The worst experience I have ever had with an insurance company. We were confronted with a burgler in a hired villa in Cyprus. He grabbed my IPad and ran away. The Cyprus police took a statement but refused to provide a written copy as it was against their police. This was 5 months ago and I am still in a battle with Halifax to get any payout. The IPad was bought for £500 but they are only prepared to pay £300 per item. A leather IPad cover worth £65 and back cover worh £25 were also taken. The insurance company have refused to pay for these items as the are classed as 1 item and part of the IPad. Even though these were purchased on different dates in different shops there are still not willing to pay out. Be careful as the manager who I complained to gave an similar example whereby a £2000 camrera lens attached to a £1500 camera body was classed as 1 item and will only pay out for 1.

Please, please be aware that if you rely on this travel insurance given with ultimate reward account that you are NOT covered for a missed flight, for ANY reason. I had my bag stolen at Palma airport on our return trip home with the flight tickets and passports in, ie not our fault we were robbed! They took just over 2 months to pay out, and that was for the cost of emergency passports for us, 2 additional nights accomodation and a camera plus phone. The excess was 250. Whikst being stranded for 48 hours with no money and no phone, I tried ringing them for emergency cash and they passed me back and forth to visa in america and because i didnt have a number to give them to call me back on (i was ringing them hysterically from the british consulate) they wouldnt give me my money. Thanks to a good friend in UK and the dodgy western union we managed to receive money to enable us to get some food & water and pay for the taxi to the airport when our rebooked flight left. Before we left for holiday, I rang Halifax to ask if i needed to advise them of my trip, and they said no i didnt, ok fair enough, oh how i wish i had read and went through in detail the policy now. I just assumed if missing the flight was not our fault we would be covered. To add insult to injury, we found there promise of replacing lost or stolen passports once back in the UK a bit of a lie. They dont include the cost of your passport in your settlement, you have to stump up for it and they will redeem when you send them evidence. Shocking! I will never use scant insurance ever again, its been a very expensive mistake for us. And yes, I am one of those people who say 'it will never happen to me, im so carefull' - but it did, and ive paid in more ways than one. Never again.

This account is fine until you try using some of the services that you are paying £12.50 a month for. I was unfortunate enough to have the mobile home that I was holidaying in burgled, whilst in the south of France. I thought I would be insured with my travel insurance through my Ultimate Reward Account, the reason for refusing to pay out that my valuables were not in a safe, unfortunately I did not have this luxury. I am now taking this case to the Financial Ombudsman. They only cover a total of £500 in valuables if you are lucky enough when they do pay out !! I will not be using the Halifax every again they are a absolute joke with substandard customer service.

MY GAS CENTRAL HEATING STOPPED WORKING PM 22/12/09, I PHONED HOME EMERGENCY COVER, THEY SAID THE REPAIR PEOPLE WILL PHONE IN THE MORNING TO ARRANGE TO A VISIT. PM TODAY I PHONED AGAIN, THEY SAID THEY WOULD CONTACT THE REPAIR PEOPLE AND TELL THEM TO PHONE ME. EVENTUALLY THEY PHONED AND SAID WE WILL PHONE YOU ON THE SUNDAY 27/12 AM TO ARRANGE A TIME. DESPITE MY COMPLAINTS THEY SAID IT WAS THE BEST THEY COULD DO. NEW PROBLEMS WERE BEING TOLD 29/12.
COULD THEY SAY FOR SURE THEY WOULD BE OUT SUNDAY, NO STRAIGHT ANSWER.
I PHONED HALIFAX TO COMPLAIN, THE BOOK SAYS 'IF YOU NEED HELP IN A HURRY'?
NO MANAGER ALLOWED TO TAKE CALLS I WAS TOLD, WHAT KIND OF COMPANY IS THIS. THEY TOLD ME TO COMPLAIN TO HOME PLAN, WHO SAID COMPLAIN TO THE REPAIR PEOPLE.I CANCELLED MY CONTRACT WITH BRITISH GAS WHEN I MOVED TO ULTIMATE REWARD. BIG MISTAKE, NO ONE FROM HALIFAX, HOMEPLAN, REPAIR MEN COULD HELP, ITS THE WEATHER THEY SAID, DONT WE HAVE WINTER EVERY YEAR?

I applied to Halifax after 10 years of having their Visa Electron account. I have a bad credit history and everytime I have been in the bank (I do most of my banking online) I am always offered to upgrade my account but due to poor credit have never been successful. Last month there was an "upgrade this account" button on the website so I clicked it. It took all my details then about 4 days later there was a new account online. I got a letter from the Halifax stating that to upgrade, I had to send them proof of ID and proof of signature. I also have to deposit £100 in the account before they will send me a debit card.

It states if you deposit £1000 in the account per month you will receive £5. That sounds all well and good, but the account costs £12.50 a month.

There are so called benefits such as travel insurance etc, discount from a florist and the list goes on, many things which I probably wouldn't use and even if I did, I could probably get cheaper prices online i.e. without the bank receiving some kind of comission for being the middle man!