If you want to compare banks only then high street banks have better deals than Monzo such as cashback with certain retailers.
But yeah, as you said not an excuse for Monzo.
• Metal card
This is the biggest issue I have with premium, by labelling the card as £50 you are essentially saying to someone whether you like it or not you are paying £50 for this card.
Said it before but I have not and will never be tempted in a metal card so effectively you have created a barrier to entry for me as I feel like I am paying for something I don’t want
If you offered me the option to pay £15 PM for the metal card or £10 PM without which you can do if you value the card at £50 I would be much more tempted to sign-up. The card is a barrier to me rather than a perk.
• Phone insurance, from Assurant
This is good for those who need it and looking at the cover it seems good.
• Worldwide family travel insurance, from AXA
Again a plus and covering family as well (pandemic excluded)
• Discounted airport lounge access, from LoungeKey
Not actually discounted at all as it’s £25 usually so it’s cheaper to just pay manually and not have premium - maybe include one pass for free would have been good?
• 1.50%/1.49% AER/Gross (variable) interest on up to £2,000
This is good in the current climate
• £600 fee-free cash withdrawals abroad
Free on starling and every other bank, this isn’t a perk and should be bog standard with any bank
• 5 free cash deposits a month
Free with almost every bank and easier not using paypoint – is the limit the same £1000 every 6 months as if so it defeats the object of it?
Please just use the post office at least - it’s the main reason I have started to transition to starling.
• Other accounts, in Monzo
This is good and I like the integration especially with Amex. As mentioned if you could do an automatic bot to mirror the balance of the credit card and then have the money come out of this every month - wow.
• Virtual cards
Not full cards – cannot add to google pay, cannot freeze, cannot use as a bill pots card unfortunately for me this is one of the biggest issues with VC
• Credit Tracker
Meh, nice all in one place I rarely check it and when I do it’s through the MSE credit club which also gives me % chance of being accepted for a card etc
• Offers
No point going over these seeing as they have been abandoned.
• Custom categories
Good but cannot apply to all tranactions – would be good if this could be automated in some way e.g. for all x business to automitcally split and assign
• Multiple categories per transaction
Good but see above
• Advanced roundups
Free with IFTT
• Auto-export transactions
Good for those who need it
Overall I think it is a good start, lots of things I can see people liking, for me like Premium has no stand out factor and the metal card is a £50 waste of my money but unfortunately I am realising that what I really want is an app based bank that does the basics. I want to get my salary in sort the money and if I get cash or cheque pay it in and Monzo is no longer that for me. Can’t remember who said it but Monzo is a tech company first and bank second where as Starling is a bank first and tech second.
For me I would want:
Cheque Imaging, Post Office Deposits - for all for free
Auto increase pot to pay off CC, pay subscriptions from pots - added to plus + premium
No Metal card cheaper price - £10 tier
Best of luck with the future plans - please keep us in here updated 3 months of silence with plus doesn’t paint a good picture at all!
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So when I joined Monzo and invested in Monzo I did it because they where different, they went about things differently.
The new Monzo plus had some nice features - virtual cards was my fav.
Monzo Prem what’s different than any other bank or premium service - nothing.
Monzo have gone down the same old dated path as other banks - I understand they need to offer something and bring in additional customers and revenue streams but this just shouts the same old offerings.
I remember loads of posts on the old plus account and ideas, thoughts some extremely competitive and new that other banks don’t offer.
Monzo please don’t follow the same old banking and offerings, stand out and do things different
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I’m curious have you used your NatWest breakdown cover, when my car broke down in Manchester I found it wouldn’t recover me to a garage at home (it’s limited to 20 miles) and I had to get a lift home and then back again to collect my fixed car, after that I bought a cheapo policy that will at least take me home within the UK.
Back to monzo premium, though I’d miss my home emergency cover from NatWest and the phone cover for the family (max 4 claims a year) but on the other hand I’d be saving £11.50 a month
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That’s something I’m thinking of. It’s part of a broader out of home valuables cover but realistically a mobile phone is the most likely thing to be stolen so it might be worth insuring outside the policy upon renewal, perhaps within Monzo Premium.
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I want to but nationwide is just better.
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Any suggestions that are cash positive?
I think it depends how you look at it. The Nationwide one that is mentioned a lot in this thread is a similar price and no metal card.
Obviously Monzo want you for longer to cover the cost of the card but at that point it’s covered.
I think a big problem down the road is going to be the cost of replacing it. They’ve recently added the fee for replacements and if you lose a second card (not sure if you get one free metal loss) then paying £5 for a coral/plus will irk, but not the end of the world. But being told it’s £50! Not everyone will have that to get another card. I would imagine the staff discretion to give them out will be tougher too.
For me, at least, that counts as a plus.
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I think it’s interesting wording either way; to me this reads as:
- If the FCDO declare travel restrictions, while you are in the air, and the reason is not for a pandemic - you are covered.
- If the FCDO declare restrictions, while you are in the air, and it is because of a WHO declared pandemic, then you are not covered.
i.e. the change while you are travelling is due to pandemic, then no claim.
Equally, in the excluded section - lets say you book, today, your summer hols for June 2021. On May 30th, the FCDO declare that all travel to [Location] is not advised due to a Pandemic - that is also not covered.
I just find this section super interesting, because this specific wordign about Pandemics/WHO is generally not present pre Covid, so they are not specifically excluded, nor are they included.
But now there’s a place where all travel insurance companies are exlcuding all future unknown pandemics, wether covid related or not.
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I am just wondering if the metal card will get damged if you use them in atm due to thickness
Monzo Plus says:
Where as Monzo Premium says:
and also:
So I think that there will be no free replacement, unless your card is faulty cough cough
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I agree. I’m happy enough with it being plastic and not £50 if I lose it.
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Used Curve metal cards in ATMs for over a year now, no issue.
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This is going to be a big surprise to someone when they lose it!
“Not a problem Ben, we can sort you a replacement metal card - could you just ping us a photo with you holding it?”
…erm…
Agreed! We got caught out by a particular company (for a staycation) providing a link to their T&Cs on the confirmation, rather than the actual conditions, and I found they’d specifically added an exclusion for pandemics/Covid around the time of lockdown to avoid having to return funds in the event of a closure/cancellation. I think they learned a lot about how the internet works, and how powerful the wayback machine actually is!
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Well so I better be taking my daily selfie with my Monzo card right?!
“and if you can just include one with today’s newspaper that would be great…”
Errrrr…
Very wise - I’ve got in the habit of doing a way back machine link on anything time sensitive… has saved me a few £ every once in a while
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So with Nationwide, you get breakdown for both card holders, phone insurance for the family and family travel insurance all for cheaper than the Monzo giving. As much as I would love that metal card! I can’t justify it!!
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Why are the offers so bad?
With a minimum effort they could get much better offers from popular retailers.
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Ohh what’s this