Jump a few hoops to make £60 a year
The Halifax Reward account offers a monthly reward. This has changed over the years – it currently offers a choice of £5 in your account, a cinema ticket or three digital magazines each month.
Plus, you can get three accounts and therefore three lots of the bonus, but you have to jump through a few hoops. Here’s everything you need to know.
** Update – the Reward Extra perks will end for new customers in June 2025, and for all in September. Here’s what we know so far**
What is the Halifax Reward current account?
The Halifax Reward account is a fee-based account that gives you a choice of freebies each month. You can only have three accounts in your name.
How much does the Halifax Reward Account cost?
The Reward account charges a £3 monthly fee, meaning it’ll cost you £36 a year. This isn’t unusual – many current accounts with benefits have a similar charge, including Barclays Blue Rewards, NatWest Reward and Club Lloyds.
However, you won’t pay the fee if you deposit £1,500 every month. This should be fine for most people if you have your salary paid into your account – you need to earn just under £21,500 a year to take home this amount after tax and National Insurance.
If not, you can pay in a smaller amount from another account, e.g. £500, withdraw it, pay it back in, then repeat it once more.
What rewards do you get?
To be eligible for one of the Reward Extras you’ll need to either spend £500 a month on your debit card or keep £5,000 in the account every day of the month.
You also need to pay in £1,500 a month every month to get your reward (and avoid the fee). You also need to keep your account in credit.
If you do these then you get to pick a reward. These are:
- Three digital magazines a month from a selection of Hearst magazine titles (eg Good Housekeeping, Red)
- One Vue cinema ticket a month (each valid for 12 months)
- £5 a month
The one you choose is fixed for a year, so you can’t mix and match throughout the year. You can choose a new reward at the start of each 12-month anniversary.
It’s possible to track the progress towards your reward in the app so you know if you’re going to get it or not each month. You’ll also find when your 12 months are due to end so you can choose a new reward (if you want to change it).
Extra cashback offers
You can activate offers from a handful of retailers to earn cashback if spending with your Halifax card. I’ve hardly ever used it, but I check from time-to-time to see which shops are on there, just in case.
Switching bonus
Halifax tends to run a switching deal two or three times a year, usually offering between £100 and £175. Get details of how it works, and any future promotions, in our Halifax switching offer analysis article.
Account summary
| Benefits | Choice of £5 a month / Vue cinema ticket / 3 digital magazine subscriptions |
| Save the Change auto-savings feature | |
| Limited cashback with retailers via debit card | |
| Fee | £3 (£0 if you pay in £1,500 every month) |
| Requirements | Pay in £1,500 every calendar month |
| Either spend £500 on your debit card each month or keep £5,000 or above in the account all month | |
| Stay in credit (above £0) all month | |
| Multiple accounts? | Three |
| Exclusions | Your chosen Reward and qualifying method are fixed for 12 months |
Are the rewards any good?
I’ll look at each benefit in turn:
£5 monthly reward
£5 a month profit is better than similar rewards on offer elsewhere – as long as you are avoiding that monthly fee. That adds up to £60 over the year, which might be a lower value than the other options but you have the freedom to spend it how you wish.
The money is paid into your account each month. It’s worth noting that if you are a higher rate taxpayer you’ll be liable to pay extra tax on this bonus.
Free cinema ticket
The code you’ll get each month is valid for a year, and you can use two or more at the same time, saving on a family trip. They can also be used for pricier 3D screenings or VIP seats, increasing the value.
Standard Vue cinema ticket prices can vary between a fiver through to well over a tenner, and even more for the posh seats – it all depends on where you live.
If you’re paying close to a fiver, you’re better off getting the cash option – that’ll give you the flexibility to go to different cinemas (or not go at all).
But if you have an expensive Vue cinema near you and go once a month then the value of this reward could be pretty decent. Say your tickets are £10 that’s an annual reward worth £120. If VIP tickets are £18 it’s worth £216.
