Natwest Current Account - Is it any good?

lolavix

Country_Lad wrote: »

My girlfriend and I now have a joint gold account with them which costs £15 a month (£7.50) but this covers us for phone insurance, breakdown cover, travel insurance and lots more so its well worth it!
Overall a great service from them and would 100% recommend them!

Only DO NOT use their Holiday Travel Service. Like a fool I did believing it would save me money. In actual fact it cost me £535 more than had I booked the holiday myself direct .
When I complained Thomas Cook wiped their hands saying as I had booked using the Nat West Gold Account telephone number I should take my complaint up with Nat West. Of course Nat West said sorry nothing to do with them Thomas Cook was at fault.
Needless to say I will not be using the Nat West Travel service again and would seriously advise others not to as well.
In fact I would go a lot farther, leave Nat West Gold Account all together. Why on earth pay £15 a month for a service that costs you an additional £535 extra than had you done it yourself.[/QUOTE]

Which is all part of shopping around to be honest. I ended up saving £250 on my holiday a couple of years ago, some were more expensive though. Best to look around everywhere rather than assuming the discounts will always make the holiday cheaper.

Country_Lad

Which is all part of shopping around to be honest. I ended up saving £250 on my holiday a couple of years ago, some were more expensive though. Best to look around everywhere rather than assuming the discounts will always make the holiday cheaper.[/QUOTE]


Not altogether true. Read NatWest bumf on their advertising material for the Gold account and it says "The service offers exclusive savings on a range of travel services......including 10% discount on....... cruise holidays.......with Royal Carribean", from this surely one would expect a saving not an increase of £535.
Seems to me to be another case of miss selling.

guesswho2000

rb10 wrote: »

If you use internet banking, then it's worth noting that Natwest's offering is basic, yet cluttered with adverts.

It does most of the basic functions you'd expect from online banking; it's main problem is that it's outdated and in need of a revamp. Halifax's online banking is significantly better.

Customer service at Natwest isn't too good either - they generally come towards the bottom of surveys. Having said that, they've put a lot of money into their 'Customer Charter', which indicates that they're aware of their failings & are trying to improve things.

I'd go with Halifax over Natwest any day, if you stay in credit.

I feel the opposite with regard to online banking. Halifax's offering, in my opinion, is terrible.

With NatWest you have all your accounts and credit cards in one list, with the current balance, available balance, sortcode and account number shown. Their mobile banking app is the best of any banks I've seen so far (closely followed by Nationwide).

Halifax do show that for my current account, but the credit card doesn't show a running balance (only available balance - ok not the end of the world) and doesn't show any details on the summary page. Additionally, it logs me out with random errors and the mobile app is just a web browser in a different shell.

I'm aware this makes me sound like a NatWest fanboy - I'm not - nor am I a Halifax hater. End of the day they both have their pros and cons, and I have both of their current account and credit card offerings, so I feel like I can make a good analysis of both.

One more point for NatWest - as a current account holder, they occasionally make available really good variants of their e-savings account - I received a targeted offering paying 3.12% on the account until end of Feb 2013.

Savvy_Money

I'm not sure why this thread has turned into a Natwest vs Halifax issue - a lot will depend on your local branch - my local Halifax is difficult to deal with - I've been trying to reset up internet banking but the palava it causes is unbelievable - on the other hand my local Barclay's branch is friendly and efficient. I think Natwest is probably the same. Many people including myself have several current accounts to take advantage of the various deals - but my main bank is with Barclays simply due to the customer service at my local branch - but once any credits are recieved the bulk of it goes to an account with interest or free fivers.

rb10

guesswho2000 wrote: »

One more point for NatWest - as a current account holder, they occasionally make available really good variants of their e-savings account - I received a targeted offering paying 3.12% on the account until end of Feb 2013.

There was no requirement to have a current account to be offered the 3.12% account.

It was given to current/former e-savings customers.

Natwest give zilch to current account customers.