 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.

47:38Leah 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?

47:45Martin 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.

48:13Vicky, 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.

48:28Martin 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 it 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 have had any First Direct product or opened an HSBC current account since January 2018.

49:19Martin Lewis:So yes, knowing which accounts are linked, HSBC and First Direct, NatWest and RBS are linked, Lloyd's, 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 of what counts as being a new customer there.

49:59Martin Lewis: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 our phones and breakdown cover.

50:36Martin Lewis:That can be very, very lucrative. But I think it's time for something different.

50:43Martin Lewis:Yes, it's time for this week's Tellers. The question I put out there was, have you worked in a restaurant, cafe 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? 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, I do this all the time.

51:14I'm very much guilty of this. I hadn't realised I was getting done here. 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

51:34Martin Lewis:point it's really interesting because you've often heard the order the second cheapest but actually we've got gainer here who's backing up sold totally my italian husband who worked it as he 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 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 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 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 take out for collection or delivery locally.

52:30The food will be the restaurant 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.

52:45Martin 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 my go-to takeaway give you a free garlic bread if you just go direct to them that's why we started doing it it only realized afterwards it's because they're trying to circumnavigate the the charges 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.

53:24Martin 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 practice their main meals and most have great deals. Yeah, if you want posh nosh, lunch is the best time to do it generally. 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. 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.

54:03Martin Lewis: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. 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. It's going to get you a larger portion of chips and the freshest cooked fish. We had a lot of people saying be nice and it's just a general rule for life, really.

54:32What was your hospitality experience, Si? 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 pub that I worked in, they would do like a weekly poker night so then they would have poker's a sort of game where you can't really step away from the table so they'd all then come at an organised break I always remember the people that had given me a tip the week before they were the ones you saw weren't they yeah yeah

54:58Martin Lewis: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 I had a handshake when I delivered the food so like everything would be shaking 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. Based on being so good on the accent? No, I didn't try the accent when I was in there because there were actually Italian waiting staff in there.

55:27Martin Lewis:Maybe I was 16 and I thought, I'm going to 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 the till's broken. I said, oh, it's all right. Mine is, you know,£28.52. and they're like, what? I thought, well, this is£28.52 and they said, okay, you be the till. So I basically spent the rest of my summer, 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?

56:02Yeah, yeah, perfect preparation.

56:04Martin Lewis:You see, maths 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 stop and we'll go back to bank accounts. 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. Ooh, told you if it would be secrets that we wanted. We'll finish with Louise.

56:33Martin Lewis:I own my own coffee shop cafe and politeness 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 will say this. Sometimes when I'm writing on a Monday, there's a place I go. It's probably about 40 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.

57:14Martin 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. This is just 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, I guess 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.

57:45Martin Lewis:And I know hospitality is struggling at the moment. I wish you all the best.

57:51Martin 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. 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.

58:27Martin Lewis:Well, that would cost you 70 to 100 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. Imagine you're living in a house with a couple of teenagers. You've all got smartphones. that could easily be 75 to 100 quid per policy. So that's getting us up now to around four or 500 pounds in total value if you were to buy it standalone. UK and European breakdown cover, well, that's between 50 and 150 quid. So you can see that you might be spending easily 500 pounds a year buying these insurances as standalone.

59:00Martin Lewis:And it would be far cheaper even in normal times to pay the£12 to£18 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 worth of insurance, again, only if you would have been buying 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, giving you£180 free cash if you open it.

59:38Martin Lewis:Also giving a£150 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 Co-op Bank Everyday Extra account that's giving you£125 switching bonus plus£25 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.

1:00:16Martin Lewis:So you're getting effectively£200, the£125 free plus£200 on top. The monthly fee is£12. So what's that covering you? About 20 months? it's covering me 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 its major perk is there is no age limit on the worldwide travel insurance all the others has age limits.

1:00:53Martin Lewis:The co-ops 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 package 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. Well, first, we've actually got a success. Love it. Colin, we used to have a package bank account each until we set up a joint current account for household bills, etc. 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 cards 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.

1:01:33Martin 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.

1:02:09Martin Lewis:So an interesting tip there. What's next? So Carol's got a question. I use a packaged account for travel insurance and pay the supplement for pre-existing health issues. 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.

1:02:42Martin Lewis:Carry on. 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. 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.

1:03:15I generally find the feedback I get

1:03:19Martin Lewis:on package bank account insurance is pretty good. High quality cover, high quality insurance, but there is 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 packaged 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.

1:03:47So Sabina, I have a question about the packaged 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?

1:03:59Martin Lewis:He could ask that particular packaged 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 packaged 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 packaged bank account. He might want to go somewhere else. It's a free choice. There's lots of different options. Hope that helps. And Lynn says, we have 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.

1:04:29This covers for cabin confinements 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.

1:04:47Martin Lewis:Oh, what a great way to end on packaged bank accounts there. Thanks very much. 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? We've got one more question, and I've saved the best name till last when it comes to the questions.

1:05:17This one's from Simon. Is the switching war the reason we get paltry interest rates on savings?

1:05:23Martin 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 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. Poultry interest on savings is all related to interest rates.

1:05:56Martin Lewis:I mean you say poultry 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 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 iser 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 disloyal Obviously not in relationships and obviously not with your producers.

1:06:51Well, to let the listener know on the magic of podcasting, your commitment to switching is that producer Matt is now in here and you're going to switch producers so that you can do the Question Time podcast.

1:07:01Martin Lewis:We're going to record the Question Time pod and I'm going to be disloyalty loyal to you. Thanks very much for doing that, Simon. Well done, mate. Cheers, everyone, for listening.

1:07:11Martin 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...

1:07:45I got a mouth, I got a feet, so I'm going to make sure everybody eats. 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 martinlewispodcast at bbc.co.uk. 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.

1:08:28How did a boycott Jimmy become a billionaire from posting videos? On Good Bad Billionaire, we're going to find out how the world's most popular YouTuber, Mr Beast, made his fortune. He's buried himself in a coffin for days. Counted to 100 ,000 on camera. And even recreated Squid Games, all in an attempt to go viral on the internet. But it all started when he gave a homeless man$10 ,000. So is he a philanthropist reshaping capitalism? Or is he just the king of the attention economy? Find out on Good Bad Billionaire. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.