I need to book car hire for a holiday but they all request a credit card for a deposit, I don’t have a credit card with a high enough limit. Can I use my Monzo as it is a mastercard?
Not if they check that it’s a credit card.
1 Like
As @Feathers says, no as the BIN of the card (535522) reports as a mastercard debit card.
There are 3 types of mastercard.
One is a Mastercard debit - which is Monzo for example
One is a Mastercard credit - which is a credit card
One is a Mastercard prepay card - does what it says on the tin
Hopefully this answers your question.
1 Like
@ordog Feel like you missed an opportunity for an everything else MasterCard joke
6 Likes
When using a debit card in the US you can.
Debit cards normally go though the interbank networks such as Pulse or Star, but you can chose the Credit option and then the use the Credit Card networks such as MasterCard and Visa. This usually results higher fees for the merchant, but also more rewards for the in the cardholder. PIN is not required if using the Credit Card option.
I recently used my Monzo card when hiring a car in France and had no problems at all. It may depend on the hire car company but Sixt didn’t check at all, as long as the money was there they were happy.
It might be worth mentioning that some car/van rental places (I know Enterprise did it on my Amex) will charge the entire ‘deposit’ amount to the card on pickup (and, IIRC, the insurance ‘waiver’ amount) and refund/cancel it on the vehicle return. On a credit card, this won’t really be much of an issue as most credit cards don’t start charging interest for at least 30 days - however, on a debit card (such as Monzo), that money will be instantly “gone” from your account (if you have at least that much money just sitting in your account) and you’ll have to wait for it to be refunded: and most people have a ‘higher available balance’ on their credit cards then they do have funds in their current (debit card) account.
3 Likes
bunq do a prepaid credit card
Isn’t their credit card Travel card a debit card in disguise 
? Or are you loading it up? Edit: Yeah seems you top it up.
Afaik its a credit card to fool merchants into accepting it, but its just debiting your account behind the scenes.
They call it a credit card. But there’s no credit.
Are there any other cards that do this, I assume Mastercard are happy they are doing this and merchants none the wiser.
Anything to stop Monzo offering a “travel” credit card like this?
Quite a cool a cool card design.
Some hire companies will let you use debit card if you pay for their insurance so there is no excess fee. It’s usually quite expensive extra £8-10 per day.
Yeah, this is the case with Avis, Guerin and Europcar in my experience. I usually do this to avoid them getting the microscope out at the point of return but yes, it is expensive!
In my experience it’s cheaper to rent from reputable company (meaning no Gold Car, Green Motion etc) and buy excess insurance from other company, which is much cheaper.
2 Likes
Totally agree with this. I recently used RentalCover and it was a good experience, granted I didn’t actually need to claim but it was much cheaper.
1 Like
I hadn’t heard of this before, sounds like a good idea for scenarios like OP’s! Would be a nice offering.