Anyone else in the same boat, I’ve been offered this as a ‘free’ upgrade to my account? There are minimal benefits and MSE doesn’t seem to list a heap of detracting reasons not to. So anyone else found the thing I feel like I’m missing and making it sensible to opt out of?

I got a shiny new card. Other than that our just feels like a ruse to tempt me into paying for further services.

Ironically it’ll get upgraded just after 2 international trips so the new card will arrive when I’ll be unlikely to benefit from the international withdrawal cost reduction for most of the rest of the year.

Given that they are a bank I’m assuming there is some additional benefit to them rather than me, I just can’t see what it is at the moment!

It’s a knee jerk reaction to a failed paid account apparently.

They’re stripped back the services offered and are now giving it to customers for free.

I changed.

It is the same apart from when I log on to interweb banking it says HSBC Advance rather than HSBC Current Account.

Other than that it seems identical to me.

It all depends what you want.

Assuming it’s the same product as I have it gives travel insurance, breakdown cover, mobile phone insurance, preferential rates etc that would cost more than £120 per year anyway.

I changed. They went “free stuff you don’t want!” so I went “whatever.”

I got a shiny new card.

Is yours made out of really floppy plastic like mine is? Nearly folded the thing in half the first time I jammed it in a card reader. Can’t work out whether it’s supposed to be less brittle and so less prone to snapping, or just cheap crap?

Assuming it’s the same product as I have it gives travel insurance, breakdown cover, mobile phone insurance, preferential rates etc that would cost more than £120 per year anyway.

It doesn’t have any of that.

I’ve just got a nice new red card. I is excited.

I get an extra 0.5% on my cash isa account but apart from that it isn’t really any different to my standard accounts.

I think it also allows you to take out a few hundred quid more each day from your account than the standard account does.

My HSBC Advance has all the same benefits that’s GiantJason listed above.

I’ve had an Advance account for about three or four years now though so it is highly likely it’s changed.

I think that when we set it up there was a small charge but it was easily offset by the benefits. The travel insurance even covers me for winter sports.

Think you get better mortgage rates with it.

Sure our rate is 0.5% lower than the great unwashed get.

or something.

Oh, richie, they recently changed it.

the account is now free but they’re charging you £10 ish a month for their ‘insurance package’ thing, which I think is the benefits you had before.

In Hong Kong, it gives me priority access to a slightly shorter queue in the branch when I want to talk to someone unhelpful rather than do battle with a confusing multi-functional machine.

🙂

Had a phone call from my local branch yesterday and if I switch to an Advance account they will move my personal loan to a better rate and i’ll get 10% of the interest back at the end of the loan.
Got to be worth it just for that

Watch out with that. It may not apply if you pay the loan off early.

Cheers curious yellow I’ll ask about that when I go in on Monday

So while the benefits are minimal it also looks like there isn’t a horrible catch I was worried about. Cool, I’ll just let it happen then, cheers all.

I’ve had it for a few years too. You can claim for up to 2 lost mobiles a year at £100 a time, which would put you in profit. Of course, you’d need to ‘lose’ two mobiles a year first…
Worth it for us anyway for the travel and breakdown insurance and in all honesty my MRA does lose or break at least one phone a year.

Unknown – this HSBC Advance is more HSBC Advance Lite. It’s scrubbed all the good stuff out

I think that when we set it up there was a small charge but it was easily offset by the benefits. The travel insurance even covers me for winter sports.

I asked about this when they were pestering to ‘upgrade’ a year or two back. I was told they didn’t cover skiing or diving and was unsure about cycling so was effectively pointless for me…….that as well as having a company car rendered the breakdown equally pointless

I really need to read stuff the bank sends me.
I just thought they’d changed the colour of the card….

They have just moved us to the Advance account and sent us new cards. However I am not sure that I will ever use the benefits!

Ohhhhh hang on! Its all falling into place now.
I received something from the bank about a month ago, opened it, glanced, assumed it was junk and binned it.

I suspect that was telling me about the changes to my previous Advance account.

Dammit. The travel insurance and breakdown cover were a good little deal for us.

Here, I just bothered to look….

http://www.hsbc.co.uk/1/2/current-accounts/hsbc-advance?HBEU_dyn_lnk=CurrentAccount_FilterTool_Advance_FindOutMore_Button