I’ve just signed up to Monzo & am driving to Bruges at the end of the month but don’t see a travelling topic for Belgium.
I assume there won’t be any issues using the card, but was curious about any fees or anything unexpected I should be aware of?
I go to Belgium at least once a month (Belgian, living in the UK). Never had a problem with my card there.
Just back from Brussels and Bruges and no issues (bar last Sunday’s outage). Most shops/bars seemed to have min spend limits so useful to carry a bit of cash
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Hi, I’ve only just received my card (last Tuesday) and the following day rode my motorcycle to Belgium, looking forward to trying out Monzo.
The first petrol station in Belgium I tried - transaction refused
The second petrol station - transaction refused
Ok, no big deal, I had another card, but I was a bit perplexed
On arriving at my destination and booting up my tablet, I found Monzo had messaged me to explain why my card had been declined - apparently the auto payment machines in Belgium tried to pre-approve a charge of £110.30 - so, even though I only wanted to buy around 25 Euro of fuel, the transaction was over my spend limit.
Ho Hum !
Sadly I didn’t get another opportunity to use my Monzo card on this trip, but we’re going back in September - older and wiser
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Pay at pumps is a known issue and applies to all prepay cards. If you have the option to pay at kiosk it should work with Chip & PIN, and also contactless if within the limit.
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Cheers Bob, It’s not an issue I’d come across before, and there was no kiosk option available at the two places I tried.
At least the communication from Monzo via the App explained exactly what the problem was
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I had no problem using an ATM to withdraw cash at a Belfius Bank, and I’ve used the card at a Carrefour supermarket and a chocolate shop in Bruges.
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Card acceptance in Belgium is wide spread, and apart from the odd exception, all shops accept MasterCard (and Monzo). There will usually be a minimum spend, between 10-25EUROS for card use. So always good to have some cash for buying bread etc
I have not come across any ATM where Monzo is not accepted.
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Seamless experience as usual whilst in Brussels this weekend just gone for the beer festival, contactless worked everywhere and didn’t encounter any minimum spend bother (lowest transaction was €3). Only took out €50 cash for 
tokens, before realising there was a much shorter queue for card payments 
definitely recommend going though if you’re a fan of the Belgian tipples.
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I was also in Brussels a few weeks ago and had exactly the same seamless experience. Paid mostly with contactless and also took out some Euros.
No problems anywhere with the card, even when making small transactions. Very satisfied traveller.
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Went to Bruges for a long weekend via a P&O mini cruise. Had no problems anywhere, even on the ferry when were mid-North sea…even the contactless worked perfectly.
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Corespondence from Mastercard Europe:
“As you note in other markets we have ensured the acceptance of Debit Mastercard along side that of Maestro, and this is the plan for The Netherlands (and Belgium) to bring consistency to the global acceptance of our cards. We are working with our partner banks who issue cards, and acquirers who enable retailers to accept payments, to make this change as quickly as possible. We thank you for your patience while we get there.”
Source: Monzo in the Netherlands thread
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a lot of places in bruges are cash only ! struggled to find bars to take card let alone monzo, of those we did monzo worked perfectly
Just got back from Bruges, card acceptance was okay in most places I went! The two exceptions to this were the bar at the Beer Wall (but they had a free cash machine in the entrance so I just withdrew what I needed - the shop took cards though) and a local supermarket in Jabbeke called Okay, which only accepted cash or a Bancontact card 