It’s early days for me and Mondo, but generally I like the UI, speed and so on. I can see the value in tracking day to day spending; it feels like it’s something that would have been super useful to me when money was tight and I needed to care about whether I’d spent £20-30 on coffee and sandwiches.
But I’m in my late 30s now, and at the point in my life where I’m lucky enough not to worry about day to day spending. So I wonder what Mondo offers besides a nice UI and nagging sense of guilt about my coffee spend.
What can Mondo offer to make it a go-to proposition for people who aren’t watching the pennies?
The card I use for my big money purchases offers airline miles - I spend £20k and get a free companion voucher (ie get one flight on points, get the same again).
Realistically it would take a lot to tempt me away from my existing CC provider long term, given the value I get from it. Could Mondo consider similar partnerships/incentive schemes?
Great suggestion Sharon.
I think this isn’t necessarily just for well off people. It’s getting something for nothing. Even for 20-something kids like me.
Why would I use my Mondo debit even for small everyday things like coffee or TfL fares when I can put everything on my BA Amex/cash back card? This way I get points for all my spending. Plus I don’t have to pay it back until the next month. Amex’s online system and app is pretty good too and in real time.
However, I do love what Mondo is trying to do and achieve and the sooner they establish themselves, the sooner they can implement gamification or loyalty schemes such as this. If mondo can help you budget and save more, you can go on more holidays abroad.
Also, in the business side of things, AMEX charges a lot for card acceptance. Not sure how this will be recouped for free services like Mondo. It’s great to have options though, and if you have good enough credit - why not have the best of both worlds?
I had the same concerns as you, Sharon. However, once I stopped thinking about Mondo as a competitor to my Amex and rather for what it is, a competitor for my current account, it all made sense.
I wrote down some of my initial thoughts on this in the following post
when telling people about Monzo this is the biggest push back i get. why would i stop using my cards that give me points for spending and use this to give me better transparency.
its a tough question.
What i would ask @tom or any Monzo employee is if your vision is to become the best current account in the world. What plans do you have to offer incentives to use my Monzo card over my BA card? is a partnership with Avios a possibility? or is it impossible for a current account to offer such expensive rewards.
which, as far as I’m aware, is the last that we’ve heard from :mondo: on this topic.
Tom has also mentioned that he’s working on a blog post which will hopefully give some sense of how this issue (which is the biggest challenge, when it comes to attracting new users, that I can see for :mondo: too), will be addressed either directly or indirectly…
I know the original poster was thinking about more high value loyalty schemes but there are a lot of chains that I regularly visit that offer free goods after a certain number of transactions, it would be interesting to know whether the card could tie in with those loyalty schemes. I know I’d appreciate not having to carry around a card or get stamps every time I go to certain chains.
Example:
Caffe Nero = Free coffee on 10th transaction
I know Leon and Nandos do something similar and I’m sure there are many more
On iOS (Don’t know about Android) Nero has an app now that you can register a card with (or just use a Apple Wallet loyalty card) that records your transactions and 10th coffee is free.
Bink is also trying something similar with other loyalty schemes.
Assuming you use the Targets (or perhaps, even if you don’t), I’d be interested to hear how much more you save from the loyalty points vs being able to track your spending & save using Monzo -
The amex is valuable to me because I travel a lot for work and so build up a significant avios balance which the 241 doubles for me.
Once I cut down on my travel, I’d be much more interested in a cashback reward scheme that pays back immediately rather than making me wait for the anniversary of the card.
I suspect that the 0.3% cap on merchant fees will eventually kill all reward schemes - when that happens, I’ll use my monzo card more!
This is precisely where I am. I buy almost everything on my Amex and get
one 2-4-1 voucher a year, which I use for an essentially free long-haul,
business class return flight. I use Monzo abroad (cheap forex rates + lower
risk of card fraud), but in the UK it gets used only when they don’t accept
Amex.
Really I will put up with a LOT of bad UX for a free flight once a year.
This was the biggest blocker to me adopting Monzo. I decided to trial it for a while mostly because I’m curious whether it could save me more just from the budgeting, but once it’s helped me track spending for a while I imagine the cards with rewards will start getting more use again. I get 1% as points with AmEx (plus the lounge passes, 241, etc) and 0.5% cash with Visa.
But if it just becomes a hidden cost, then I would prefer the transparency…
I think it’s not just the big ticket things, like Santander does offers you can select that are valid for maybe a month or a week, and on your next purchase you get 20% off at a certain restaurant on that card or at New Look etc. It doesn’t have to be a long term partnership, or something placed online, even little things like “if you pay using monzo at ____ you get free soup!”/ a small discount!
Many stores in shopping malls (in Singapore) do this so I think it could be feasible doing a partnership in London (where most monzo cards are) at a small cafe, or with Pret.?
Interesting thread. I am in the same boat and utilise credit cards for everything I can. BA Amex first to hit the 2-4-1 and an IHG MasterCard for anywhere that does not accept Ame, along with various other cards hat are rotated for sign up bonuses. I literally do not use my debit card. I have a Monzo card but it sits in the drawer unused so am interested to see what the thinking is to entice me - or am I simply not the type of person they are trying to attract?
With the reduction in interchange fees I think we are more likely to see an increase in the number of chards that have a yearly fee - which if the reward is great enough I would be happy to pay - I already pay £195 for the Amex and £99 for the IHG as I know the benefit far outweighs the cost.
Another one in the AMEX club here. I may be able to be tempted to bring my current account over to Monzo when they launch. Monzo’s UX > than that of First Direct and fee free cash overseas is great, but I would be forgoing a fee free interest free overdraft, so it’s a bit of a wash at the moment. I’d love to see Monzo offering a way to hold Euros and Dollars similar to Revolut, that would definitely make for a hugely compelling offering.
However in terms of a card for day-to-day spending, as a relatively economically rational individual, why wouldn’t I do that on a card which offers rewards? AMEX rewards can be pretty significant depending on annual spend levels.
I’m in the same category as well. I’ve a cashback Barclaycard (from the Egg Money days) and collect 0.5-1% on all my purchases. It adds up! So primarily I use my Monzo card for contactless payments around my office so it’s easy to see what I spend on lunch and coffee separate from my big spending, but realistically it’s unlikely to become my main credit card. I do see it becoming my main current account, but that’s hardly something for a bank to write home about, my current account has half a dozen transactions each month.
on this quote to see the full post.