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Hi.

We're with First Direct. For a monthly fee (I think its about £12,) you can join firstdirectory. This gives you foreign money delivered to your door via courier. Free 12 months of travel insurance for you, your partner and any children. Free cash withdraws abroad. Money off at some venues in the UK.

We are thrilled with it...check it out at www.firstdirect.com

Its a great bank!

We used Nationwide too this year. Fantastic. Used Halifax once by mistake and they charged £1.50 flat rate. Given the fact that we used our Nationwide card 40 times in all, that makes a saving of £60! Only thing that surprised me was that on the statement there is no detail about what the debit was paid too e.g. Intermarche, etc. Just says 'Visa debit' for each one, and no record of what the exchange rate was.

One problem (would be the same with any card) - we had some trouble knowing just how much we had left on the account as the cash machines did not give balances. We tried to list what we bought, but it's complex with some cash purchases and others by card. Anyone got any whizzy solutions? Perhaps we should have gone to the nearest Internet cafe and logged on?

Quote: Originally posted by Vic Wildish on 06/9/2006

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Does the Nationwide card limit you to certain cash machines only or can it be used anywhere?

Vic

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Quote: Originally posted by lequimper on 06/9/2006

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We used Nationwide too this year. Fantastic. Used Halifax once by mistake and they charged £1.50 flat rate. Given the fact that we used our Nationwide card 40 times in all, that makes a saving of £60! Only thing that surprised me was that on the statement there is no detail about what the debit was paid too e.g. Intermarche, etc. Just says 'Visa debit' for each one, and no record of what the exchange rate was.

One problem (would be the same with any card) - we had some trouble knowing just how much we had left on the account as the cash machines did not give balances. We tried to list what we bought, but it's complex with some cash purchases and others by card. Anyone got any whizzy solutions? Perhaps we should have gone to the nearest Internet cafe and logged on?

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Quote: Originally posted by TethersEnd on 06/9/2006

If you have internet banking you can click for a detailed statement which does tell you the rate of exchange.

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Thanks, TethersEnd - just tried that and you are quite right!

I switched to Nationwide earlier this year and in France it consistently gave a better exchange rate than my credit card. the only problem was that some places including the E Leclerc hypermarkets did not accept it and we had to use our credit cards.

I found that my Nationwide card gave a rate of 1.46 to 1.48 where my Egg card gave a rate of 1.41 to 1.43

Thanks Kiev -  I'll remeber that

Tim