Are Premier bank accounts worth the bother?

[AllumerLeFeu]

We are HSBC customers and have qualified for Premier banking for years but never bothered to upgrade. However, I assumed it would be a pretty straightforward process when we did.

We would like to take advantage of the free travel insurance, to use access an airport lounge when we fly long haul in the summer, and to maybe access the (marginally) preferential mortgage rates when we remortgage next year.

We spent forty minutes in the phone to an HSBC agent on Friday only to discover she was just checking we qualified (literally, glancing at our back statement would do that), now we have discovered we need an ‘interview’ on the phone on Saturday (the agent was so excited to offer the Saturday as apparently these are ‘hardly ever available’) and it could take up to 1.5 hours. I presume this is to try to upsell services, but we are clear we do not need any advice or products.

Surely they could just upgrade our existing account? If you use a premier banking service, is this the normal process (or as a solicitor and doctor from the Home Counties, maybe we look especially dodgy?) Is the upgrade in service actually worth sacrificing a Saturday lunchtime?

Yes it is absolutely worth it and it wont take that much time if you reiterate at the start that you wont be taking on any new products.

I am surprised that an hour on the phone is not worth free travel insurance and free international travel lounge access.

Thank you. We will be clear at the start that we don’t want all the added gubbins.

It’s not so much it not being worth it, just me feeling annoyed that what feels like it should be a simple process is being made time consuming and complicated. Like the bank is doing us a massive favour, rather than us having chosen their product.

I did not have to go through any of that when my HSBC accounts were upgrdaded. I just got new cards with the same account number but in different coloured plastic, after a quick call with my relationship manager! I have however just realised that it was quarter of a century ago, when perhaps they were less pusht about the associated products they can make money from!

On the benefits front, the lounges that you get acess to aren't, in my opnion, a patch on a proper airline lounge, and I personally wouldn't rely on the travel insurance as there are some quite annoying conitions around things you have to tell them about before travelling, and their cover for pre-existing conditions is likeiwse not as straghtforward as it could be. But, the global banking aspect is useful, as is the ability to see accounts across multiple currencies, and the 'preferential' rates on savings can also be OK. SOmetimes, but not often, there arre decent disoucnts on thing syou might actually buy

The real benefit is a phone number to an actual named person who can get things sorted!

Thank you.

Sounds like the travel insurance might not be a perk for us then. We travel quite often to the US so need very comprehensive cover for that, and have a son with dyspraxia and daughter with arthritis both of whom like to throw themselves down mountains on skis and so it is much more likely than I want it to be that one of them might need to the helicopter to land on the mountain for them. We can’t risk a bargain policy.

Hopefully, we will be able to make the phone call quick and painless in the hope of saving about £6.50 a month when we remortgage next year.

I do agree that being able to speak to a real life person on the phone when there are occasional banking issues is perhaps worth it but so far the bank seems to have made the whole process time-consuming and complicated. I haven’t been very impressed!