Let’s hope we hear early in the New Year. I’ve got a couple of years left before my youngest is eligible for a ‘real’ Monzo account.
The hold is the basic issue. If you check into a £50/night hotel for five days, they will likely put a hold on 5 x £100 = £500. That’s OK if you can do without that £500 for a few weeks until the hold drops off, but on a credit card it generally doesn’t matter.
Also, not all hotels will accept a debit card. Car hire places generally do these days but there’s a large hold (nearly £2000 in the summer for me, though on a credit card).
But we digress. Basically Junior #1 wouldn’t have enough on his debit card to run to a large hold by a hotel so I’m happier that he has a credit card.
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Not really a core ‘skill’ that an <18 year old needs to learn, though, is it?
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What kind of emergencies are your kids getting into where they need to spend 5 nights in a hotel?
Where all other options of you paying online, over the phone or transferring them money isn’t an option.
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Potentially yes. Both mine were off twice to a week long residential course at 16.
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If I knew in advance, then it wouldn’t be an emergency. However, that business if the Iceland volcano that grounded flights a few years back would have potentially been one such case if it had happened a few years later.
The thing is, if the kids aren’t with me, I don’t want to have them panicking because they can’t do something simple like check into a hotel if they needed to.
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If the kids are 16 travelling abroad by themselves and their flight back was delayed I would book the hotel for them remotely.
If they turned up to the hotel unplanned without phones and cash then you would expect the hotel to call through to take a card over the phone.
I’m not entirely sure of the laws in Iceland if you need to be 18+ but a lot of hotels won’t let kids book a room.
That aside in the general day to day world in the UK they don’t really need a credit card surely.
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Fully agree with that. It’s the times when things don’t go well that the credit card is there.
Also appreciate that in principle I could book it for them. I just prefer them to have the ability to book in there and then if they needed to.
As I say, it’s not for normal use. It’s for the things that happen unexpectedly. Who’d have thought that all flights in Europe would have to be grounded due to a volcano in Iceland?
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Also worth noting that when things do go wrong (e.g. flights cancelled), there are queues of people trying to get into a hotel. I think it’s much better if they can just walk into a hotel and check in if they need to.
Just before Christmas, the older one was very close to having to do just that. And, no, you can’t always book them in online in those circumstances. Hotels don’t list all their rooms on, say, booking.com, and can appear full even though they still have rooms available (which a walk-in can book).
Just to be clear, they’ve not, yet, had to use the card but it was close a few times.
Worth checking before visiting anywhere to check if they can book legally, and that the hotel is accepting of minors booking rooms.
Don’t know if they booked on their phone and rocked up it would pass.
If you went to USA for eg some states laws will be 18/21+ to book.
Fancy hotels won’t overlook that but some motels just want the money. Don’t think I would be comfortable leaving my kids without someone I know looking after them at 16 in America tbh.
The youngest I was when I took a credit card on holiday was 18yr, never used it but in case I got into trouble.
That was Japan 
Phones were basic back then. Call and SMS only.
It was cutup on returning 
Same here. First time turning up in Canada and saying ‘charge it’, it was declined as out of my normal spending pattern. Took an hour or more to get that sorted out and being able to drive away.
My eldest is OK as he’s over 18 now and, as I say, we never needed to use the card in anger before he hit 18 nor Indeed since then.
I’m not overly keen on giving an 18 year old a credit card regardless of whether they’re of legal age, never mind younger.
I got my first credit card when I was 18 and the temptation became too much before I started buying bits of things on it with the thought that I’d get the products right now and pay it off when I get paid. The more I used the card the higher of a limit I kept getting and before I knew it I’d racked up a sizeable amount of debt because it was all a “future me” problem.
Granted all 18 year olds are not the same as me, but I’d be surprised if I was in the minority. It was not a major amount of debt but enough to take a few years to clear, which in hindsight I wish I’d have known more and been more responsible.
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I can appreciate where you’re coming from. My own experience was different in that I was paying off the bills as they came in even as the limits went up. I expect our own experience colours what we might consider in this for our own children.
Both of them are more savers than spenders which is something that likely helps me in being OK about taking the card. They’re both very much into the CASS bonuses now that they’ve caught on that they’re old enough to do that. Very much a YMMV thing.
For me, it’s more important that they have that ‘insurance’ of having a card and, thus far, they’ve not needed to use it. I’ve always had a credit card when going places and would think it strange that they didn’t.
I do take your point about travelling and taking a supplementary credit card ‘just in case’, but your whole point was that your kids use the card all the time, at home, which I would say is not the best financial education, for the reasons stated about normalising debt.
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Ah. No, they have it for emergencies that may arise. They’ve never actually used It and wouldn’t be doing so daily. That said, the older one is thinking of using it but putting the money to one side as they use it which seems like a reasonable way into using a credit card and getting used to bills.
The older one is at uni so does a fair bit of travelling back and forth. As noted above, a couple of times he’s encountered complications so more reassuring for me for him to be able to use It for a hotel if need be.
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Great name btw
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Bumping this up - any thoughts or insight on under 16 accounts?!
Well that was just from an app teardown. No actual confirmation anywhere of implementation or timeline?