Get up to 150,000 Avios when you open an ISA, SIPP or General Investment Account with Nutmeg

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• ken says:

  13 Mar13 March 13:30

  For the virgin 1 year account, if we assume you can get 2% on a 1 year savings product, if you have £25k in, then you are paying 1.25p per Virgin mile *.
  Not sure it makes sense for most people, makes more sense for additional rate taxpayers (0.69 per mile)

  * assumes higher rate tax payer and not utilising the £500 annual tax free interest allowance elsewhere.

  • Genghis says:

    13 Mar13 March 13:51

    Assuming your 1.25p is correct, isn’t it even more expensive than 1.25p for ARTPs given the grossing up by 100/55 vs 100/60?

    • ken says:

      13 Mar13 March 14:11

      I don’t think so *

      ATRP’s don’t get any tax free annual allowance for interest, so rather than earn a net £500 in interest from comparable product, they only earn a net £275.
      They give up less for the same miles.

      * I could be wrong though !

      • Genghis says:

        13 Mar13 March 14:24

        Actually, I thought the miles are earned after tax (i.e. the interest is earned and is then used to buy miles) so tax rate shouldn’t come into the price that the miles are purchased for? I may also be wrong!

• Jack The Lad says:

  13 Mar13 March 13:46

  What we do get:-
  “Any half Avios will be rounded up to the nearest full Avios!”

  What we don’t get is a ANY mention of the range of valuation that Nutmeg applies to the Avios when they claw them back if you don’t stay for the entire 24 months. Apparently, it was known to be >1p as this was remarked in the comments, yet not mentioned in the “advertorial”.

  • Rob says:

    13 Mar13 March 14:09

    It is in the T&C’s – it is a fairly long chart which would have taken up most of the article!

• Jim says:

  13 Mar13 March 14:41

  It’s interesting isn’t it that services like Nutmeg really have found that gap in the market for a certain type of investor. Try as I might, for example, I really wouldn’t have the foggiest idea of how to go about selecting individual funds or companies to invest in.

  Is there an equivalent website like HFP in the way it can take most readers from novice to fairly adept on all things Avios, but for the world of stocks, shares funds and finance?

  One obviously picks up from the comments section on this website that a lot of readers work in this field, but I really do think that there is a big bunch of people who feel shut out from that world, they try to work it out for themselves and quickly start to panic, drowning in an Information Overload not knowing what conclusions to draw from the thousands of resources that are out there. And as such they take a punt on services like Nutmeg even with little knowledge of which of their 3 investment types to choose.

  How do people learn about this stuff? Are there any ‘idiot’s guide – novice to non-novice’ type sites out there?

  • jamie says:

    13 Mar13 March 15:43

    Jim, have a google search for monevator – it’s more a FIRA site (Financial Independence, Retire Early) but a useful starting place non the less

    • Jim says:

      13 Mar13 March 17:14

      Thanks Jamie – will take a look.

    • Alan says:

      14 Mar14 March 21:34

      Yep, quite enjoy Monevator blogs, good weekend reading.

  • Jonny says:

    13 Mar13 March 15:55

    Hi Jim. I recommend “Which” for a good intro on investing basics. Their guides on what investing is, different types of investment products etc are free, with some additional comparisons of fund supermarkets and so on behind their paywall. Plus, they are a consumer-focused charity, so should be pretty impartial!

    • Jim says:

      13 Mar13 March 17:15

      Thanks Jonny, will take a look.

  • Mr Dee says:

    13 Mar13 March 16:48

    Well I think it takes a lot of knowledge about the businesses your investing in before you can make long term decisions as whether their business is viable and likely to be attractive to investor and increasing the stock prices.

    For this reason I would not specifically choose an offer just for the points signup bonus but would look at all options, I don’t know about Nutmeg portfolios performance but there are many other companies that offer good returns if they don’t.

    • Mr Dee says:

      13 Mar13 March 16:51

      Having found their performance page I think -7.1% last year for one of them sums up this deal.

      • Shoestring says:

        13 Mar13 March 17:09

        Last year was a negative year for many excellent funds, -7.1% might place this one in the top decile for similar based funds

      • Mr Dee says:

        13 Mar13 March 18:40

        Yes I guess that’s the problem being stuck in this type of fund, self trade is more suited for me

  • ankomonkey says:

    13 Mar13 March 17:59

    There’s Head For Pensioners, run by Nigel…

    • Alex W says:

      17 Mar17 March 12:04

      Lol comment of the week 😂

  • The Savage Squirrel says:

    13 Mar13 March 19:25

    Jim there are literally dozens of websites on this subject and many hundreds of books.

    A bit of time with google might be your friend.

    Investors Chronicle “how to get started in investing” is as good a place to start as any. For the purposes of today the page about the huge effect of variations in management charges on your final investment pot may put the relative importance of a few Avios into context.

    • Shoestring says:

      13 Mar13 March 19:30

      None of them give you the best lesson an investor can learn: if you’re relatively cautious (ie don’t want to risk everything on single/ limited number stock gambles), spread your investment money over about 10 different funds, exposed to different parts of the market.

