OK so after some investigation I have visited the following ATMās in Turkey and attempted to withdraw 100 Turkish Lira, the results vary from free from charge to as much as 15% (for my 100 tl amount) ;
Donāt worry folks, hope is not lost, your boy Vitali here was walking around at 4am checking each and every ATM he could find! Seems thereās still plenty of 0% ATMs available for TRY, but couldnāt find a 0% for EUR or USD so keep that in mind, I personally needed EUR for my hostel as they charge in EUR and the exchange rate they use for TRY has a 10% markup to keep the owners happy lol.
Iāve used @mbladenās list at first but QNB is no longer free, YapiKredi is 5% instead of 3% now, and then as I needed EURs I kept checking and thought might as well do my own list as I started to confuse myself which ATMs I checked and which I didnāt.
HSBC - 0%
PttBank - 0%
ING - 0%
KuveytTurk - 0%
Alternatif Bank - 0%
Fibabanka - 0%
Ziraat Bankasi - 0%
Halkbank BANK24 - 0%
alBaraka - 0%
odeabank - 0% Sekerbank - 0% for TRY, EUR, USD
DenizBank - 2.5% for TRY, EUR, USD
VakifBank - 10TRY for under 330TRY, 3% above that
Turkiye Bankasi - 4.5% for TRY, EUR, USD
Garanti BBVA - 4.99% for TRY, USD
YapiKredi - 5% for TRY, EUR, USD
TEB - 5% for TRY, EUR, USD
Akbank - 5.99% for TRY, EUR
QNB Finansbank - 5USD
*if I havenāt specified for which currency means the ATM I tried only offered TRY
Regarding HSBC:
Strangely but if I try to withdraw EUR from HSBC, it tells me that I can only withdraw TRY with my card. Iāve tried my British cards, German cards, Estonian cards. Wow, seems that euros are only for locals?
Has anyone had trouble paying online using the card?
Iām in desperate need of starbucks and trying to order on an online delivery app (yemeksepti) but everytime Iām sent to approve the payment I get redirected back to the app and it says there has been an error? Tried several cards that all worked when being tapped but not through any online order?
Turkey is a bit of a mixbag, I ended up using my Monzo card everywhere but when it failed all my other cards failed too (HSBC + Amex). There is also a high markup at places and they prefer you to give them Euros in cash etc (due to the current econonmic set up). 90% of the time my Monzo worked but in the end iāve had to take cash out to use at certain places. Had to painfully also pay HSBC ridiculous charges on top of the Turkey charges when i was trying to take cash out. Try to use monzo as much as possible to reduce battering from both sides. When you can get some cash out so you can pay for coffee etc if the card doesnāt work
Monzo is a Sterling/Pound/GBP account only, so you canāt load other currencies directly to it (unless someone sends you money using another international currency exchange/send service like āWiseā, which would allow them to send a local currency amount to you, which would arrive as a GBP amount which you then send to your Monzo account)
But even if you are in Turkey (or anywhere with online access) you can transfer GBP funds from another GBP account to Monzo via bank transfer to load additional funds to the Monzo account. You could then use the Monzo card/app to pay for things in Turkey in Turkish Lira and Monzo will pay in Lira and deduct the GBP equivalent from the Monzo account.
Also, when in Istanbul, always pay lira. In my experience, anyone offering you to pay in euros will be giving you a really bad rate for doing so (in 2019 when I went, most places were doing lira to euro conversions as about 7-7.5 lira per euro, when the going rate was over 8, thus making stuff about 20% more expensive to pay in euros)
Hi all, travelling to Turkey at the weekend, please could someone in the know give me the lowdown on using my Monzo card abroad for purchases and cash withdrawal? The info at the start of the thread is helpful but also quite old now so wondering if it has changed at all.
I have a standard Monzo card, I havenāt paid for premium or anything.