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Flex account, we have been ripping the ar5e out of it.


Chancer
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There was an advert for a new Nationwide credit card in the Mail yesterday. Some details below that I got off their website, don't know how it will effect the "old" cards, are they going to start charging for Europe purchases.

Steve.

Foreign transactions

The card to take on your travels

With

our great 'Rewards for Abroad' feature we will reward you every time you make

purchases in pounds sterling with a commission-free foreign allowance. For

example if you spend £100 on your shopping in a month (UK, Sterling) you’ll

automatically be rewarded with £20 worth of commission-free allowance to use on

purchases in a foreign currency.

How it works

  • Commission-free purchases abroad - as a special offer to

    get you started, you can enjoy unlimited commission-free purchases abroad until

    31 July 2011.
  • Build your allowance - transactions in any currency during

    this period count towards your reward allowance which will become effective on

    1st August 2011.
  • See how much you've earned - the allowance you've earned

    will appear on your monthly statement so you know exactly where you stand before

    you go on holiday. And there's no limit to what you can earn - if you don't use

    it all up one year, it will be carried forward to the next year.
  • Low commission charge - for purchases abroad over and above

    your allowance, you'll be glad to know that at 2% the commission we charge is

    lower than many other cards.

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[quote user="AnOther"]

Yes, which is why my credit card gets flexed an awful lot more these days than it ever did previously and I make a point of not paying it off until days before it's due to get the maximum use of their money.

[/quote]

Moi aussi - easier than getting the money out here at the mo, and very useful for me, since some of my pensions are paid in the UK, so spares the French account as well.

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I assume they have been hit badly by people switching from debit card to credit card  purchases.  I like many will only pay the due amount on the card just before its due, unlike on the debit card when they ( Nationwide) got my money within days of the purchase. Will have to have another look at N&P.

Steve.

PS why is there not a curser showing when I write this, its a pain if I want to go back and alter something.

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[quote user="BJSLIV"]Looks like we will all be getting letters in the near future. After July to spend £100 abroad without paying a fee you have to have spent £500 in the UK. Halifax here we come![/quote]The instant they start that lark the scissors are coming out and everything I have with them will be moved to my old LloydsTSB A/C, including my monthly salary.

http://www.nationwide.co.uk/creditcard/foreigntransactions.htm

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Before any panic sets in the rewards for abroad feature applies a new Nationwide Credit Card, the holders of existing Gold, Classic and old Reward Card the rules have not changed and are as follows:

"We pass on a charge of 1% of the transaction amount which is made by a third party for converting transactions made in foreign currencies outside the Visa Europe region."

If you want check this is the link, but make sure you click your current card at the top of the page:

http://www.nationwide.co.uk/creditcard/managing-your-card/ratescharges.htm

Baz 

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[quote user="sweet 17"]Judith, are you talking about NW or us?[/quote]

NW - sorry for the ambiguity - it's been a long day...and I think you are right, they seem to changing quite a lot of things, rather more quickly than they have done in the past...

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  • 2 weeks later...
From the bottom of this month's statement:

"  Your Nationwide card is still a competitive option for withdrawing cash abroad.   We use a more generous exchange rate than most commission free foreign exchangers.    This means that using your Nationwide card abroad for cash can still be cost effective.   Plus you benefit from the security and convenience of carrying only the money you need    ".

I don't want to sound rude but *P YO*RS Nationwide.    You've moved the goalposts,  imposed conditions (of adding so much a month to the c/a in order to benefit (ha ha) from insurance abroad (that I don't want or need)) without actually telling us about those conditions,   and now it seems you're noticing that everyone has stopped using the Flex account card abroad.

Good,   maybe now you'll start to redress the balance and take a look at your faithful savers rather than those borrowers benefiting from low interest rates in Mervyn's Alice-In-Wonderland world of economics.

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Martin, I couldn't have put it better myself!

I have stopped using my debit card completely and, not only that, I have practically emptied our savings account and  bought another house.

What with the negligible interest rates and the negative returns, it looked like time to do something drastic but pleasurable at the same time! 

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Before Nationwide gets any more flak - I'd just like to point out that Santander, having taken over Alliance and Leicester and told us that nothing would change, have also radically altered their t&c's to the detrement of a couple of accounts which I have had with the bank in its various guises since it was the National Giro.  It hardly affects me as I have very little money in there these days, but moving the goalposts is a regular thing amongst financial institutions and the Nationwide has no monopoly on this.  The do have a point too - I am still struggling to find a cheaper alternative for regular small-ish transfers (ie under £1000) of cash from £s to €s. 

I know there are still two small building societies which offer free cash withdrawals abroad, and my credit card (Capital One) is relatively good but neither is easy to set up if you already live in France.

Give the Nationwide a break - at least we can vote the bosses out at election time and the thing still belongs to us.

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Fair comment coops.

I think what I resent so much though is that up until not so long ago one "expected better" (and got "better") from the Nationwide.   Perhaps wrongly I felt that they were trying to be even-handed to the whole spectrum of their customers,  and were a bit more "transparent" about things than some other organisations.

This may of course have been subjective, and in the new cut-throat financial world maybe being honest is just too expensive!

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I have reading 'Surfing the Long Summer', a free book about business (on my Kindle....).  The book analyses highly successful businesses.  The common denominator is that all successful businesses is that they put their customers first and all decision making flows from that.  So, for example, Disneyland wants their visitors to have a better experience on their second visit than their first.  Google resist lucratove advertising on their front page because customers prefer it. etc etc

Nationwide used to put their customers first.  They don't any longer and so according to the thesis of the author of 'Surfing etc', their business will be in decline.

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[quote user="Russethouse"]I daresay Nationwide would say that they are putting their customers first, all of them, just not those  are expats ....[;-)][/quote]

I don't think that it's expats who go on holiday to Europe. So possibly lots of their other customers may not be too happy. [Www]

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Successful businesses put their customers first and add services rather than take away services, whomsoever the customers may be - expats, holiday makers etc.  Sometimes these extra services cost a great deal of money, but they pay back in the long term.  An example of this is the fact that British Gas are now giving Nectar Points for using their gas - it adds value to their service.

Nationwide took away a really good service.  They were foolish to do this.  If they were putting their customers first, they would not have done it.  It is interesting that they have had to spend money on expensive advertising about foreign cash transactions.  This is an indication that the misguided policy has had an adverse effect.

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Cannot now remember the book, but it might have been Charles Handy - about customer service and a bank in the US - got its customers (and increased the numbers)  by making sure that the bank not only opened on time, but early.  In other words, staff were expected to be at desks, everything read to go, before the deadline, and the doors were always opened early.  And if it was raining they opened earlier still.

Good customer service, doing more than expected, got the clients in .....

Nuff said.

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