🇬🇷 Monzo in Greece [Discussion]

Exactly my experience over the years. ATM issues were a few years ago (5+).
I think the whole cash issue is a massive contributing factor to the financial issues in Greece. In the U.K. I rarely carry cash.
I’m going open minded this year with my monzo card and see how it works. I will be testing my Starling card as well.
Still taking a bit of cash as air con in apartments is cash only and I don’t fancy an argument over the new POS rules in Greece if a restaurant owner says ‘cash only’

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Hey! Did you find out if the ATMs there work with Monzo? :slight_smile:

My first post here on the forums, and simply to say that my new Monzo card is working brilliantly here on Cephalonia and Ithaki in the Greek islands, where I spend many weeks throughout the summer months. I am using it for withdrawing cash at ATMs and getting an excellent exchange rate, better than my prepaid Euro travel cards (not sure if i am allowed to mention specific names). I don’t tend to use a card for buying in tavernas and shops, simply because they are still very much a cash society and don’t really like accepting cards because of the markup they have to pay to the credit card companies. They are already struggling to make ends meet with the new wave of government taxes and all the austerity measures, so I will continue to use it for withdrawing cash. So pleased with the Monzo card and cannot wait for the full current account to be launched! It is excellent seeing the balance on my iPhone the moment I make a transaction, along with an estimate of what the exchange rate is at the time. Keep it up guys - it’s great! The Monzo card has yet to be rejected at any of the ATMs I have used, unlike one of my prepaid Euro cards which is a bit flaky at times. So very pleased so far with Monzo.

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Hi Caroline, welcome to forums! Thanks for updating our Greece info, much appreciated. :smiley:

Mentioning competitors is absolutely no problem, we even have topics were we discuss them A LOT, we had to open second topic cause first one got too long.

If you have any comparisons between competitors exchange rate and Monzo (from the same day to make it fair), we always appreciated hearing about them. :smiley:

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Thank you for the welcome Marta! As an example, today one of my Euro cards - CaxtonFX - are offering 1.0989 Euros for £1 Sterling. This is the card I would normally use and, to be fair, they have given me good service over the years. No withdrawal charges. FairFX, my other currency card, are offering 1.1 Euros for £1 Sterling, but there is always a withdrawal charge of 1.50 Euros for every transaction. However Monzo this morning gave me 1.13 Euros for £1 Sterling at an ATM here in Cephalonia with no charges at all, which is quite a difference if you are cashing quite a lot of money. I know that is not the final rate, it says the rate will settle in a couple of days, but so far I’ve yet to see the approximate rate change much. So I am very happy with Monzo so far on currency exchange!

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Just came back from my trip to Skiathos and I only withdrew cash from ATMS with it, restaurants and shops didn’t seem keen on cards! Although I do think the 30 day rolling withdrawl limit could cause issues, I just about managed.

Some of the ATM machines are really pushy with there rate but make sure you persist declining it.

When I got back to the UK there was a pop up saying Welcome back, you spent ÂŁx in Greece. But when I clicked it there was no sign of it anywhere? It would be useful to see along with a breakdown

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I think you’re and Android user. :wink: We get notification about it, but it’s not ready inside the app, so doesn’t open anything… so it doesn’t show anything. Here’s article about it:

I just compared Android to iOS, I was able to get back there retrospectively (my trip was in April and I couldn’t view travel report when I got notification as I was on android, but it’s there on iphone now).

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Ah yes it is that thank you! Shame it’s not available in Android yet but hopefully won’t be long :slight_smile:

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Used several times in shops & restaurants. Not used ATM yet as not had anyone refuse card yet.

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I am going to crete in 10 days will report back

I went to Thira (Santorini) in very late July for four or five days. I had
absolutely no problem paying by card. The only time we required cash was
for the bus ticket from Fira to Oia. I visited a spa, paid the hotel,
bought drinks and food - basically everything you can think of and I paid
by monzo card. the only time I found I wanted to have cash was for tips and
some of the small corner store type shops that most probably existed more
for the locals than anyone else. I will never travel without my monzo card
again. 10/10

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Just an update - card didn’t work once but I tried a legacy credit card & that didn’t work either. Perhaps not the card that has an issue!
My wife & I used over 10 times and it really well even contactless.
The only better would have been a better euro rate but this isn’t Monzo’s issue!

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I’m in Menorca now and had only one problem with Monzo in a ‘supermercat’, so used my backup card. Off to Greece on Sunday. Will try it in the Kavos area.(Oh dear! Not sure how that happened. Only after a bit of extra sun before going back to work.) Any thoughts on getting more euros out in Spain in case there is an ATM problem in Greece? Must be better than local supermarket rates on my one day home in UK.

Whilst I’ve not used my Monzo card for ATM withdrawal I have never had a problem in last 5 years using uk cards.
Of course you always need a back up card as in UK.

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I will be travelling to Thessaloniki mid September for a week, cannot wait to test Monzo there for purchases and ATM cash withdrawal. Fingers crossed all will work fine! :blush:

As a quick update, my Monzo card is still behaving beautifully in the Greek islands! My only worry is that I’m going to hit the cash withdrawal limit very quickly out here on the prepaid card, so I’m really hoping that the current account card won’t have these yearly and monthly limits? I tend to withdraw cash a lot in the U.K. too. I just find paying cash is still so much simpler for me, so withdrawal limits are rather a pain. But other than that, very happy with the card!

Back from 2 weeks in Kefalonia. All works great. No issues at cash machines and no issues with acceptance. Greek law requiring tourist businesses to have card machines makes life easier than in the past.
Did wake up one morning to see a refund on my card for a restaurant bill but about an hour later that had been taken again as a “delayed transaction”. No idea what caused it

Just back from a week in Mykonos. Monzo current account card worked superbly! I did withdraw some cash as soon as I got to airport as was worried about card transaction availability in Greece. Needn’t have bothered cards were accepted everywhere. Monzo worked everywhere I tried it. Even contactless payment at the airport on way home. :ok_hand::+1:

A friend just got back from Greece and while they had no issues at POS reported some hassle with ATMs and Dynamic Currency Conversion. They claimed that at Athens Airport it was not possible to opt out of DCC, it was DCC only or press button to get your card back, and Eurobank ATMs go out of service and spit your card out when you decline DCC! Any other ATM will allow you to use DCC or not as per your choice and declining DCC enabled them to get the bank rate rather than pay any marked up rate offered by the machine operator

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I use Eurobank’s ATMs quite often with no problems. One thing to note is that the phrasing of the DCC option is such that it could trick you into opting in if you’re not careful. Haven’t used the Athens Airport ATMs recently, I will and report back.

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