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been with natwest for a while now, and just been told by a mate that he gets travel insurance, breakdown cover and a few other bits and bobs for nowt with his free current acc at nationwide.
gonna look into that, but just wondered if any of you have the same sort of thing with other banks? is this usual these days? apparently they do all the switching over too, which is something i imagine puts people off changing.
be interested to hear whats out there......
The Natiowide one (Flex Plus ?) looks decent as it also includes extras 12 month warranty on electrical goods...but it does cost £10 per month ?
i was invited in to my local nationwide by a very nice lady who spent some time going through thier excellent current account and all its free benefits..
however all that glittered was not gold and although its 120pa i felt there was no value in swapping from a bank that has a local branch and i ve been with for 40years that has FREE banking for customers whilst in credit..
RBS have tried (many times) to get me to sign up to their Royalties account (which I'd bet is identical to NatWest's account). As the travel insurance doesn't cover MTB holidays properly though, it's not worth it for me.
Last year my Lloyds gold acc covered me for MTB, although it did change just after I enquired - they honoured it though. I also get phone insurance free, which costs a fair bit on its own anyway. I dont get car breakdown
Works even better with a joint account. Travel Insurance, Breakdown, Mobile Phone and some other stuff for £10 a month.
Lloyds TSB Premier. Full top whack AA breakdown, Home Emergency, Mobile Phone, Annual Travel Insurance inc Winter Sports, Interest Free overdraft to £500. £25 p/m but if on a joint account you both get all the benefits.
Oh, and because you're a 'premier' customer the bank is actually nice to you...
Cheers
Danny B
I pay £13 a month on my Smile a/c & get worldwide travel insurance (inc biking trips) RAC UK & European cover, phone & keys cover too.
I have a free santander account which has free travel insurance - there's a minimum monthly deposit but it's not a huge amount - but I don't know if they still do it as it's an old Alliance and Leicester one.
I just moved from RBS Royalties Gold at £12.50 a month to Nationwide. Same insurance etc. and it's free. You can also get good interest rates on savings as a new account opener and the switch over of DDs was fine. If they have a hold up in getting it across they pay you £100.
We had a small hold up (RBS's fault) and Nationwide still gave us the £100.
Their internet banking is excellent too.
thanks for your input. seems like most of you are paying for these services then. not sure thatd be viable for me then, as i think my breakdown covers about £70 per year, and my last hols ins was about £20.
ill do some more googling tho, see if i find anything thatd be worthwhile for me.
thanks
We've just opted for the Nationwide Flexplus (joint account) at a tenner a month.
I get worldwide travel, inc ski, breakdown cover and mobile phone insurance with co op for £13 a month with co op. as its a joint account the true cost to me is 6.50. Bargain.
Lloyds TSB Gold account - mobile phone insurance and backup, worldwide travel insurance for me and the missus, card protection, and AA breakdown cover (whether it's my car I'm in or someone else's at the time). £12.95 a month.
Oh, and a lovely shiny gold card 
I pay £17 a month on a Lloyds account. AA breakdown, phone insurance, travel insurance.
Cheaper than all that individually...
get worldwide travel insurance (inc biking trips)
guys, be very careful with this. Bank/telephone staff will tell you that you'll be covered, but when really pushed you may well find out that you'll only be covered on waymarked trails. Anything unofficial, or anything that is actually a footpath is not covered by the RBS/NAT WEST/etc policy
Due to financial issues and the arrival of crankbrat we looked very carefully at our natwest premier account . We decided that the total market cost of all the free ras that we actually used was significantly less than the fee for the premier account . Bank staff attitude was interesting though I once spent far too long being messed around be a customer service helper who then needed my account details on production of the plastic she instantly became pleasant to the point of fawning and told me I should have gone upstairs to the premier suite with it's sofas .
The missus has a Lloyds account and whenever we go on holiday she upgrades her free account for a month or two to get the travel insurance then downgrades on our return. 8)
Cheaper for us to do that and have stand alone breakdown cover than pay for the account all year round.
Neither of us need mobile phone insurance though which could swing it.
TANSTAAFL
The Nationwide Flex account(free one) includes european travel insurance for you and your partner for free,but does not cover your kids(if you have any).
The Flex plus adds on several things like breakdown cover,electrical cover etc but does cost you a extra Tenner a month.
If you have a account that you keep in credit then it might be worth looking at the Flex direct account which pays 5% interest on the balance for 12months.
Used my 12.50 pm Yorkshire account already this year for car breakdown and just had my lcd unit and screen replaced on my phone and it's only start of April 😉