🇻🇳 Monzo in Vietnam [Discussion]

[beag]

From my research, Monzo seems to be the way to go with travel! I have one big concern; if I lose my card in Vietnam (I am going in a few weeks), will I be able to get a replacement while I am out there?

[alexs (Alex Sherwood)]

@beag

if I lose my card in Vietnam (I am going in a few weeks), will I be able to get a replacement while I am out there?

As long as it’d get to you in time then yes, it looks like they would

Can I get a replacement card delivered overseas?

Yes they do this, according to tweets I’ve seen from other users. Given the cost / complexity / shipping time, I guess there’s probably limits to their ability to do this though. Edit -

Since Monzo’s still in beta, you should carry a spare card too though.

[beag]

Yes I was planning on bringing my normal debit too as a back up, I guess it depends how long it takes to arrive, or if you could go somewhere to get a replacement or something. Thank you!!

[alexs (Alex Sherwood)]

@beag

I guess it depends how long it takes to arrive

Hopefully you won’t have to find out but I’m sure the support team will let you know if it happens

[malbrown24 (Marianne Brown)]

Hi, we are going out to Vietnam end of October, so I would be really interested to hear your opinion on how you get on with Monzo out there

[beag]

Of course! My pal already uses Monzo for travelling and thinks it’s great so we’ll both be using it there.

[Neg4465]

This post really helped me out when I was travelling in North Vietnam last week (Hanoi, Sa Pa, Ha Long Bay, Cat Ba Island)! I’d like to add a few updates from my own experience:

-In Hanoi I couldn’t seem to find many Military Bank ATMs near where I was staying in the Old Quarter
-An SeA ATM wanted to charge me 33k VND for a withdrawal (maybe they have updated this recently?)
-I only used VP bank and TP bank ATMs in Hanoi which are both free to withdraw from

[malbrown24 (Marianne Brown)]

Mind you, 33k sounds a lot until you look at the exchange rate which is 26k per £, so it equates to £1.50, £2 max.

Is it possible to have more than one Monzo card on the same account, does anyone know?

[Avishai (Marta)]

@malbrown24

Is it possible to have more than one Monzo card on the same account, does anyone know?

Answer is ‘nope’ as of right now and in nearest Current Account future. More info and ideas can be found in topics below, feel free to leave more feedback in those topics :

Multiple Cards, One Account

Sharing mondo with a friend of mine who has children, they asked if you could have multiple cards controlled by one account. They were always conscious about giving their children cash incase they lost it and would like to give them a card like Mondo’s where they can top it up with certain amounts and freeze it of their child lost it. Of course the child is too young (under 18) for their own account, that’s why their cards would be connected to their parents account(s).

Multiple Cards - Single Account

It would be nice if we can have two or more cards on the same account, so me wife and I can track what our family is spending within the same account.

[Ollie1]

I’m currently in Vietnam and it looks like SeA bank have started charging for foreign cards. I’ve tried it twice now and both times I was charged 49,500 dong for the withdrawal. VP bank and MB are both still free so I would recommend using them. I think MB has the higher withdrawal limit though and offers smaller denominations of notes

[Ben5]

I concur with Ollie, SEABank seem to charge 49500 VND for Monzo withdrawals. The ATMs themselves still say free for European cards so I’m not sure where the charges come from…

VPBank and MB bank both worked well for us - there were plenty in Hanoi and Saigon, and a fairly convenient MB bank atm in Hoi An. In Hue the ATMs were a bit out from where we were, so the tip to get money out before was a good one.

What notes we got was pretty pot luck though, both banks just gave us 500 000 notes on occasion, and sometimes gave us a good selection of notes so I don’t think it can be relied upon!

[Guzzibobo (Greg Glue)]

Used my monzo in Vietnam several times,so far not a problem, just wish could have 2cards one account ( Mr & Mrs ) must be possible in this techi world !!

[Avishai (Marta)]

@Guzzibobo

just wish could have 2cards one account ( Mr & Mrs ) must be possible in this techi world !!

You can get 2 cards if you and Mrs have separate accounts. Here are some topics you might find related/useful, feel free to drop more feedback in there!

Does Monzo offer a joint account?

Hurrah! My lovely wife made it to the front of the queue and now has a shiny :mondo: card! We’re an old skool couple with joint finances. To keep our budget up to date I have to steal her phone which is less than ideal. Happy to struggle on during the beta, but some linking would be amazing. Once you’re a full bank, we will only want one account. I’m sure clever things can be done with the API, but I’m not sufficiently techy to work that out! Brining it ip again it because it’s not…

Two cards for one user

I think it would be great to have a spare card on the same account. I travel a lot and having my wallet with all my cards stolen when abroad is my worst nightmare. Often i’ll try to leave one of my bank cards in the hotel room in case this happens, but sometimes when in poorer countries the rooms have no safe and things get stolen from the room. Having a spare mondo card which i can leave in the room and block immediately if it’s stolen would be perfect for this!

[GCROB (Robert Brevitt)]

UBER works well in Vietnam and can be rediculously cheap but it’s worth verifying location addresses with google maps first.

[becksaloid (Becks)]

We found the same. It’s much better to use Uber than the local taxi’s but we found a couple of times that the address we added to go to the right place so it’s worth verifying.

[GCROB (Robert Brevitt)]

We’re in OZ now, the “knowledge” is much better but in Sydney public transport is cheapest. Their Opal card can be topped up with Monzo with no charge.

[miss_d]

Hi guys! Thanks for posting the tips in the forum. Just a few things to watch out for:

• the SEa bank in Ly Thai To Street charged me a fee of 50.000 VND
• when using google maps to identify the ATMS I found that some of them around the Hoan Kiem Lale habe been misplaced or the bank is under construction.
• the safest place to withdraw money is VP bank. 85 didn’t charge me any time in different areas.

Hope this helps
D

[dylan47 (Dylan o sullivan)]

vpbank defo no charges , tuck money out lost of times and zero charge

[bph (Ben H)]

MB Bank ATMs now charge 33,000 Dong ~£1 on a 1,00,000 withdrawal(previous posts on this forum indicate they didn’t, not sure when it changed).

VP Bank don’t, and they seem to have a good reputation (first choice for a few expats in Ho Chi Minh).

No issues whatsoever using the card simply as a card, Mastercard seems just as widely accepted as Visa. They have a slightly strange system of requiring both a pin and a signature but I’ve never found it to be an issue. I’ve also read somewhere that Vietnamese pin numbers are often 6 digits and you need to put in 2 leading 00’s, I never experienced that.

[simonf (Simon)]

Just used an MSB atm in Hanoi. There was no charge.