Because I don't owe over 200000 euro I am been penalised with ulster bank with a discounted variable of 3.5.. if I owed more than 200000 my rate would be lower.. rang them nothing they can do...time to move again I think..
I understand your frustration but Ulster Bank isn't quite the same as KBC were. With UB they are advertising a new product and not pretending it's the same as the one you have.
With KBC they were advertising the same product and telling existing customers that they couldn't get the rate reductions as they weren't new customers.
That's no help to you though.
I switched to Ulster Bank a few months ago and got this product. I asked if the discount is valid for the life of the mortgage. At the time their floor was 250K. Our mortgage is 255K. I asked if the discount went away once we went below 250K and were told (response in an email) that the discount is valid for the life of the mortgage.
Your last point is valid. I understand that this is a different product to what you bought but when you ring the bank and ask to switch to it they should have a process for moving you to the newer product. It's mental that the only option available to us is that we have to switch to a different company which is a pain in the hole and (as far as I can see) is just a money making exercise for solicitors and estate agents who do the valuation. I rang KBC last year with the same argument. They didn't care, so I switched.
With KBCs current reductions it's nearly worth my while switching back to a product I already had which means it would have just cost KBC a few grand for me to stay on the product I wanted to stay with anyway for free. Mental.
I don't know your numbers but going from 3.5% -> 3.05% or 2.9% should be a decent enough reduction to make it worth the switch.
Put your numbers in here to see how much you'd save
https://www.drcalculator.com/mortgage/ie/