      You won’t ever be some kind of investment genius but otoh you’ll win over time.

      • Doug M says:

        13 Mar13 March 20:14

        I like this approach. I’m all about charges. I like ETFs with low costs, track the 100, the 250, Euro Stox, Dividend, and some USA and or Asian. Overtime you do fine in my experience. Individual shares can be tricky.

      • The Savage Squirrel says:

        13 Mar13 March 21:05

        Actually Shoestring, that’s EXACTLY the advice a lot of them give!

      • Alex Sm says:

        13 Mar13 March 22:15

        This is exactly what I was doing for 5 years or so, running a review every three months but the result was very modest, not worth the effort tbh, it’s better give it to professionals and pay a small fee for their services

  • BLT says:

    13 Mar13 March 22:50

    If you want a really simple starting point for savings/ pensions planning I would highly recommend monevator and the book Reset by David Sawyer. The book gives you an easy entry in to investing which then gives you time to build up your knowledge.

• Larry says:

  13 Mar13 March 15:51

  My wife and I took advantage of this offer last year.

  It took over a year and dozens of emails and phonecalls to get the points credited to her BA Exec Club account.

  We did get them in the end but it shouldn’t have needed so much hassle.

  Be warned!

• Bazza says:

  13 Mar13 March 17:40

  That’s convinced me!

  To much hassle this one.

• Alex Sm says:

  13 Mar13 March 18:38

  Rob – can you have a word with them about running an exclusive HfP promotion for EXISTING customers. I quite like their products (have had a &S ISA with them for 3 years – on HfP advice! – and LISA for 2 years) and would like to be rewarded for loyalty. I got some Avios for signing up but would like to get some more for let’s say moving an existing ISA to them or for a topping up with a significant lump sum (like 1-3-5K) or something. Do you think it’s possible?

  • Shoestring says:

    13 Mar13 March 18:53

    Loyalty is for mugs these days.

    The ‘free’ Avios are an incentive to get you to join them for 24 months minimum.

    After 24 months, most people are too lazy to look around so stay with the original provider. There’s no point in offering an incentive to stay, as 90% of consumers will stay anyway through laziness.

    Ie you’d be giving away Avios to 100% of consumers, just to retain the 10%. Expensive.

    • Alex Sm says:

      13 Mar13 March 22:21

      This is exactly the point! That’s why I am talking about an _exclusive offer for HfP readers_. Many of them are ‘savvy’ enough to move funds away quickly, so both Nutmeg and loyal customers will benefit from this incentive, and it will not be costly for Nutmeg as only a handful of HfP-referred customers do stay with them. And Rob will benefit because he will receive guaranteed commission from that!

      • Freddy says:

        13 Mar13 March 22:45

        I’d be interested to know the % of hfp people still with them after the 24 months. I’d suspect a healthy majority would still be invested with them. Though I may be underestimating the readership here!

      • Alex W says:

        17 Mar17 March 12:06

        As someone else said, when I realised that Nutmeg were making more money out of my investment than I was, it was time to pull the plug.

• Jonathan Gillespie says:

  13 Mar13 March 22:01

  The terms and conditions of this offer state –

  This offer cannot be used:
  in conjunction with any other Nutmeg offer, or promotion; or
  to invest in a Nutmeg Lifetime ISA;
  multiple times for an individual new customer;
  to invest into a 100%-cash pot.

  Key term above is the “cannot be used multiple times for an individual new customer” so it isn’t possible to use this offer twice, i.e. to taking out an ISA before the end of this financial year and then again at the start of the next financial year.

  • Rob says:

    13 Mar13 March 22:11

    Yes, that has always been in the rules for this offer. I find it a bit odd given they always run this offer at the end of the tax year. What I assume you would do is put £40k into an ISA, knowing they will have to put £20k into a General Investment Account – which on 6th April you can move into a new ISA. I am not guaranteeing that works though, do ask them.

• Victor says:

  13 Mar13 March 22:10

  My self-picked stocks and funds in an HL ISA are down 21% over the last 2.5 years.

  2.5 years is when I took out a Nutmeg ISA at risk level 7, it is up 9.1% in that same time.

  Not all self trades outperform the robo traders.

  • Alex Sm says:

    13 Mar13 March 22:17

    Exactly! Thank you very much fro this Victor. Can’t understand why some on this forum are advocating self-sufficiency with a rigour which even North Koreans might envy!

    • BLT says:

      13 Mar13 March 22:56

      But self sufficiency doesn’t need to be as complicated as individual stock picking. It can be as simple as using a vanguard lifestrategy portfolio linked to your risk preference ie 80/20 equity/ bonds etc. The main ideas these days (backed up by many investment gurus, including warren buffet) is to track the markets with ETFs etc and keep fees as low as possible.

      • Alex Sm says:

        14 Mar14 March 01:41

        This is what I was doing – picking five funds with different exposure and from different providers, checked the best performers etc etc but it was time consuming and did not get me much in return. I would prefer to have a similar %% from a managed portfolio with a nice and user-friendly web interface, and save time for something else!

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