Amy and Scott, welcome to Portugal. You guys finally made it. Come pay us a visit whenever you are near Fuseta in the Algarve. We bought a 3-story townhouse by the beach. Your fellow expat from Saint Louis. I'm on Facebook. Zaw Win
Well, this is good timing. We, too, have Millenium and we, too, are planning to switch to Activo. For some reason, I am unable to make online purchases with my debit card. There's some issue in their system, but, try as I might to get someone over there to fix it, it's a black hole. AND we're paying silly fees.
I'm concerned, though, because we don't have driver's licenses yet, nor do we have utilities bills in both of our names. Our landlord has everything in his name and we just pay him. We have internet in one of our names, but that's it. I was assuming we could hand them our residency cards - which have our home address - and that would be sufficient. Or our lease. But maybe not???
It may, like many things here, depend a little on the person you get when you sit down with the paperwork but the essence is you need something "official" that has your name and your complete address on it.
Our residency cards had our previous address on them. Our purchase deed to our current apartment didn't have the zip code on it. If your residency card has your current, complete address on it, you might be fine. They were able to access our previous address in their computer system and I think they got there from our residency cards. If our residency cards had had our current address, that might have done it. But they may ask for proof of address above and beyond the residency card.
You could try printing out your certidão domicilio fiscal from the AT website (we wrote about this a few weeks ago: https://lovefromportugal.substack.com/p/changing-addresses-financas). That feels like a pretty "official" document. I mean, it's the tax authority saying this is where you live. That ought to work, I'd think.
Unless the person you sit down with had bad sushi for lunch.
Oh dear … I reading and wondering…do things have changed much in old Portugal?lol in mid 80’s we did wet through about similar situation trying to open a reg checking bank account lol (%#F,/ bureaucracy) same thing happened with drivers license. Very frustrating. Enjoy it.
Ah, the joys of Millennium bank. We had a Millennium prestige account that was 15€/mo. It was the only account we could get remotely at the time. After a few months I inquired about the 5€ a month account that I've read others like yourself have/had. After a 2 hour in person meeting the person says the cheapest account they have is 8€/mo. Huh? That is all she could do. She never heard of a 5€ account, she claimed. I suppose 8€ is better than 15€ so I settled on the 8€ and decided to fight the good fight another day. Your post makes me feel like we should try going over to Activo.
I love how it takes a 2 hour meeting for them to decide whether they have a cheaper account to offer. Either you have something or you don't. It doesn't need to be a five minute transaction but two hours feels a little ... unnecessary.
Definitely being retired helps! But, the Portugal work day general builds in time to handle stuff like this. Anyone who works here who can speak to this: We'd love to hear from you!
Amy and Scott, welcome to Portugal. You guys finally made it. Come pay us a visit whenever you are near Fuseta in the Algarve. We bought a 3-story townhouse by the beach. Your fellow expat from Saint Louis. I'm on Facebook. Zaw Win
Well, this is good timing. We, too, have Millenium and we, too, are planning to switch to Activo. For some reason, I am unable to make online purchases with my debit card. There's some issue in their system, but, try as I might to get someone over there to fix it, it's a black hole. AND we're paying silly fees.
I'm concerned, though, because we don't have driver's licenses yet, nor do we have utilities bills in both of our names. Our landlord has everything in his name and we just pay him. We have internet in one of our names, but that's it. I was assuming we could hand them our residency cards - which have our home address - and that would be sufficient. Or our lease. But maybe not???
Ugh.... banks.
It may, like many things here, depend a little on the person you get when you sit down with the paperwork but the essence is you need something "official" that has your name and your complete address on it.
Our residency cards had our previous address on them. Our purchase deed to our current apartment didn't have the zip code on it. If your residency card has your current, complete address on it, you might be fine. They were able to access our previous address in their computer system and I think they got there from our residency cards. If our residency cards had had our current address, that might have done it. But they may ask for proof of address above and beyond the residency card.
You could try printing out your certidão domicilio fiscal from the AT website (we wrote about this a few weeks ago: https://lovefromportugal.substack.com/p/changing-addresses-financas). That feels like a pretty "official" document. I mean, it's the tax authority saying this is where you live. That ought to work, I'd think.
Unless the person you sit down with had bad sushi for lunch.
Maybe go in the morning.
Haha... ok. Good advice. I'll let you know how it goes!
Do!
Oh dear … I reading and wondering…do things have changed much in old Portugal?lol in mid 80’s we did wet through about similar situation trying to open a reg checking bank account lol (%#F,/ bureaucracy) same thing happened with drivers license. Very frustrating. Enjoy it.
Ah, the joys of Millennium bank. We had a Millennium prestige account that was 15€/mo. It was the only account we could get remotely at the time. After a few months I inquired about the 5€ a month account that I've read others like yourself have/had. After a 2 hour in person meeting the person says the cheapest account they have is 8€/mo. Huh? That is all she could do. She never heard of a 5€ account, she claimed. I suppose 8€ is better than 15€ so I settled on the 8€ and decided to fight the good fight another day. Your post makes me feel like we should try going over to Activo.
I love how it takes a 2 hour meeting for them to decide whether they have a cheaper account to offer. Either you have something or you don't. It doesn't need to be a five minute transaction but two hours feels a little ... unnecessary.
Gotta love Millennium.
You two have lots of patience, or more time in a day. 🤔🤷♀️😁❤
Oh, yes, the patience you learn!
And for some of us, it is the patience one earns.
Definitely being retired helps! But, the Portugal work day general builds in time to handle stuff like this. Anyone who works here who can speak to this: We'd love to hear from you!