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 !!
Maybe theyâre just jealous that not only are they no longer the only ones using bright a bright shade of orange as a marketing colour, Monzoâs is UV reactiveâŚ
Isnât it against MasterCardâs rules that they are denying certain banks ?
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
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.
Itâs 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. Itâs uncommon, but it sucks because you canât 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 donât 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.
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 âsorry, are you the captain?â
Sometimes they need to be put in their place, you are here for the safety of the aircraft. Youâre not here to dictate what payment methods can be used, theyâre clearly set out by the airline and advertised in in flight magazines. You canât say Iâll take Mr Jonesâs Mastercard but not yours, it doesnât work like that!
On a side note, Iâve just asked a friend of mine who is cabin crew for EasyJet and she hasnât heard a thing about Monzo. She didnât even know what it was, so no idea where this came from!
Unfortunately, as Iâm sure you know, it does work like that while youâre 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, Iâd 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 theyâre allowed by law to do that - they can do whatever they want (well, this wasnât 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 thatâs a different matter -
but I didnât know that Germany had those protections at the time. Also, Iâm hardly going to stand up for myself in a tiny metal tubeâŚ). Lufthansa was great, and actually refunded me the flight and wrote a very sincere apology.
I canât 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 - theyâve made it clear they generally donât.
Certainly, they have a right to override the Mastercard Rules. Their broad âwhatever we say is literally lawâ 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. Itâs a power a few abuse, sadly. Most are great, so itâs unfortunate some choose to abuse it.
Legally, yes. But their employer will likely take a dim view on this.
Donât get me wrong, most crew are great. Iâve never encountered any bad crew as a passenger. The handful of times Iâve 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.
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.
Wow, LOL. On the same flight⌠(nothing surprises me just⌠youâd think some consistency). Out of curiosity, were these online or offline purchases? I didnât know EasyJet had Internet on board, but I wouldnât have expected an offline decline based on geography to have been possible.
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 âRyanairâ the unsuccessful one as âRyanair Inflightâ 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 didnât think Easyjet had online processing, but to be fair, itâs been a few years since I made an in-flight purchase. Maybe Iâll have to buy an overpriced sandwich on my trip to see my mum and grandparents on Saturday, just to test it LOL.
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.
Iâve flew from Manchester to Amsterdam and used my Monzo card, which worked fine but the payment alerted the next day as âdelayedâ (Panic set in for a sec because of âEasyJetâ and âDelayedâ 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 donât accept Monzo because itâs âan internet cardâ and something about payments being delayed and customers being able to spend the money again once they landed. He implied that EasyJet didnât get paid because of the delayed aspect of their transaction. Other than saying it was accepted yesterday and receiving âthey shouldnât have doneâ as a response I didnât 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.
Hey, this was raised recently on this thread below. Hopefully it gets resolved soon!
Mastercard are looking into it.
Interesting to know easyJet still havenât resolved it yet though. I havenât 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.
Thanks for letting us know about this and Iâm so sorry
We have already reached out to Mastercard who are working with EasyJet to ensure everyone is aware that all Mastercards must be accepted.