Best bank account with benefits?

kcmatt79

Hi

I've banked with Lloyds for 7 years now. Recently, I changed my account to a Platinum account (as paying the £15 a month charge was cheaper than paying interest on the whole £2k overdraft!)

Now, however, I am consolidating the overdraft to a loan and will only have a £250 overdraft. This will be at 0% with lloyds. However, I will still be paying the £15 charge.

With the Platinum account, I get:

Mobile phone insurance
Sentinel card protection
Travel insurance (although I hardly EVER go abroad!)
£250 interest free overdraft

Is there a different account I could go for to avoid this £15 a month charge? I think the mobile phone insurance is useful, but is it really worth it? Not sure where to go next.

P.S. I already have a joint A&L account, so can't go with them.

Thanks in advance.

mrmajika

Can't help with your query, but not sure if you are aware, you are getting AA breakdown cover with HomeStart also.

kcmatt79

That's right! I'd forgotten that!

gt94sss2

If the benefits you use 'cost' less than your monthly fee - you could always just ask Lloyds to downgrade your account to a 'free' (no monthly fee) one and buy any services/insurance separately

Otherwise, if you do want to 'pay' for extras - decide which you use and then find an appropriate bank account.

I think First Direct has one of the cheaper add-ons at £8 for 8 months then £9.95/month - their standard account comes with an interest free £250 overdraft anyway while Smile charge £10/month for their package of add-ons.

Worth noting you get £100 if you open a First Direct account these days..

Regards
Sunil

rbrian

Mobile phone insurance is a complete waste of money - check your home contents insurance, and you'll probably find you're covered there. A friend of mine pays an astonishing £8 a month for his mobile phone insurance, despite my best efforts to get him to stop. My home contents insurance is £5 a month, covers £25000 of contents, and £1000 personal items away from home - including the mobile. I got RAC cover for £12 of Tesco Clubcard vouchers. You hardly ever go abroad, so you don't need the travel insurance. You don't plan to use the overdraft.

In conclusion - packaged accounts? NO!

neilp

I would second that. In addition to the very sensible comments about mobile phone insurance, I am pretty dubious about card protection, unless you travel abroad a lot (in which case it is useful - I lost all my cards in Latin America once and it was a life saver).

What kind of A&L account do you have? I may well be wrong, but I think you are not allowed to have two Premier accounts, but can have two accounts, only one of which is Premier. If you can work it (possibly by downgrading your existing account) so that you could open a new Premier account, you would get a larger 0% overdraft for 12 months (and free European travel insurance if you go for Premier rather than Premier Direct, though this doesn't sound like a requirement for you).

Alternatively, there may be other free accounts that offer interest free overdraft facilities, or you could think about transferring the overdraft onto a 0% credit card, or low life of balance card (see relevant articles).