🇹🇷 Monzo in Turkey

Monzo Chat Travelling with Monzo
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I’ve been to Turkey recently and used my Monzo card almost for everything. The experience was great! Here are a few tips & thoughts that I had:

Basically the card was accepted everywhere (using EMV) and I haven’t had any issues with it.

ATMs

I was able to withdraw cash from ATMs without any fees. I’ve used Garanti Bank’s atms and it was straightforward. Only one thing to be careful about is at the last step the atm will ask you whether you want to be debited in GBP (with 4.5% exchange fee) or TRY. Always choose TRY.

Merchants

This is expected, but merchant names are pretty useless. I’ve never got an accurate merchant name/address except once (for unsurprisingly Simit Sarayı.) As a tip try to always suggest the right merchant as soon as possible so you don’t forget who it was. Everything should be there on Foursquare.

Exchange rate

Monzo’s exchange rate was quite good, although at one point I was able to get a better exchange rate from a local exchange office (that I personally know.) It’s definitely better than anything you can get from most offices/banks.

Happy travelling!

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Thanks for the tips, I will be entering Turkey in a few days. Did you have the option to withdraw EUR in any of the ATMs?

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you’re welcome! I haven’t tried an ATM that offers it but I think some of them do.

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So I have been using my monzo card in petrol stations, hotels, shops and ATMs and zero problems. This card makes travelling so easy.

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Thank you very much! I will be travelling to Turkey in a few weeks and had concerns, but now that’s all sorted! Great tips!

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I have been having difficulty changing my PIN here in Turkey, trying most of the Major ATM’s with no success Today I tried a Garanti Bank ATM which automatically defaulted to English, it Identified me as “Un-Personalised Name” :smile:

And then walked me through the PIN change sequence without any problems where all of the previous ATM’s had either not displayed a PIN option or failed when attempted.

I also checked my Balance with success.

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I’m heading off to turkey on Monday and my whole family have asked me if I could get them a monzo, (I would of but we only booked it Thursday and we fly Monday) last minute I know :joy: I would always prefer to take card over cash I’m just worried in case I lose my card an I get stuck with no money :joy::joy: I will report back on how I get on!

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If you’re not leaving early in the morning, you could still grab some golden tickets for them & the cards might arrive in time :eyes: :running_man:

Either way, have a good holiday & it’ll be great to hear how you get on!

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Flight is 8am :weary::weary: already thought about that thank you alexs! :beers:

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10

make sure you are a verified user otherwise I don’t think you will be able to use ATMs abroad - also know there are limits to ATM withdrawals if you are going to try and just use cash from ATMs on your hols rather than mostly POS terminals :slight_smile: - in the App - look at Card - settings - spending and top up limits - top of screen will show you which limits you are on / verification level

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Yeahhh i am fully verified thankfully

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Hello All.

New to monzo and excited to use it . Travelling to turkey and Greece. Read the other threads b7t still am unsure if there will be any fee charged if I withdraw cash ( euro or lira). Also can i get unused cash loaded back on the card after I return.

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Monzo don’t charge any fees for ATM withdrawals however some ATMs do charge fees to withdraw cash - perhaps worth reading the travelling with Monzo thread

You won’t be able to get unused Euro/Lira cash loaded back onto your Monzo card

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Thanks Ian. Will be careful and hopefully update when I return

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I presume you have seen the OP in this thread regarding fees ? and the Greece thread here - 🇬🇷 Monzo in Greece

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I have just returned from two weeks in turkey and monzo was flawless couldn’t fault it it worked everywhere apart from on the plane thomson don’t accept monzo for some reason and even if you do have cash left just spend it at duty free :grin::grin:

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I’ve just attempted to withdraw a few tyl to be told I have reached my monthly spending limit. I know find myself a little perplexed as to why this is only £1,000 per rolling 30 days. I will have to wait a further two weeks to withdraw funds, crazy???

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Unexpected & frustrating perhaps but not crazy. Here’s why the limit’s there -

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If that’s of any help, you can continue to use card at any shop/restaurant/etc, as you have only reached ATM withdrawal limit. :slight_smile:

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Just got back from turkey. My Monzo card worked flawlessly :grin::grin:
The only issue I had was paying the hotel, they wanted to charge me 5% to pay by debit card. I ended up having to withdraw quite a lot of cash from an atm which I didn’t want to do as I know it’s expensive for Monzo and once atm fees are introduced that will cost too.
This is not Monzos fault, the hotel charged 5% regardless of the card used and the exchange rate I got at the atm was very good.
Most merchants were extremely reluctant to accept card payments and I ended up withdrawing quite a lot of cash.

I love my Monzo current account for everything but will probably look into other options next time I’m in a cash dominated country. Although Monzo may still be one of the best options even with a couple % fee.

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