šŸ‡¦šŸ‡ŗ Monzo in Australia [Discussion]

Monzo Chat Travelling with Monzo
1

Iā€™m just about to travel to Melbourne so it would be great to get some tips on:

  • Card acceptance (specifically MasterCard acceptance)
  • ATMā€™s - which ATMā€™s charge the lowest fees for withdrawals?
  • Using cash - will I need cash for a taxi from the airport or can I wait until I get to my hotel to withdraw some from an ATM?
  • Public transport - are cards accepted?

Iā€™ll update this post to share how I got on when I get back. Looking forward to trying out the new travel reports! :sunglasses:

3

Hey @alexs sorry, only just seen this!

My experience with Mondo in Melbourne in Nov/Dec last year was great :smile:

  • Card acceptance - contactless penetration is very high in Melbourne, so cards are accepted almost everywhere. Look for the Mastercard PayPass symbol, itā€™s everywhere. :credit_card::dash:
  • ATMs - youā€™ll need to find ones which use the Chip rather than Magstripe, which unfortunately isnā€™t always obvious. Try larger bank ATMs :bank: rather than small ones in a laundrette (how we originally found out magstripe was blocked!) :wink:. Fee wise, always make sure you withdrawn in local currency (dollars), then the ATM itself shouldnā€™t charge you and youā€™ll get the best exchange rates. :dollar:
  • To get from the airport Iā€™d use the Skybus :bus: which you can pay for on your card. Thatā€™ll get you to the centre of Melbourne (the CBD - central business district). From there, cabs are probably cash, but Uber works and is cheap.
  • Public transport youā€™ll want a Myki card, which you can buy and top up at any Seven-Eleven (of which there are loads)

Have a great trip! :sunny:

Edit: Myki in Melbourne, Octopus is Hong Kong lol :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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4

Thanks @matt all your advice was spot on :thumbsup:

Just to mention -

  • I was charged a $3 fee to withdraw AUD from a Commonwealth Bankā€™s ATM
  • Both of the taxis I used did take cards & one of those accepted contactless payments :tada:
5

Hi Alex,

Great last name.

There are blanket ATM feeā€™s in Australia for ā€˜non-customerā€™ cards. Most people in Australia just ensure they use their bank providers ATMā€™s to avoid the fees.

Cheers,

Bryn

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6

Spent 10 days in New Caledonia, and all went well with my Monzo card! Restaurants as well as ATM!

8

Hi, has anyone used their card in Perth yet iā€™m due to go in December but a bit worried about taking the card

9

Hi there

I am working out in Australia so am constantly loading my card and using it pretty much everywhere and not really has any issues.

Occasionally withdrawing from an ATM that doesnā€™t read the chip was an issue (normally ATMs in convenience stores) but with the latest updates this is resolved.

Going to a main banks ATM was always fine.

Cheers

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10

Hi Ricky,

Iā€™m afraid I havenā€™t used Monzo in Perth but Matt shared some excellent feedback on using Monzo in Australia earlier in this post which youā€™ll hopefully find helpful! I think itā€™s pretty safe to say that you wonā€™t notice that youā€™re in another country, when it comes to making payments with Monzo. But itā€™s beta so do take a backup just in case, of course.

The good news is that you can now switch on Magstripe withdrawals temporarily, from the app so you shouldnā€™t have the same difficulties with ATMs as we did :smile:

You can enable Magstripe withdrawals from Card > Profile > Security. If youā€™re an Android user, youā€™ll need to ask support to enable them for now.
You should also check that youā€™re a verified user, as foreign ATM withdrawals are disabled for unverified users. On iOS you can compare your limits from your Profile in the app with the limits for verified users listed here or if youā€™re an Android user, message the support team to check - again, this wonā€™t be necessary :soon:

11

Hi there boys and girls. Hope everyone is well. Iā€™m travelling to Australia in a couple of months and wanted to know if there were any specific (banks) atms which donā€™t charge fees with Monzo cards. I am travelling to Sydney and gold coast. Thanks in advance people, and have a lovely sunny Sunday.

12

Hi all! Just returned from a 3 week trip from Sydney/East coast and Monzo worked great everywhere! I used for hotels, campsites, car hire, motorway tolls, and all daily spending in shops, restaurants and bars. Never lifted any cash from ATMs so not sure how it would have acted here (sorry Immy), but the exchange rate I got for all the transactions seemed great and definitely saved me alot of money compared to using my NatWest debit card!!

Got a couple of questions if anyone knows the answers. I had a transaction delayed at an off-license that did not come through for a couple of days. What would have happened if I had insufficient funds by the time the transaction processed? Or was a block put on the amount until the transaction went through?

Also, had a couple of transactions that originally came out at exchange rate~1.69 but when they settled a few days later, they were at rate ~1.65. Again what would have happened if there were insufficient funds for the settled amount?

Thanks in advance!
Jonny

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13

That will have been an offline transaction -

Offline Transactions

Sometimes, POS terminals arenā€™t able to establish a data connection to their Merchant Acquirer. Typically, this happens on aeroplanes and trains. In such a case, the card chip can be programmed to work in ā€œofflineā€ mode for a limited number of transactions. When the POS re-establishes a data connection (eg the aeroplane lands), the payments are uploaded to the Acquirer. The first the Issuer sees of this payment is in the ā€œPresentmentā€ file, which may be a day or two later.

Text from this blog

In this case & if the exchange rate, your transaction would still have settled (been paid), even if you had insufficient funds :thumbsup:

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14

Thanks sir for the info!

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15

Thanks for the info!

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16

Hi Redit ATM had no withdrawal charges in Adelaide

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17

Hi, Iā€™ve just arrived in Melbourne having accidentally locked my pin while half asleep in Hong Kong en route. After going to 4 leading banks and remembering my pin, none of their atms have ā€œpin servicesā€ for me to unlock my card. How else can I do this? And/or do I have to go into an Australian bank when they open to do this? TVMIA!

Cheers,

Ben

18

Hi, that sounds like a bit of a nightmare! If you contact the support team through the in-app chat or by emailing help@monzo.com, they should be able to chance your PIN for you. The in-app chat is probably the fastest option.

19

Iā€™m not sure getting support to change the PIN specifically will resolve this. The card sounds to have locked itself and requires a signed PIN unblock issuer script to become usable outside of ATMs again. Thatā€™s about where my knowledge runs out though.

This is quite a tough situation to be in, do explain the situation to support in full and let us know how it goes!

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20

There are PIN reminder options in the app:

Thatā€™s only useful IF your card isnā€™t blocked after all. :slight_smile:

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21

I used rediATM a couple of weeks ago at Circular Quay in Sydney and I donā€™t think it charged.
Any other ATM I have tried to use in Sydney accepted my card but attempted to charge about $3 for the transaction.
I will try find another rediATM and report back if indeed there was no charge.
Edit: I have tried another rediATM and I can confirm their is no charge.

I have not had anywhere reject the card an most places accept card and have contactless. Some places charge for using card and some donā€™t, the cost of this varies (typically 20-50 cent). I even got charged for using card in one Aldi (Edgecliff) but not in another Aldi (Bondi Junction).

I donā€™t know if you can get cashback at supermarkets when paying on card. I will try find out as this may be a way to get cash without a $3 charge.

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22

Just returned from Australia. Travelled using Monzo some of the time. Found most ATMs did not charge to get cash, beware Commonwealth Bank ATMs (Yellow), they always seemed to want to charge $2-3 dollars per transaction! I just went to another ATM and used the ones that didnā€™t charge. Very old fashioned banking system in Oz.

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