Promotions
Seven checks for any loan promotion
Cashbacks and rate specials move weekly, so the durable thing is the method rather than the list. Run these seven checks against any promotion you find — on a lender’s page, in a comparison table, or in an email — and you will know within minutes whether it is real, whether it applies to you, and what it costs once the promotion ends.
- 01
Find the date the offer was published, not the date you read it
A promotion without a published date and an expiry is not information, it is decoration. If a page quotes a cashback or a rate and cannot tell you when that was true, treat the number as unknown.
- 02
Read the eligibility line before the headline number
Cashback and rate specials almost always carry conditions: a minimum loan size, a maximum loan-to-value ratio, owner-occupier only, refinances from another lender only, or new borrowers only. The conditions are where most people fall out.
- 03
Check whether the ongoing rate survives the promotion
An introductory or promotional rate that reverts is two products, not one. Work out the total over the period you will actually hold the loan, not over the promotional window.
- 04
Find the minimum holding period
Cashbacks are frequently clawed back if the loan is discharged within a set period, often one to two years. That clause turns a cashback into a lock-in.
- 05
Add up the switching cost before comparing anything
Discharge fee, new application or settlement fees, government registration charges, and any fixed-rate break cost. Divide the total by the monthly saving to get a break-even month count.
- 06
Verify it on the lender's own page
Comparison sites and aggregators lag, and some carry commercial arrangements that affect what is shown. The lender's own terms page is the primary source; everything else is a secondary report of it.
- 07
Ask your current lender to match before you move
A repricing request costs nothing and takes days. It sets the floor a switch has to beat, and sometimes it removes the reason to switch at all.
Where the rules live
- Moneysmart — Switching home loans (ASIC)
- Reserve Bank of Australia — cash rate decisions and dates
- ASIC — how to complain about a financial product or service
General information. How to read a promotion, in general terms. General information about how Australian lending is organised. Rules, thresholds and eligibility are set by government agencies and change; each lane links to the source so you can check the current position.
Checks reviewed 17 August 2026. See also what changes and when.