Have always used Halifax for our joint account. The benefits are pretty good, but it’s going up to £17 a month, and phone excess (on the included phone insurance) is going to be fixed at £100 for all handsets. I’ve claimed once this year, and they did a real bodge job!
Wondered what’s out there with regards to benefits and features.
We use Nationwide FlexPlus for the benefits, and Barclays, NatWest and Coop for the rewards (the rewards we get from them are more than the fees we pay to Nationwide).
Main differentiatiors between Halifax/Nationwide in this context, as far as I’m aware:
| Halifax | Nationwide | |
|---|---|---|
| Fee | £15 (apparently soon £17) | £13 |
| Phone insurance | Only account holders’ phone(s) | covers phones of children living with parents as well |
| Travel insurance | Doesn’t cover kids travelling independently | Covers kids travelling independently |
| Interest | ? | 3% on up to £2.5k |
I’m sure there are others as well, but these were the main differentiators we were looking at when we made our decision a while back.
Great. Thanks for taking the time to do the comparison. I’ll have a look 
I’m also thinking of doing AppleCare+ or whatever it’s called, which would negate the need for phone insurance. So I’m considering if I can get travel and breakdown cover cheaper independently. But it’s convenient/cheaper to just have it sorted out in one account, I guess.
Also, have a look here:
I’ve just been looking at the FlexPlus, currently got the Lloyds Platinum which gives the same benefits by the looks of things, but it’s going up to £19 a month for me! Not to mention the fact they froze my account this week due to their super over sensitive AML, and their tendency to cancel payments if you’re connected to a VPN. What is the Nationwide app like though out of interest?
The android app is fine. Nothing spectacular, but it works well enough.
The main web site is slick. It was actually kind of fun filling in the application form.
Their online banking interface, on the other hand - oh, well, my opinion on that is not printable …
TSB Classics Plus. No cost and no “extras” - but £10 cash rewards per month (DDs and card transactions) and now 5% interest on balances (upto certain amount).
I use Monzo, she uses my Revolut card. It works well
Since you ask, plain old First Direct. No frills, extras or benefits and free.
Those cash rewards are interesting! Thanks for the heads up.
The cash rewards are only for a year, though, aren’t they? Also, the 5% is for existing customers only, I think. Everyone else gets 3%.
Yes, cash rewards for one year. Better than nothing though 
I didn’t know it was 5% only for existing customers, but yes it was 3% before their recent meltdown
Actually, I just checked:
It appears that the 5% is for everyone, but the cashback offer ends at the end of the year, so just a bit over half a year.
Still, it’s a pretty solid offer - as long as you can live without access to your money for a couple of weeks here and there 
Yeah, that’s why we chose it - at the time (August/September last year, roughly) it was one of the best options available for our needs. Took a few hours out of our day though to open the account - travel to & from branch, and sitting with an advisor, going through the paperwork and application process 
Luckily for us, their problems the other week happened whilst we were on holiday, where we were using :mondo: for all spends. We haven’t actually suffered or lost anything
Same goes for the iOS app. I haven’t used it much, except for checking balances, but from memory, I think you have to set up payees on the website. And for that you need a good memory, or use the card reader.
On android you can set up payees in the app. I just did so this morning. You need your card reader though.
Ah, right. There must have been an update since I last had to do it.
Barclays, simple, it’s just joint account - well simple to everyone except monzo.
My partner and I had a joint account at Drummond’s (part of RBS) it paid interest on positive balances, had sufficient overdraft, but other than that no gimmicky extras like airport lounges or phone cover, therefore you did not have to pay a monthly charge just to get those so called perks!
Household billing account with the TSB platinum
Provides a joint account for sharing all household bills and also insurance for phones and breakdown cover on the second car
Unfortunately we have suffered with the recent TSB IT fiasco
Mortgage account has not been showing for two weeks but the billing account has just come back on line