That was not quite what I meant - my fault, mea culpa - and it does seem to have ruffled a few feathers.  In your circumstances, I should have done exactly the same. 

What I was (unsuccessfully ) referring to was the practice that was being advocated a while back - no longer possible because the conditions have tightened - of opening the account, getting the card, reducing the balance to the minimum, and then feeding the account just before a trip, using the free withdrawal facility when abroad, and then taking the balance back to the minimum on return.  That, in my opinion, was taking unreasonable advantage of a facility that was not intended to be exploited in that way, and when I read the posts suggesting it as a clever wheeze I thought it would be only a matter of time before the inevitable happened.  Now it has. 

Some will say that was NW's fault for allowing the situation to exist, others will claim it was all a carefully calculated ploy on their part to gain more "weight" on the high street that just went a bit wrong.  Who knows, and NW won't be telling?! 

They are still a mutual, they are a bit fuddy duddy, they generally answer the 'phone quite quickly, they have UK call centres, and, as a generalisation, you don't have to read everything they say with your head on backwards to see where the balance of advantage lies.  Notwithstanding, they are sorely trying my patience at present because they have withdrawn interest on the Flex Account, propose "giving" me a wholly useless and unwanted travel insurance that I can't get value from, withdrawn the cash reward cards for new applicants, withdrawn the free use of debit cards abroad, reduced their interest rates generally while claiming industry beating levels (or some such tripe!) and increased their loan rates to the lowest available (manifestly incorrect so far as I can see). 

Like Clive, I'm struggling a bit to understand how the banks generally, and NW, can plead poverty when the spread between what they pay on deposits (about 2.5%), and what they charge on loans (about 7.5%), is around 5% (with a "bank rate" of just 0.5%). 

In 1960 deposits paid around 3.4%, mortgages were around 5.9% (while base rate hovered between 5% and 6%).  That gave a spread of about 2.5%, out of which the banks lived profitably, bank managers managed branches and drove home in Rovers, and employees had preferential loans and final salary pensions. 

Now, with the spread double that figure, the managers have gone, the loans have gone, and the final salary pensions have gone.  The banks still make profits OK, but what is the basis for believing this is particularly clever when they have cut staff, cut branches, cut services, cut overheads, and doubled the difference between what the charge on loans and what they pay on deposits?  Chimpanzees come to mind!

Overkill!  Can I just settle for mortal Sainthood, rather than elevation to the immortal Angels?  I still quite like it down here.