What Would Your Perfect Premium Account Look Like?

Banking Personal Banking
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Following on from: How popular are Monzo's Plus/Premium accounts?

Regardless of which bank you use, lets say its premium offering was £15 per month. What would be your ideal feature set?

I’m not interested in insurance*, I prefer to source my own from reputable and easy to deal with providers. I also believe software features should be available to all (so paywalling features for paid accounts is out for me).

*phone insurance is fine providing it is like for like with a new handset couriered in 24 hours. No sending a handset off, paying and then getting reimbursed. That is nonsense.

I would like some perks, some interest to offset the cost, some airport lounge access, and most importantly, some cash back or other form of loyalty. If I am loyal to someone whether it be a business or a person, I would like them to be loyal back. And from a business perspective, you need to give me reasons NOT to switch to a competitor.

What about you?

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My perfect packaged account is the Nationwide FlexPlus account. If the same offering was available with a more digitally switched on bank, I’d be happy to pay up to £20 or so but as it stands currently it’s hard to commit

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For us non-Nationwide users, what’s included with the FlexPlus?

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  • UK & European breakdown cover for the account holder(s) in any vehicle registered to them or that they’re travelling in
  • Worldwide travel insurance for the account holder(s) and family members including winter sports up to the age of 70
  • Mobile phone insurance including theft/loss, up to £1500 for the account holder and family members
  • Fee-free foreign spend

I hope I remembered correctly

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My perfect premium account likely falls somewhere between Germany’s N26 Metal offering and Monzo Plus, with a Few of Zen’s premium features thrown in for good measure.

Monzo has the enhanced software features I want. N26 does pots better with Metal, and N26 has all the packaged products that work for me. I’d love Monzo’s holographic card in a metal form too. Replace the car insurance with some of Zen’s features, and I’d gladly pay £15 per month for this.

I’d also happily accept a product of similar calibre, but without any insurance products that inhibit eligibility, like travel (but keep phone) for about £10 if it still came with the metal card.

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What I find irritating with Nationwide is single people subsidise families. There should be 2, maybe 3, price points. Single user, couples, families.

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I like that idea. not sure I’d want to go in and break the packages into too many different distinctions like that. But I certainly wouldn’t oppose the same product, but designed for an individual user for £5 less. and the current one tailored to the rest of your family how it is now. A bit like how music subscription services do it.

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If we’re basing it on “things I pay for anyway that my bank could do” then I need a subscription to The Athletic and that’s about it.

I don’t have breakdown cover, I don’t want phone insurance that repairs it with substandard parts, I don’t want holiday insurance that I’ll use twice a year and it’s cheaper to pay for separately.

I’d like more perks, cash back, discount at retailers and I’m happy to pay for things that I find make my life easier like Plus does with categories and sheets export.

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Just to pick up on ndrw’s line there about travel insurance, as always, check the terms of the policy carefully. I am a diver to Advanced Open Water level and as I discovered prior to going to Egypt in 2020 to get some dive time in, I ended up having to buy a separate standalone policy from DAN (Diver Alert Network) because Nationwide’s travel insurance only covers diving to a maximum depth of 18 metres which is no good for me as I would normally dive at between 25 and 30 metres.

But to the matter in hand, for the monthly premium on the Nationwide account, I think the insurance package isn’t bad at all. Covers both our cars for breakdown, we both have iphone XR’s. Can’t really think of anything else we’d want to pay for if I’m honest.

I agree with o99 about pricing levels, they perhaps should be tiered as he describes.

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This is true, but the way I see it, my breakdown cover is £12 a month just for the one car. For £1 more I get annual travel insurance so there’s no headache hunting for a deal when I need it, I get loss and theft cover for my phone (I’d always use AppleCare+ for repairs) and multi-car breakdown cover if ever needed. As such, it’s great value

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I’ve personally never understood the need for insurance & breakdown with my bank. I’d much rather get exactly what I want elsewhere, probably for a better deal.

That’s why I like the approach of Monzo Plus, although the execution and feature set at the relaunch was lacking again, it shows that it allows the bank to build new features that I will use and wouldn’t have otherwise have got. Having said that all that, I think theres a very very fine line to be tread between what should be to free customers and paid, and i think so far Monzo have tread the wrong side on a few features so far although I can understand the reasoning for doing so a little bit

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Phone insurance, travel insurance and breakdown cover. That is all :+1:

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Phone / gadget insurance
Travel insurance
Breakdown cover

Possibly discounts for loans / borrowing and enhanced rates for savings.

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Another Flex Plus customer here.
What we actually get for the £13 a month can’t be beaten.
Up until covid, we have always had an annual worldwide travel policy which used to be good value.
When it came to renewal this year, I was getting quotes of £300+ :sob:
My breakdown cover (Toyota roadside assistance) was pretty good value at £7 a month, but I thought
“If I take out the price of breakdown cover from the monthly fee, I’m getting travel insurance for £6 a month and basically free mobile phone insurance”

The only thing I do miss from my previous insurance is the lounge access for delayed flights.
But with what we save, we could always pay for lounge access with what we save :grin:

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The mobile phone insurance with FlexPlus is unbeatable. It covers all family members’ mobiles at your address, including the latest iPhones and other expensive devices. It isn’t possible to get cover for even two phones for anywhere near the FlexPlus price. And that’s before you take into account the additional value of worldwide family travel insurance and breakdown cover.

I keep my FlexPlus account going purely for the benefits - I don’t actually use the bank account. If Starling could offer the same features for a similar price, that would be great. Throw in some added benefits, such as virtual cards and cheap lounge access, and I’d happily pay a bit more than I currently do for FlexPlus.

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Exactly the same here.
I pay a tenner a week into it (probably about what I’d spend on drinks and snacks at work pre covid) and just forget about it.
Added bonus there is a nice little bonus to myself at the end of every year :grin:

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100% only got flex plus for the benefits. Just standing order the fee each month then have a standing balance of £0. Used to be a standing balance of the interest bearing amount until they removed that……!

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I would want some kind of “payback” that delivered at least twice the monthly fee back to me. Just thinking about what is on offer from the competition.

I don’t want “airport lounge access” that I have to pay for. Kind of defeats the object, unless I was flying on a monthly basis and it cut lounge access costs to a minimum (it generally does not)

I don’t want 20% off their already overpriced insurance offering, or limited discount on their walled garden of vastly overcharging commercial partners (yes, I’m looking at you, Curve and Santander).

I don’t want a metal card that’s going to get stuck in an ATM - and if you’re the kind of person who is impressed when someone uses a metal card to pay for something, you need professional help.

My mobile cost £200 - it’s not really worth insuring, to be honest.

I don’t drive, so breakdown insurance is useless for me.

Travel insurance, perhaps, but this is something I can personally get much cheaper than they are offering.

I don’t want “free transfers” in other currencies that other banks offer for nothing, nor should you be charging me a fee for foreign transactions - you can fiddle with the exchange rate and I will judge whether that’s worth it.

I don’t need a Euro account that other banks offer for nothing.

Most of the “exclusive” savings accounts you can only access with this type of premium accounts have an interest rate and a cap that means you barely make the fee back.

As evidenced elsewhere, I won’t pay for an “exclusive design” on a card - that’s just sad :wink:

Most of this means I will almost certainly never get a Premium Account.

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You’d certainly be difficulty to please, @riceuten :relieved:

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That’s changed then. I remember being impressed in 2015 that Nationwide covered my Advanced diving.