Metal Card Abroad (Turkey)

Monzo Chat Travelling with Monzo
1

As someone who regularly visits Turkey for work I have found Monzo very useful throughout the four years I’ve had an account with them.

On switching to Monzo premium recently and receiving the metal card; I have twice has cash machines in Turkey swallow the card (basically it gets stuck and the default is to take it rather than keep trying to spit it out- makes sense really). Most bank machines do accept contactless withdrawal but not from Monzo or my UK HSBC card.

My point to this is just to be aware. It’s really easy to retrieve your card in the bank branch, just take your passport. I would also avoid standalone ATM’s for this reason.

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Just got back from Turkey and my metal card workwd flawlessly. Used contactless with pin for many purchases and meal payment in restaurants.

Only used a HSBC ATM for cash withdrawals and it didn’t try to offer me any ‘bank transfer rates’ or hidden charges.

Brilliant.

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:eyes:

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Contactless PIN requirement is actually fairly frequent in many countries in Europe, at least according to my experience.

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Was this the HSBC Global Money card?

It’s a good option if lots of cash is required (above Monzo’s limits).

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Hi, No sorry I was using my Monzo Premium card in a HSBC machine.

I tried to use my card for payment as much as possible (taking care that I checked the price that I was quoted in GBP matched the price that was punched in the card machine in TYL), including meals, after which I just left a cash tip.
We were only in Turkey for a week so my cash withdrawals from Monzo were within the charge free limit (£600 I think).

We’re off to Bali in a few weeks, so I’ll find out how I get on with the card further afield.

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We used it recently in Finland a lot. It’s quite common.

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In my experience in Spain, if you attempt a purchase contactless which is above the contactless limit, the terminal will request a PIN.

It may be different now, as I exclusively use Apple Pay for purchases these days.

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