Flying with easyJet

I have flown EasyJet three times this summer and was able to use my Monzo card on all trips except for the third return trip when I was told Monzo was not accepted on Easyjet. Despite my trying to explain that I had used it on previous flights they were adamant that it had never been a card that was accepted on their airline and refused to let me use it! So Beware !!

1 Like

Maybe they’re just jealous that not only are they no longer the only ones using bright a bright shade of orange as a marketing colour, Monzo’s is UV reactive…

1 Like

Isn’t it against MasterCard’s rules that they are denying certain banks ?

2 Likes

Hey @Dragon, Mickey from Monzo here.

Thanks for flagging this with us.

We know that our community love using our cards on holiday for so many reasons, and it would be sad if this was something that was happening wide spread.

I will dig into this and hopefully try and get a better understanding, and hopefully resolve the issue :rocket:

6 Likes
1 Like

Used my Monzo card to pay for a few inflight purchases with EasyJet, not usually a problem.

Overzealous cabin crew sometimes make their own rules up though, next time speak to the cabin service manager. If their machine accepts the card, there should be no reason they refuse to take it.

Ryanair on the other hand, early days of the current account I had problems using it for onboard purchases. Not anymore, works a dream.

2 Likes

It’s unfortunate but sometimes you get a cabin crew on any airline that are on a power trip and love making up rules just because they can. It’s uncommon, but it sucks because you can’t argue with them. Due to the safety critical nature of their role, they have broad authority to do ANYTHING.

If they asked you to commit a crime or if they did something truly horrible, I don’t think that would stand up in court (hopefully we will never have to find out). But otherwise, what they say very literally is law. No matter how silly or ridiculous it is.

2 Likes

Having being a dispatcher for too long I know first hand how difficult some of the cabin crew can be. One reported me for saying “sorry, are you the captain?” :joy::see_no_evil:

Sometimes they need to be put in their place, you are here for the safety of the aircraft. You’re not here to dictate what payment methods can be used, they’re clearly set out by the airline and advertised in in flight magazines. You can’t say I’ll take Mr Jones’s Mastercard but not yours, it doesn’t work like that!

On a side note, I’ve just asked a friend of mine who is cabin crew for EasyJet and she hasn’t heard a thing about Monzo. She didn’t even know what it was, so no idea where this came from!

1 Like

Unfortunately, as I’m sure you know, it does work like that while you’re in the air. The legal authority they have is extremely broad, and certainly trumps the honour all cards Mastercard Rule.

As I said there are likely to be extreme cases where courts would find in your favour against the actions of a flight attendant. Certainly if they did something to you that was illegal, I’d expect that to be punished by the courts - and for them to not charge you for fighting back against it if necessary for your physical safety.

But, as an example, my worst experience was dealing with blatant homophobia on a Lufthansa flight once. I sat and put up with it, because they’re allowed by law to do that - they can do whatever they want (well, this wasn’t strictly true, Germany has had non-discrimination protections on the basis of gender identity since 2006, and as I said if they commit a crime against you that’s a different matter -
but I didn’t know that Germany had those protections at the time. Also, I’m hardly going to stand up for myself in a tiny metal tube…). Lufthansa was great, and actually refunded me the flight and wrote a very sincere apology.

I can’t fault Lufthansa. It was one horrible flight, and I think the crew was actually normally an SAS crew (they share some operations out of Stockholm). Lufthansa handled it as well as anyone can imagine.

Now, on the flip side - the more mundane day-to-day awful flight crews, in my experiences United has some really terribly rude flight crews who make up non-existent rules. All you can do is obey them and complain later. Not that United cares - they’ve made it clear they generally don’t.

Certainly, they have a right to override the Mastercard Rules. Their broad ‘whatever we say is literally law’ authority trumps a private business contract. Sucks, but it is what it is. Flight attendants are one of a very few groups of people who can make up rules on the spot and those rules are legally binding. It’s a power a few abuse, sadly. Most are great, so it’s unfortunate some choose to abuse it.

Legally, yes. But their employer will likely take a dim view on this.

Don’t get me wrong, most crew are great. I’ve never encountered any bad crew as a passenger. The handful of times I’ve encountered those a bit above their stations is whilst working in partnership with them. I stood my ground and never had an issue, they can file their reports and I can file mine.

1 Like

Their handheld terminals can also be configured differently. On one flight I made two purchases with a bunq debit card (my Monzo card arrived while I was away), the merchant data on one indicated the purchase was made in Ireland, the other indicated UK. Hence one failed my security settings where I had whitelisted the UK and my destination of Estonia, while the other went thru OK.

1 Like

Wow, LOL. On the same flight… (nothing surprises me just… you’d think some consistency). Out of curiosity, were these online or offline purchases? I didn’t know EasyJet had Internet on board, but I wouldn’t have expected an offline decline based on geography to have been possible.

1 Like

The decline happened midair on the flight between Stanstead and Tallinn, I assume the terminals are therefore able to connect via some downlink to the internet. Also when I landed the app shows the failed and successful transactions timed as while onboard and not processed later such as when landed. The successful transaction terminal was configured as “Ryanair” the unsuccessful one as “Ryanair Inflight” so merchants can be so inconsistent!

Ah, this was on Ryanair. And yes, modern planes have Internet and can do online processing (and non-budget airlines have WiFi for passengers too). I didn’t think Easyjet had online processing, but to be fair, it’s been a few years since I made an in-flight purchase. Maybe I’ll have to buy an overpriced sandwich on my trip to see my mum and grandparents on Saturday, just to test it LOL.

2 Likes

Yet, they are advertising Starling on their boarding passes!

I have used my monzo on Easyjet, I have not used my current account yet on flights, but flying BA and will test it on there in the 27th.

I’ve flew from Manchester to Amsterdam and used my Monzo card, which worked fine but the payment alerted the next day as “delayed” (Panic set in for a sec because of “EasyJet” and “Delayed” in a notification!).

I flew back the following day on easyJet again and the guy that served me (I guess he was one of the more important ones as he made all the announcements) told me they don’t accept Monzo because it’s “an internet card” and something about payments being delayed and customers being able to spend the money again once they landed. He implied that EasyJet didn’t get paid because of the delayed aspect of their transaction. Other than saying it was accepted yesterday and receiving “they shouldn’t have done” as a response I didn’t question any further and just used a different card.

Perhaps an issue with MasterCard pre-pay back when that was the default?

21:50 AMS->MAN if you want to investigate.

1 Like

Hey, this was raised recently on this thread below. Hopefully it gets resolved soon!
Mastercard are looking into it.

Interesting to know easyJet still haven’t resolved it yet though. I haven’t heard of issues with other airlines. Sounds like miss communication from the pre paid card says or something.

It would be easier for Monzo customers to make the case that it is a normal bank account debit card if the sort code and account number were on the card, I suppose.

2 Likes

Thanks for letting us know about this and I’m so sorry :grimacing:

We have already reached out to Mastercard who are working with EasyJet to ensure everyone is aware that all Mastercards must be accepted.

5 Likes