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Through the cashback site TopCashback, there’s currently an offer for opening a free Nationwide FlexDirect current account. It’s worth £75.75 in cashback, or up to 14,500 Avios, enough for a free return flight to much of Europe!

The Nationwide FlexDirect current account is fairly well regarded, as free UK current accounts go, but you don’t even have to make much use of it if you don’t want to. It’ll be 10-15 minutes work, spread over a week or two, but for that you’ll get a free flight within Europe (or a decent cash haul, if you’d prefer)!

For those who don’t know, TopCashback is a site which pays you money for clicking through to other sites before you buy something / sign up for something. The big advantage of it over some of the alternatives, for a frequent traveller, is that you can take your cashback as Avios or Tesco Clubcard points. Through that, you can turn your regular shopping into free flights.

If you haven’t already, Sign up for a TopCashback account. Next, head to the Nationwide FlexDirect current account offer page there, and have a read of the offer Terms and Conditions. Note that they have changed once already, so double check them before proceeding

The easy bit is to the click through to the Nationwide site, and sign up for the free FlexDirect current account. It’ll take 5-10 minutes to do, mostly depending on how many past addresses you’ve had! At the end, you’ll have an open FlexDirect account, but no cashback, yet!

However, the cashback isn’t given to you for signing up for the account, it’s for signing up AND transferring an account over to Nationwide. The cunning option is to note that you’re required to use their switching service, but it doesn’t have to be from your main bank account, just any bank account.

Have a look through the TopCashback banking list, and pick a bank from there if you can, otherwise just pick any other bank.  Open a brand new current account with any bank other than Nationwide, and transfer a few quid in. Once that new account is open, use the Nationwide switching service to switch your alternate new empty current account to Nationwide, which should trigger the £75.75 cashback! If you don’t want to open another new account, it could even be your current account, if that’s easier.

A month or so after doing the switch, all being well (please note that cashback is not promised in the T&Cs), the £75.75 will show as payable in your TopCashback account. Transfer the first £50 to your Tesco Clubcard (£50 is the maximum you can transfer in a 12 month period), then from there to Avios or Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles.

At current rates, £50 in Clubcard points will get you 12,000 Avios or Virgin miles. The remaining £25.75 you can transfer directly to Avios, which would get you 2,700 avios. If you got cashback for the second current account, that’ll be even higher. Finally, book your BA flight (up to £35 taxes) for most of Europe with the Avios.

Do note that this is probably a “medium difficulty” cashback deal. However, for the prospect of 15k Avios, if you’re happy going through the slightly convoluted steps required, it is worth the effort!