🇺🇸 Monzo in the USA [Discussion]

Monzo Chat Travelling with Monzo
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For Taxi’s/Restaurants, pay the bill on Apple/GPay or contactless/swipe card and tip (15%-20%) in cash. This means that you’ll need to withdraw USD notes from an ATM at some point to use, but it works best to give the tip to the person you want the tip to actually go to. It also means that the actual amount you paid for the fare/service remains the single amount that will be stabilized in Monzo with the applicable exchange rate over the few days after the transaction occurs.

(With a Monzo account, enable the ‘Magstripe ATMs’ option in the ‘Manage’ tab of your account during visits to the US, just in case the card is run through a mag-stripe reader rather than a contactless POS terminal - particularly at ATM’s, bars & food places)

Uber/Lyft (apps) killed the awkwardness of taxi tips, but if you inevitably use NYC yellow cabs, do the card payment for fare & cash tip, or cash payment for both.

Tip tip: if there is someone you believe you’ll bump into repeatedly on your trip, tip them really well on the first tipping session. This is difficult to gauge at first but if you treat them really well, they will remember you & perks will come. I lived in NYC for many years and we were in a bar for the first time once and completely over-tipped. We never paid for ‘drinks’ during every visit since - only tips… ‘voluntary payment to the individual’ gets you the ongoing service.

Have a great trip - thankfully you’ll not need all the pre-testing for COVID now, which has been scrapped by the US. I’ve just got back from a trip to LA while that was necessary, which, combined with Lufthansa’s ‘mask-needed-on-all-flights-to/from-German-airports’ was uncomfortable and problematic to say the least.

Say hello to the Empire State Building for me too - MrsW & I got married there on the 102 floor ‘round-room’!

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435

Perfect, thanks so much for all the info!! :+1::slightly_smiling_face:

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Can you still get cash back at supermarkets in the US? That’s one way I got free cash withdrawals in the past – buy some low value item (or something you need) by card and ask for the maximum amount of cashback.

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Cash back at stores is still a thing, although some are starting to charge a fee.

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I am off to NYC on monday. Did a quick search on the forum to find any useful information and this really helped. Thank you :pray:t5:

Hoping I can get some cash out without getting ripped off so I can use it for street vendors and small restaurants etc. Planning to use my Monzo mostly for everything otherwise

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Hello everyone, I’ve gone through a lot of the comments so thank you in advance!
I’m travelling to NYC in April and I was wondering if the Monzo on the Apple Pay is now free of trouble when paying an Uber/Lyft (using it from JFK to Bushwick). And if anyone has used Chase as a backup card??
On another note can anyone suggest a good travel insurance please??
Thanks again! Have a good weekend :slight_smile:

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Both cards will work here via Apple Pay.

Bonus to chase is free withdrawals at Chase ATMs, being a big US bank and all. So it’s handy for that.

you might encounter the odd hiccup, similar to what @ndrw experienced with their Barclaycard recently, but generally it should be fine. Monzo is more prone to those hiccups than Chase is in my experience, so it’s a good choice in backup. It’s the most reliable card I’ve ever gone abroad with.

For travel insurance I’d just follow the MSE guide to find the best cheapest for you and your circumstances.

There’s a few articles, but this is a good one to start with, as the spin-offs tend to be linked from it as your needs become more niche.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/cheap-travel-insurance/

ABTA travel sure is more often than not the one I end up going with for single trip cover for large groups (which is how I most frequently travel).

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And 1% cashback assuming your account qualifies

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Thank you so much for all the info!! :raised_hands:t3::blush:

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Visted Texas for 5 days for a conference in Grapevine inc. 2 days sightseeing in Dallas and Fort Worth. Didn’t take any cash out once during the whole trip. Only used my Monzo Flex (along with Starling and Wise USD aka my snack cards) the whole time. Most times I paid contactless in restaurants, Starbucks, Pharmacy, supermarkets etc. Chip and PIN reserved for the big shopping purchases.

Used Lyft for taxis (all billed to the card) and also took a train from Grapevine to Fort Worth on a Sunday morning, no issues using the ticket machine…contactless again :grinning:.

I was very happy using my Monzo Flex card and being able to split my shopping purchases over 3 months interest free. Will be taking it with me everywhere now.

Last time I visited the US was pre Covid, so was nice to have such ease with all payments. Transactions and notifications came thru fine too.

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