What is Cooling-Off Period?
The minimum time you must wait before switching back to a bank and claiming their bonus again. Typically 12-36 months depending on the bank. StoozeMax tracks these automatically and alerts you when you're eligible for a new switch.
In switching, the cooling-off period is the exclusion window written into a bank's bonus terms: the time that must pass before a previous customer can qualify for a switch bonus again. Each bank words it differently — some exclude anyone who has received a switch bonus in the last few years, others exclude anyone who has held any account with them (or their banking group) since a fixed date.
Windows typically run from 12 to 36 months, and they apply across banking groups, so having held a Halifax account can rule out a Lloyds bonus. Because the clocks differ per bank and restart with each switch, the order in which banks are switched changes how many bonuses are reachable over a given period.
The same phrase has a second, unrelated meaning in UK finance: the statutory 14-day cooling-off right to cancel a newly opened financial product. Bank T&Cs use it in that sense too, so it's worth checking which meaning a document intends.