Don’t you think you should be offering things for £6 a month? Not charging that fee then asking people what they expect to see? This is ridiculous and extortionate. I’m with Nationwide and for £7 a month (interest earned from my money pays the rest) I get loads of useful benefits. What are Monzo offering? A different colour card! You really are stretching here. Unbelievable.
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Couple of questions:
- When does the £3 reduced pricing end?
- For early adopters will their £3 costing last for 12 months only or will all £3 subs end in the same month?
Suggestions:
- Even if the products/add-ons aren’t set up for JAs yet let the replacement card be a JA card
- in the same vein as not giving premium support to those who pay, items such as virtual cards that will be core features of the current account shouldn’t be paywalled
Edit: typos
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What would you like to see?
Yes I agree with this, swag is a very broad term and would be nice to have a little more info on what they are currently thinking
Did you not get any swag then? Or is it because you’ve already had some because you’re CC?
My view on Monzo Plus
Have a minimum price as a base, for example:
Monzo Plus Membership with Card for £1 a month…
…and then, it should be down to the customers choice to commit to add ons when Monzo integrate it’s selection.
£3 for a base membership is steep, especially when the other benefits do not entice all customers - but only a select few.
I do firmly believe Monzo will make positive changes based on this thread, it just about getting the balance right between customer satisfaction and profitability.
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I view my Nationwide package in the same way as you. I too earn around £6 a month in interest on my joint Flexplus account, so as far as I’m concerned the worldwide travel insurance, which doesn’t have an upper age limit of 46 by the way, the car breakdown insurance and the mobile phone insurance, is excellent value for £7 a month. The travel insurance particularly is the most important as my Wife and I travel extensively and it covers me for activities such as my scuba diving.
Benefits wise, well as Nationwide members we do get to vote in the annual AGM I suppose. Other than that, not sure I’ve really explored any other ‘benefits’ which might be connected to the account. Ok, the Nationwide mobile app isn’t great, but it’s a legacy bank. I’m sure it’ll improve as they play ‘catch up’ with the likes of Monzo and Starling.
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I’ve got the FlexPlus too and consider it very good value for money. So what follows some will see as a minor point 
In terms of calculating the cost when interest is taken in to account you have to factor in that if you are keeping £2500 in that account for the 3% interest, then that money could also be in a different savings account earning 1.5% or more if it wasn’t in your FlexPlus account. Therefore, the real cost is £13 minus the additional interest you get at 3% over and above what that money might earn in a different savings account (about £3 extra for me). This means the FlexPlus works out to about £10 per month overall.
It’s still good value whether you view it as costing £13, £10 or £7 though
On the issue of the travel insurance having an upper age limit of 46, I am quite surprised at that. It excludes me from the start which is not a good feeling 
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I fully accept what you are saying about putting some of the cash sitting around in the Flexplus account to better use earning more interest in a savings account, but it just suits my Wife and I to have a fair bit of surplus cash sat in the account as it is our main household account for bill payments. I have another ‘dormant’ Nationwide sole account which I hopefully should be CASSing to an everyday RBS current account soon, solely for the £175 switching offer, which is clearly more than any interest I’d earn on what I’m currently getting with the cash in my Flexplus account.
I agree. I find it very useful to have a larger sum in my FlexPlus as it gives a decent surplus like you say. I wouldn’t put that much in a current account that didn’t pay interest. I do the same with a Club Lloyds account too and get a free magazine subscription from that.
Here are some things that I’d like to see on offer from Monzo Plus:
- Curve like functionality (it’d also make sense of the name - Monzo + other cards)
- A free coffee / cinema ticket every week (I know it’s not really ‘free’ but I like it)
- Add-ons from other Fintechs - e.g. Freetrade Alpha - but at a lower price point, or there’s no point in doing it through Monzo (bulk purchasing ftw)
- Working with TfL to automagically combine Oyster and contactless - and use whichever one costs me less (it still bugs me that I can’t add a railcard to a contactless card, and can’t use an Oyster for weekly capping)*.
- Gadget / mobile phone insurance
- Travel insurance
- A free (or discounted) Monzo hoodie
Things I don’t want to see:
- Regular Monzo hobbled in any way, or new features becoming Plus only. I see Plus as extras from other providers that have a cost base - not for, say, a new screen to give you purchase insights.
- Priority customer service. Jonas has already ruled this out, I think, but this would probably make me reconsider who I bank with (yes, I feel that strongly)
I know that subscription models are the in-thing - and are recurring revenue - but I still think you might be missing a trick by not selling different coloured cards as a one-off, potentially decoupled from the subscription model.
*I’d also like to see TfL travel details / insights in the app, but don’t think these should be Plus only - see what I don’t want, above!
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Swag is a pipedream they lure you in with. 
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Hand over £6 per month and we’ll let you do some advertising for us.
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Yeah, lets swagger down the road wearing an emblazoned hoodie clutching an emblazoned mug whilst flashing a different coloured card at everyone I see…and wait for the facepalm moment.
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I’ve not read the entire thread, so some of this may have been covered already…
Travel Insurance - Not convinced as this is cheap to buy annually anyway. Would prefer to see an integration with an insurer where if your device goes abroad it auto turns on insurance and charges your monzo account daily for this service. (I know of at least one major UK insurer who already have API available to provide this in exactly that way, but branded for the 3rd party)
Events - for those of us outside of major cities this isn’t likely to be interesting.
Ideas - I’d like to see some retailer integration, which for me would add value. For example coffee shops. Something where paying with Monzo does all your loyalty stuff for you. In Nero for example I have to use their app for loyalty and then Google pay. I’d rather see something like some immediate cashback after spending £x with a retailer. Perhaps even dedicated retailer pots for the cashback. E.g. spend £20 in Nero and get £2 back which can only be spent in Nero (might be easier to reach 3rd party agreements that way).
Perhaps also for plus customers some more advanced analytics in the app? For me the power of Monzo is the data. Again some initiatives with 3rd parties would be good. Example, app tells me I spent £30 last week in Pret and through some deal with another chain you offer a promotion like “here’s a pot for Itsu with £2 credit, why no try them for lunch”. For retailers who don’t have their own loyalty schemes you have some real power in that you know who is spending money where and this can be used to the customers advantage…
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Great returner post.
Agreed, by the way, did you just mean London?..I lived there once upon a lifetime, in 1968…
You’d deserve a facepalm and more if that’s how you’d act 
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You can pay through the Nero app, if you want.
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That would either be great, or a bit creepy.
I’ve actually watched people deliberately flash certain types of card in pubs, shops and petrol stations with the sole intention of wanting to attract attention because they bank with a certain institution. It just comes across as pathetic I’m afraid and I’m not the only one that will roll my eyes when I see people doing it.
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