Banks Grrr!

They can be so annoying. We have an account with the bank that we have banked with for years, it is an off shoot account and we add money to it each payday. It is an emergency account I suppose for those unexpected things that do crop up from time to time. it plods along and mostly gets forgotten about.

We had paid a deposit for our trip later this year and we were waiting to hear about the flights that the travel agent was trying to get the best deal for us but we had had to wait as it had been too far away to book at that time..

Well suddenly the flights were in and she had a couple on hold for us and it is only a two day turn around, either book and pay in 48 hours or lose the booking. Travel agent had contacted us and we had agreed to those particular flights and knew that we had to send the money. Two days before payday and our day to day account didnt have that sort of money in it and if we had paid by CC, there was a 2% surcharge. I moved money from our "Money for unexpected things" account. All good, flights booked , no problems.

At the end of the month, our interest was way down on that account, from a few dollars to 23 cents. What The? I rang the bank as I knew that we could make one withdrawal per month for no cost. The bank kindly pointed out to me that the account needed to GROW by X amount each month to get the extra interest!!!! and as we had taken out more than had gone in that month, the extra interest would not be paid. Yes, it was in the fine print.

I had started a saving account with another bank last year to save for our holidays this year and there are no such "Rules" so goodbye old bank and hello new bank. Only thing now is the new bank account was just in my name and l want it in joint names as per everything else we have. Warren applied to be added to my account and thats fine, he did it online BUT now will have to wait up to six weeks to get new cards etc. I am hoping that is just a fudge factor and it will be much sooner

New bank has a similar interest rate but provided money goes in each month, then the extra interest is paid and can withdraw as many and as much as needed/want.

We will leave our day to day account and CC with old bank for convenience.