National Savings & Investments (NS&I) has announced its Premium Bond winners for February. So, if you currently hold Premium Bonds, here’s how you check to see whether you’ve won a prize.
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What are Premium Bonds?
NS&I is the government’s savings provider. Alongside a number of normal savings products, NS&I also offers Premium Bonds. Holding these bonds enters you into a monthly draw. Prizes range from £25 to £1 million, so if you hold Premium Bonds, you technically have a chance of becoming a millionaire.
To win the jackpot with a single bond, you’ll have to beat odds of 1 in 56 million. However, there are millions of smaller prizes to be won, so your odds of winning in a single month aren’t anywhere near as terrible as this. For example, the chances of winning a £25 prize are just 1 in 34,500.
How can you buy Premium Bonds?
You can buy Premium Bonds online, by post or over the phone. Each bond is worth £1, though if you want to buy any, you have to purchase at least £25 worth. You can hold a maximum of £50,000 in Premium Bonds.
How can you check whether you’ve won in February’s draw?
The Premium Bond draw for February 2022 has been made. NS&I says its latest £1 million winners are based in Essex and Leeds. Interestingly, NS&I says its Essex winner purchased his or her winning bond less than a year ago.
To see whether you’re a winner, you can use NS&I’s prize checker tool. To do this, you’ll need to have your ‘holder’s number’ to hand and visit the NS&I website or use its Android or iOS mobile apps.
Alternatively, if you have a compatible smart speaker, you can ask Amazon’s ‘Alexa’ assistant to read out the winning numbers.
If you don’t manually check to see whether you’ve won, it’s worth knowing that NS&I also informs winners by email or text message.
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How are Premium Bond prizes paid?
If you’re lucky enough to have won in February’s draw, you can have your winnings paid into your bank account.
Alternatively, you can have your prize money automatically reinvested to purchase more bonds. However, you’ll only be able to do this as long as you don’t already have more than 50,000 bonds.
If you want paper proof of your win, then you can also have your prize via cheque. NS&I hoped to phase out cheque payments last year but made a u-turn following a backlash from customers.
To change your method of payment, you must log in to your online Premium Bond account via the NS&I website or app.
Are Premium Bonds worth it?
While Premium Bonds offer the chance to win a million, holding them means you don’t earn any interest. In the past, this was a big drawback, as you were essentially sacrificing a decent, guaranteed interest rate for the chance to win a prize.
Yet with savings rates so low – currently the top easy-access savings rate pays just 0.71% – it’s not difficult to see why many will now be attracted to Premium Bonds. After all, if you can only earn £7.10 per year in interest for every £1,000 saved, then why not chance your luck?
Of course, while Premium Bonds may compare well to easy access savings accounts, if you’re happy to lock away your cash for a set period of time, then it’s probably best to compare them to fixed-rate savings accounts.
Fixed-rate savings accounts pay a higher interest rate than easy-access accounts, and typically, the longer you can lock away your cash, the higher the rate. However, if you do go for a lengthy term, bear in mind that if savings rates rise in future, you wouldn’t benefit. So longer fixes involve an element of risk.
To see a list of the current fixed savings rates available, see our top-rated fixed-rate savings accounts.
