MSE News: Nationwide hikes overseas charges today

ask66

Nosmo_King wrote: »

I know they have a lousy reputation at the moment, but I suppose it may be worth considering a Santander current account with debit card if you go to Spain for your hols.

Hi, just found that from January 2011 Santander will offer their Zero Current Account to anyone who has £10,000 or more saved with them (currently it's only available to their mortgage and investment customers). The Zero account offers free cash machine withdrawals worldwide and other benefits. I already have an A&L current account so will probably take them up on this offer. Might also transfer £750 into and straight out of my Nationwide FlexAccount each month to keep their free travel insurance.

apt

Yet another bank/building society that is going to take advantage of Nationwide's stupity to take customers and their savings from it. Although the terms of the Zero current account are good for the first year I don't want the hassle of dealing with Santander and will be going to Norwich and Peterborough for commission free foreign transactions.

Donnie

ask66 wrote: »

Hi, just found that from January 2011 Santander will offer their Zero Current Account to anyone who has £10,000 or more saved with them (currently it's only available to their mortgage and investment customers). The Zero account offers free cash machine withdrawals worldwide and other benefits. I already have an A&L current account so will probably take them up on this offer. Might also transfer £750 into and straight out of my Nationwide FlexAccount each month to keep their free travel insurance.

Do remember that it is European cover only for trips of up to 31 days. You can upgrade it to Worldwide and for trips for longer than 31 days, but you'll need to pay. Winter sports and Hazardous activities are also paid for extras.
Also the requirement was to deposit the £750 monthly between April and July. If you did that you would have recieved a confirmation letter in August.
If you opened your account in August, you need to have transferred all of your DD/Standing Orders from another bank using Nationwide's account transfer service.



Think it's all a bit poor. Earlier this year(Feb) they were offering £75 to people who would switch to their account in this way whilst still offering fee free withdrawals. So this silly travel insurance offering is just that £75 converted into a European travel insurance policy.
Better to take the £75 and to buy your own.

Not sure if offering the insurance to people who paid £750 per month in between April and June will go any way towards appeasing the people they have turned off.

SimbaSimon

2 Things on my mind.

1) I can't believe you didn't see this coming. You've been telling people to get a Nationwide account for overseas spending for years, if they've got thousands of accounts sitting dorment except for overseas spending its no wonder they are changing the charging structure. While I'm annoyed as I do use my Nationwide current account fully I can understand why they've got to stop the !!!!!!!!!!s.

2) N&P seem to be doing something similar to Nationwide's old no charges scheme on their new current account. Why hasn't this been mentioned anywhere? Its not ideal as you will get charged if you don't use it as a main account or set up dummy transactions from one account to another but surely for those that regularly use cards abroad its got to be worth it?

Dylanwing

Personally the travel insurance saving will outweigh the withdrawal charges. I can see their point if there are a lot of dormant accounts just being used for the odd holiday.

Davelea

I traveled to Florida 4 days after the charge was introduced without knowing about the change and used my Card extensively. I don't remember Nationwide sending me a letter infomring me. Is it worth a phone call to see if I can get the charges back? I've been with them for around 25 years and wasn't expecting this to change 4 days before I went on holiday!