This review relates only to the CURRENT ACCOUNTS provided by Barclays, especially the Additions Plus account. There is no special category for these and general reviews seem to concentrate on that aspect of banking service.

We have a several hundred pounds overdraft which we run perilously close to the limit, we also try to pay whatever bills are possible by direct debit or standing order. This means that we find ourselves getting over the limit all the time and the ability to pay money in quickly as well as the way the bank deals with charges is of paramount importance to us. This also means that we are almost never in credit and thus the interest rates paid by the account are not important to us.

This was laughably easy. I didn't even need to show an ID with a photograph, my marriage certificate was enough to add me onto my husband's account and in few days I had my very won Barclays Connect card and was free to use the account.

I am not familiar with particular benefit packages offered by premium accounts from other banks, the basics idea seems more or less the same (better interest, insurance, road recovery etc) and if you are starting with no account or just a basic account it's worth to shop around for the package that will have the combination which is most attractive to you.

1) Worldwide family multi-trip insurance from Norwich Union: that means that we never have to bother to arrange it, and it has very reasonable levels of cover, and includes things like skiing and sailing . They claim it's worth £160 a year, I am sure it's possible to find something cheaper but still this benefit alone probably makes up for a lot of the £144 we are paying annually.

3) Up to £250 interest and fee-free overdraft plus 9.9% EAR interest on what's over £250. This means that we pay less interest on our £700 Barclays overdraft than I pay on my significantly smaller Smile one.

5) Service that allows you to register all your cards (not just Barclays) as well as passports and provides one-stop-recovery shop in case they are lost.

To summarize, just the motor recovery, travel insurance and extra interest on overdrafts would cost us more than we pay for the account - overall it' s a good value package, of course *providing you would really buy the services anyway elsewhere*. This is important, as otherwise you end up paying for things 'just in case' and losing money overall.

Barclays offer branches, telephone and internet banking. The only situations we use telephone is to query things that go wrong or to beg for charges reversal, and our everyday running of the account is done face-to-face or online.

4) As for now, Barclays charge a whooping £25 for getting over the limit, once a day, up to three times in a month. I have to say though, that in the last year of operating like that the only time we have been charged was when we were on holiday in Greece and didn't make it back in time to rectify, and even then they eventually agreed to reverse two of the three charges. It has been usually possible to talk ourselves out of 2 of each 3 charges if we incurred them, but even £25 is a lot! But there is no daily charge. Overall I think thay are worse than some but better than others on the charge front. There is also a small buffer zone (I think it's £10 which means you won't get charged £25 for getting over by 50 pence which happened to me few times with Smile).

6) They don't charge for withdrawals from any cash machine in the UK (and were the first not to).

8) They offer amongst the most competitive charges for paying in foreign currency (at least US dollar) cheques. They are still stupidly high, though, but better than some banks, especially building societies.

I like Barclay's internet site. Access is through a customer number which can be saved on your computer, 5 digit pin-code and a password with drop-down letter menus (presumably too fool key-stroke tracking devices). Transactions can be viewed and direct debits, standing orders and all usual transactions can be performed through the website without particular problems, though the site tends to be slow(ish) so it might be bit cumbersome on a dial-up connection.

The only problem I have with the online facility is that it only allows you to view 30 days of transactions, which for a person as prone to loosing or accidentally binning statements is a bit of a problem as copies cost £5.

We use a local branch in Dover (our account is originally in Hull but that doesn't seem to make any difference) and although the people behind the counters are courteous and friendly, they don't seem to have much authority to do anything. Phoning the call centre seems to be a better way to achieve things than visiting the branch which as far as I am concerned is only good to (a) pay the cash and cheques in to get them credited quickly (b) try to sell you new products. I had a problem with a cashpoint once (non-Barclays one) which didn't pay out money I desired despite debiting my account and even for such a simple query I was send to telephone somewhere rather than dealt with at the branch.

The package of benefits provided by Additions Plus account can be of some value (though there might be one somewhere else that is better for you), especially for people who buy annual travel insurance and want full-package road recovery service.

Customer service is pretty average, so far we had no disasters and nothing to particularly commend either.