Myself and fiancee get married soon and heading on our honeymoon. We are travelling to several parts of the world so have been looking round for the best way to spend with card payments and withdrawals.
I was gutted to see that it’s only £200 withdrawal limit per 30 days. I don’t really want to have to open a starling account as i love monzo but on a few £k of spends the 3% will really start to add up.
My question really, is Monzo looking to remove this limit to go inline with starling bank or are we stuck with the £200 limit
The limit was reduced down to this amount so it would be unlikely to go back up.
There are threads for various countries showing where Monzo is accepted and works best. Might be best to check out your destination thread and get advice there. From skim reading most threads, it’s unlikely you’ll need much cash.
The rationale behind this if I recall is that a small % of users were taking advantage of the unlimited withdrawals and costing Monzo an unsustainable amount of money.
I’m assuming this most be a loss leader for Starling as they must be encountering similar issues.
If you get curve and link it you’ll have another £200 (after that it’s a 2% Fee, unless you upgrade to one of there fee paying models) ((** At the moment they seem to be having a nightmare customer service wise though))
Starling is probably easiest option, however I’ve had issues trying to use it in Vietnam.
Depending on where you are going you may just be able to use your card at point of sale.
I understand all too well where you’re coming from @chrisjwright I opened a Starling account a couple of weeks ago after inadvertently gone over the £200. I work for British Airways and there are certain towns and villages that I’ve visited whilst away on a trip that do not accept card. These are not only in Asia unfortunately. Even The Chinese restaurants in Chinatown San Francisco only take cash!! Such a shame.
Losing a minority of customers who want to withdraw hundreds a month abroad is offset by the huge costs that runs up, so it’s very unlikely they change course on this, unless the ATM networks globally cut down on their fees. Monzo is just not designed as a foreign cash card, which unfortunately is how some people pushed it in the pre-pay days. There was a lot of discussion (and debate) around the fees coming in and the £200 a month option was voted on by members at the time.
If you consider all the high street banks charge a conversion fee plus a markup on the currency, you’re still getting a great deal from Monzo even with the fee if you pass 200 but no one is going to hold it against you if you use another service for foreign withdrawals.
I can see why someone working for BA might want an alternative as they are always off somewhere and have a genuine need for money in some locations. For a one off holiday I’d probably just suck it up and pay the fees.
Is cashback a common thing in the countries you will be visiting?
If so then you could just go to a few different shops and get cashback which will just count as a normal transaction.
That’s perfectly fine, it may do nothing. But if Monzo isnt providing the service you want you shouldn’t stay in some undeserved sense of loyalty, that benefits Monzo only, it doesn’t benefit you.
Monzo is a profit making bank. Use it if it works for you, when it stops working for you take your money elsewhere.
I recently checked my Starling account and under ATMs, it says 6 withdrawals with a daily limit of £300 - not sure if this applies when you go abroad too, might be worth asking Starling from the app
There is also N26 Black you can get, but its £4.90 a month and you get unlimited withdrawals (albeit its a 12 month min contract and you need to let them know you want to leave a month in advance). I’ve got N26 Metal but when I signed up to LoungePass you can sign up to that too as it does say N26 Metal or N26 Black card number when you are signing up
If you’re worried about currency exchange rates, you can get the Transferwise Borderless account and store currencies to it
Other than that, you could also pay using Monzo and ask to pay using the currency of that country, unless something drastically happens with the UK Pound, there wouldn’t be too much of a difference in the rate you ultimately pay through the Mastercard Exchange rate (pretty much what you see in Google).
I also did find Monzo the most helpful when you have issues abroad as I found out last year when I was travelling around Asia Starling were pretty useless when I needed their help
After considering it for a while, two weeks ago I opened a Starling account to withdraw money abroad. I understand why Monzo charge fees after £200, but I won’t pay fees if I can avoid it, and in many countries you still need to have cash to go around.
Starling were pretty useless when I needed their help