This is true. There’re lots of questions about it, can you cancel? What happens if you close your account? Can you cancel & still keep the fancy card? Is the card only valid for 12 months? So many things.
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I’m always surprised at how much interest there is in card designs and colours. I (maybe wrongly) assume most are using Apple/Google Pay etc? I can’t remember the last time I pulled my card out of my wallet.
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I disagree.
Monzo is pitched as a bank helping you budget and be better with your money. This looks like profiteering and contradicts their ethos.
Whilst I agree they need to become profitable and this package will appeal to some, it certainly seems excessive to me. The insurance alone for cost price (or even a slight markup if you factor in convenience) is tempting. But double the price for a different colour card and a t-shirt?!
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I don’t think it goes against their ethos? Their ethos is helping people budget & be better with money. The option of offering a plus account to people doesn’t go against this? They’re not forcing people into it, and not hiding any key budgeting features behind it.
Also, sometimes, people are willing to pay a premium for convenience or just to support their bank… there’s 2 different packages on offer here, and I doubt the cheaper one will be sticking around with such “one-off” benefits vs recurring items like insurance etc.
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I do find your second point interesting there - would people just sign up to this just to support Monzo? I personally wouldn’t as it needs to make financial and beneficial sense to me but I wonder if this is the case?
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That’s what I was thinking with the reply above. Crowdfunding I can understand, but throwing money at a bank seems a little extreme.
I get that Monzo need to become profitable, but overcharging for products doesn’t seem like a good business case as so many shop around in comparison sites.
If it is something that someone will pay for, then good for them. For me, it’s not cost-effective or good value so I’ll shop around.
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Completely agree with you. Monzo is still a business and I wouldn’t just throw money at any company blindly if it didn’t help me too
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Just reread the offerings. I have never been a fan of paid accounts anyway, but what’s on offer here just seems so generic?
The offers are boring, likely overpriced and lacking the invention you’d expect from something Monzo would be excited about.
It’s very meh. Can’t be what they were expecting. Anyone from Monzo want to comment on what got left on the ideas board? Can’t be any worse then the offer…
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I disagree - especially when there are realistically only 2 components with a known value - one of which you can get as an off the shelf package anyway.
I am honestly all for the convenience of doing something ‘within Monzo’ for a bit more convenience - but their insurance provider has a 3-minute process to get covered directly.
Admittedly, you can get it as a monthly package by doing it this way, rather than a one-off payment - which may be useful to some.
And I can certainly understand this to some extent - and of course I want Monzo to succeed - but I feel that it should be something that is a good deal for both Myself and Monzo.
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I don’t disagree. But the thing is if you shop around there’ll always be better offerings available. Take a look at the interest account that they secured with Investec, and then everyone was talking about going to Marcus etc. instead.
Some of these will suit people, some of these won’t. I’ve personally never had a packaged account as it’s cheaper to go elsewhere. Am I more likely to go with it if it’s within Monzo? Potentially. But will look at the offering when it arrives.
I’d personally still prefer a one-off fee for some of these things with gives Monzo the same £, but doesn’t lock me in for recurring payments etc.
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On the premium account thread lots of people said they’d pay a monthly fee for travel insurance and higher ATM limits. They’ve done that and included emergency cash. Might not be the cheapest, but it’s available for people who do want it. If sign up is low they’ll probably change the offering
It might not be what everyone wants but it’s the first step
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I think it’s important to remember these are very small scale trials and may be nothing like what Monzo envisages the end product to be
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An interesting insight into what Monzo is working on, certainly.
Whilst I’m sure it’ll change for the final product, currently, this offering would not entice me to enrol in Monzo Plus.
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Not for me 
Not enough bang for my buck with this
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If its nothing like what Monzo envisages the end product to be.
Why test it in the first place?
Also such very small scale trials (albeit I don’t know how many are in it) will produce a small sample size and therefore limited and untrustworthy and potentially bias results.
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It gives the floor and the ceiling of what people want without giving the earth all at once.
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Even if you’re certain on something it’s always benifical to test out your hypothesis. You never know you may be totally wrong.
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I may be thinking of it from the wrong angle rather than how successful is the product. Maybe they’re thinking at from the other angle which is that they expect it to not be successful because of all the reasons people have stated and want to test that assumption.
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Personally I think they are trying to see the engagement differences between just the new card colours (which is very common feedback), vs a bigger package for travel insurance, which was also common in the Premium thread.
Perhaps they have some price point comparisons in some of the tests too - I’m sure it’s generating a lot of data for them either way.
I suspect by going with Pluto, relatively new in Insurance Startup world (InsTech?) - there’s a lot of flexibility that model includes. So you know. Lets see.
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I can agree with this. I wonder what % of current accounts are paid for at other banks?
If this goes out to 100 people and one guy signs up is that an anomaly or the norm? 
I’m of a mind that we should encourage people not to sign up, to force Monzo to rethink the offer and frankly, come up with something better.
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