Magstripe activation - enhancements

Feedback & Ideas
1

Hi, I’m travelling in Nepal right now, where roaming is prohibitively expensive, so hopping from cafe to hotel to pub wifi - but online only intermittently. Until now, I’ve been unable to use my card, which is a shame because it’s served me so well this trip until this point. I therefore have the following suggestions:

  1. When Monzo first detects I’ve arrived in a “magstripe country”, could magstripe be activated automatically for a small period (e.g. 3-4 hours) so - for example - I can withdraw cash from an ATM at the airport even without requiring data access to activate it? Alternatively (because you may need me to have data access to ascertain I am in one of those countries), could I activate it by sending :monzo: a SMS?

  2. Could activating magstripe always work for the next 23 hours? Currently, the app doesn’t allow me to extend the active period - so for example if I activated magstripe at 4pm yesterday and at 2pm today, try to reactivate it for a further 23 hours, I’m told that magstripe is already on but only for another hour - and to reactivate it after that - which constrains me and doesn’t allow me to get on with my travel plans. It should (IMHO) always be possible to enable/extend enablement by 23 hours, so the functionality fits around my plans rather than the opposite.

I’d appreciate your thoughts. Many thanks. J

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2

What I did when I was in India last month was go into the Chat and ask them to turn it on for the entire duration of my trip. They did it without any problems,

I know this doesn’t address your automation request but I just wanted to let you know this is a possibility.

Ashley

2 Likes
3

Hey @asheng , thanks a lot. That’s a solution I hadn’t considered. While not scalable, it would certainly have addressed the issues I had. I’m aiming to be in India later this week, so will consider getting in touch with them.

Thanks again :+1:

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