Why do you say use cash for tips? Iāve never had an issue tipping by card in the US. Just beware that tip adjustment is used, which is prone to fraud (this fraud can occur whether you enter a tip or not, of course), so watch out for tip adjustment fraud. Iāve never, personally, had it happen to me, but always make a note of what you think you paid to match your records up later.
ātip adjustment fraudā is one good reason 
Unfortunately, using cash for the tip makes it more likely, unless you remember to still fill out the tip section as zero and make notes. Otherwise, itās even easier for them to write in whatever they want.
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The other reason is retailers sometimes correctly amend the original presentment, others put a separate transaction thru for the amended amount inclusive of tip but leave the original presentment uncancelled. As those initial presentments may take 7-8 days (30 if hotel or car hire) to automatically reverse this leaves a cardholder with a lower available balance than neccessary
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Ah, I didnāt know that not leaving a card tip prevented that! I thought if a restaurant did that, they did it, regardless of final amount entered! Good tip, thanks!
It depends on the retailer (or branch) and not sure if it down to their systems or how they trained (or lack of training)
Training? In America? The country where the typical reaction to using contactless (especially if itās a card, not a phone, which theyāre slightly more used to) is that you just voodoo-magicked their terminal? 
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ha ha. you try paying with a wearable like a keyfob or necklass and it freaks them out 
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Hey folks. Just something I remember that came to mind from my recent trip to San Francisco / San Jose. The Caltrain (basically their main rail network provider) ticket machines do not accept Monzo cards at all. My only way to pay for a ticket was via an ATM as a lot of the train stations in California arenāt manned.
Figured Iād let others know in case they are in California soon. Otherwise, the card was flawless!
Can you clarify was that the prepaid card with or without magstrip enabled, or the Current Account preview debit card (ver 1 or 2 etc if known), or the new full Current Accountā¦as there are potentially different reasons why there was a problem
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Sure!
This was with the prepaid with the magstrip enabled. The machines didnāt have any form of chip & pin on them.
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hopefully that will help someone provide an answer
Were you prompted for ZIP code? If so, did you enter the numeric digits from your postcode padded to five digits with trailing zeroes (e.g. if your postcode is BS1 9ZZ, enter 19000)?
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Nah, it didnāt even get that far. I would swipe the card and it would say it is invalid. No attempts were even recorded in the app.
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Sounds like the BIN wasnāt in the routing table used. Odd, but not unheard of. My MBNA Amex card had that issue at Lawson in Japan (all other Amex cards work there).
This is rare, but not unheard of. The good news is, EMV generally solves it so itās a short-lived problem until they upgrade systems.
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Iāve just come back from 2 weeks in New England and had no trouble using the card. Buying petrol works the same as in the UK: you get a $1 transaction initially and then a day or two later the correct amount. One hotel deducted $50 as soon as you checked in and then promised to refund anything you didnāt spend within a day. That worked too. Some shops tell you to use the mag stripe reader when they see itās a debit card but actually you have to insert it and use the chip.
Phew. Thatās refreshing to know - I intend on going back soon and this one thing was the only bummer about my trip as San Mateo Caltrain station doesnāt have a nearby ATM.
Thank you for your insight on this!
Iām not sure if itāll be fixed by your idea of āsoonā - unattended terminals are being upgraded to EMV very slowly in the US.
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You might be better off contacting in-app support about this issue, as they can possibly look into the details. They might be able to offer a solution that will work on your next trip. They might not as well, but they will be hopefully be able to go beyond speculation and confirm what exactly was happening.
It sounds like the transaction didnāt get that far. Nothing Monzo can do if the transaction isnāt routed to MasterCard even.
This is why itās best to carry no FTF cards on every network if possible, and ideally multiple MasterCards (as theyāre most useful).