Even so, it’s possible to save on cinema tickets in lots of different ways, and those deals could work out as a better option. For example two-for-one tickets via Meerkat Movies or free Vue tickets via a Telegraph trial. Here’s our guide to the best ways to save at the cinema.
Our podcast
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Free magazines
You can choose your three titles from this selection:
- Cosmopolitan
- Country Living
- ELLE
- ELLE Decoration
- Esquire
- Good Housekeeping
- Harper’s Bazaar
- House Beautiful
- Men’s Health
- Prima
- Red
- Runner’s World
- Women’s Health
Your picks will be digital-only, so you’ll need a tablet or computer to read them. The three magazines you choose at the start of the year will be the same ones you’ll get all year.
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Spend or save: which is best?
So you could be making anything from £60 a year (taking £5 a month) through to £200 (for top-end Vue tickets) from this account. But you need to factor in the requirement that you either need to spend or save a lot of money each month with Halifax. Here’s my take on each option.
Have £5,000 in savings
The option of £5,000 a month in your account seems relatively simple. Do this every month for a year and the £60 cash reward is the same return as putting that money in a 1.2% savings account. There are much better savings accounts on the market where this money might be better suited.
But I’m not a fan of this method. For a start that money has to stay there every single day of the month. So whether you need to use it, or the balance accidentally dips after a large purchase, you don’t get the reward.
Spending £500 via the debit card
The alternative is to spend £500 a month on your debit card. Do this exactly and you’ll earn £60 a year (if you take the cash option). That’s the equivalent of 1% cashback – so no real difference to using the top cashback cards.
However, if you spend more than £500 you won’t earn any extra money, reducing your equivalent rate. So do you just spend £500 and stop, then move over to your alternative card?
There are a couple of workarounds here that allow you to effectively earn double cashback on that £500 monthly spend.
Very simply, if you have a cashback credit card, you use your Halifax debit card to pay £500 off the bill every month. I’ve done this for the last year now and it works – you’ve just got to remember to do this before your direct debit for your card goes out of your account. I actually moved my Amex payment date from the start of the month to the middle to give me a bit more leeway.
The app
I quite like the Halifax app as you can do pretty much everything on it without needing to log on via a desktop. Some of the key features:
Sharing bank details
You can send your sort code and account number via the app. There’s no option to copy these in the app, so you’ll need to share them to another app (eg notes or messages) and copy from there.
Card controls
All the main options are here:
- View PIN and request new one
- View and copy card details
- Freeze card use abroad, online and / or in-person
- Stop gambling payments
- Set your own contactless limit
Alerts
You can get notifications for:
- Debit card transactions
- Weekly spending summaries
- Money paid in and out
Sending and adding money
It’s easy to transfer cash to new and existing payees, and there’s no need for a card reader. You can scan a cheque using the app to add the cash to your account.
Insights and budgeting
There’s an easy-to-find option to see all your upcoming payments in one place, how much they add up to and when they’ll be paid. You can also manage and cancel subscriptions in the app – the ones paid via a debit card rather than a standing order or Direct Debit.
You can look at monthly trends and payments which is potentially handy, but not as good as those on offer from third-party apps like Money Dashboard and Snoop.
Tapping on a transaction will show on a map where it took place.
You can see seven years of transaction history on the app, which you can also search. It’s possible to export monthly statements from when you opened the account but only as PDFs.
Other features
You can also:
- Use Face or Touch ID
- Change personal details
- Add accounts from other banks via Open Banking (just the major high street banks)
- See your credit score from TransUnion (which you can do for free anyway)
What’s missing?
However, when compared to the likes of Starling and Monzo, the big absence is the lack of separate pots or spaces. All your money is together in the main account.
Summary: should you get it?
Andy’s Analysis
If you have £5k to save or already use a cashback card for spending, then the £5 reward isn’t better than what you can get elsewhere.
But thanks to the debit card hack, I think it’s well worth getting one of these accounts to claim the reward alongside your other cashback card. And then another two times with additional accounts.
Plus the app is actually really decent and does most things you’ll need. So all in this is a good account to have and perhaps even use as your main account.
