Nationwide - Cheap spending abroad - Over

Jem8472

from having a look on the NW site it still says that cash withdrawals overseas are free. So I hope it will only be a charge for point of sale stuff. So I can still get cash out for free when I go on honeymoon at the start of June

eslick

dont think about the abbey card, they are terrible, took them 4 months and many calls for them to tell me that they hadnt received my application and on each time I called I had been told that they would be sending the card out in 7 days.

i am going to cancel our nationwide cards and accounts and open a post office one, hopefully other will and they will get a shock and change their mind, it will never happen but here hoping.

simpywimpy

I have always found the exchange rate they use to be very competitive as well as the no charge rule so I will continue to use them for now

omelette451

eslick wrote: »

i am going to cancel our nationwide cards and accounts and open a post office one, hopefully other will and they will get a shock and change their mind, it will never happen but here hoping.

That's a bit extreme isn't it? Even after the changes the PO account will still only be better than NW for shop-based purchases outside Europe. Considering that relatively speaking (certainly for me) such transactions make up only a very small percentage of my overseas transactions, such 'principles' would make me lose out big-style!

Personally I think that despite it being annoying that they're going to start charging after all this time it's not the end of the world - after all, they've been making a loss on such transactions and are only going to charge enough to cover their costs. I think it's quite a prudent move in the current economic climate actually, even if it does mean I'll have to pay more.

Here's a suggestion though... How easy do you think it would be for NW to impose the charge only on people using their accounts for the occasional trip overseas? From personal experience and what you read on here it's quite a common thing to do and they must lose quite a lot from it (pressing cards and printing statements is quite expensive when the account is only rarely used), but I'm not sure quite how easy it would be to select and reward only those of us who use it as their main account. They can't base it solely on income as many deserving people don't necessarily have (a regular) one, and enforcing a minimum number of UK transactions would disqualify people temporarily/permanently living overseas and those travelling for long periods of time. What do you think? Is it possible or too difficult to be worthwhile?

moneypooh

If we go by the EuroVision Song contest, we'll be OK, LOL
So that includes Israel and Russia :rotfl:

eslick

omelette451 wrote: »

That's a bit extreme isn't it?

Not really, for me as I dont travel to Europe only with work our holidays are normally outside of Europe and wouldnt use my NW card on business trips as we have company credit cards for that.

Point is if they charge for no European countries then it wont be long before they start charging for European ones and as with all of these things if they think they can get away with it then they will start charging for all countries.

NW have a lot of customers who only have their credit card because of the no fee, so bet they will loose customers because of this change as those that have use NW for the savings will move to another non charging one just for the savings.

Sorry but I have no loyalty to any company just because I have used them for a while, I will always look for the most cost effective companys and those that provide the best customer service and therefore I will look else where.

apt

Even with the 1% VISA fee for some countries the Nationwide cards are still good value. It's also a good idea to have both VISA and MASTERCARD cards so if one system does not work you have a back-up. In my opinion the time to get huffy with Nationwide and throw the cards back at it is when it starts to add its own 2.75% loading fee. As for not taking holidays in Europe when you live there ....

dzug1

Interesting that places like Martinique and St Pierre/Miquelon are 'in Europe'

Well I suppose they do use the €

bryanb

Inactive wrote: »

That would mean that the UK wasn't part of Europe.. :rotfl:

Hooray!!!!

dzug1

eslick wrote: »

Not really, for me as I dont travel to Europe only with work our holidays are normally outside of Europe and wouldnt use my NW card on business trips as we have company credit cards for that.

Point is if they charge for no European countries then it wont be long before they start charging for European ones and as with all of these things if they think they can get away with it then they will start charging for all countries..

A totally illogical argument - it assumes all trends will continue ad infinitum. Like house prices will rise forever hooray.

eslick wrote: »

NW have a lot of customers who only have their credit card because of the no fee, so bet they will loose customers because of this change as those that have use NW for the savings will move to another non charging one just for the savings.

Sorry but I have no loyalty to any company just because I have used them for a while, I will always look for the most cost effective companys and those that provide the best customer service and therefore I will look else where.

Maybe they want to lose that sort of customer.

And yes, I agree on using the most cost effective company. But by getting rid of your Nationwide debit card as well as the credit one, you are losing the opportunity of getting cash overseas at a maximum 1% cost - no other means of doing that exists, for joe public anyway.