Only £200 free abroad ATM withdrawal :-(

Hi there. I’m going to NY in April. Could you please help me. Regarding NY atm’s how much can you take out at once? The £200 limit would mean I could take out about $260 ish depending on currency that day is that correct?

depending on how you read your question

  • you can take out as much as your account has in - subject to ATM restrictions and spending limits - go to “account” , “manage” , “limits” - mine shows £400 max per day
  • the £200 limit is a rolling 30 day limit so it would be another 30 days before you could withdraw any more without fees (+ 3%)
  • or yes you can withdraw £200 that day without charge which would equate to $ 260 ish depending on currency (valuation ) that day

you can spend using a POS terminal without commission / charge though

Tip: For travel in Asia, we saw the best exchange rates at physical currency changes - hence useful to take £ or $ and do direct exchanges to baht or similar.

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Thanks. I know that UK atms have a certain amount you can take out in a day. Was just curious how much I could take out in one go.

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Monzo is a business that ultimately has to make money (or at least break even) to continue to run. Therefore, if it supported a higher level of free ATM withdrawals - which would lose it money - it would have to recuperate that money by charging customers for something else.

I agree that it would ultimately feel much more compelling to have completely free ATM withdrawals, but where would you then wish to be charged instead?

My recommendation is to minimise withdrawals, and use your card as a debit card as much as possible. You’ll then benefit from the good exchange rate, while minimising the downside.

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Barclaycard travel credit card valid to Aug 2022. Withdraw what you like up to your limit. Pay it off within the credit period with zero charges. Only works for overseas withdrawals, charges apply if used at ATMs in UK.

I’m currently travelling long-term and have Monzo, Starling, Transferwise (all £200/month) limits and a Starling card. My wife has the same. My wife recently had her Starling card eaten by an ATM and so is currently relying on the combination of the other cards to get enough cash out.

I’m hoping Starling continues with the no monthly limit. But when I went travelling a few years ago Metro offered the same and rescinded it halfway through my travels leaving me stuck with £600 in fees. So this time we’ve got plenty of back-up options.

As an investor I can see it as potentially loss-making for Monzo to offer the same as Starling. As a user, I wish they did. Also I dip into my starling overdraft instead of Monzo, so they are losing out on a bit of interest from me. But not enough to counter the fees I save.

I’ve been in Asia the last 5 months and can confirm that cash is still very much king. Especially on a backpacker budget, I can’t afford to eat in restaurants all the time and regularly pick up food at markets. In a lot of countries, if you are able to pay by card, the merchant will add on a commission of a minimum 3% up to 8% has been the worst I’ve seen. So even cash with a withdrawal fee and ATM charge can still be better than paying by card…

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Thanks to everyone for the reply. I understand this now with the fees and appreciate that monzo are now doing this to increase profits (happy with this being an investor).

I think i will open a starling account for the honeymoon and make them losses then :laughing:

The issue we have is we are in Dubai for a week, australia for 2 and then bali for a week. To be fair we will really only need Dirhams and Australian dollars as from looking in Bali they prefer the AUS over GBP etc… and get a better rate. We can obviously spend on the card but we also like cash sound would like a couple of £k in cash but dont want to travel with it all in my pocket for obvious reasons.

Thank you all for your replies though appreciate it.

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Congratulations and Have a fab BIG DAY. Great choices of places to go on honeymoon also. I’m sure and Nrs Wright will have a great time. :clinking_glasses:

By the way the £200 fee free is per person not per account. Tested this in Japan last year.

Went to Oz with no cash, just cards (Melbourne). No issues for me, most (if not all) places took cards.

I use my Monzo account for the vast majority of purchases and carry my starling card for foreign cash withdrawals. I’ve never used the starling card for anything else, not a big fan of the app.
It seems to work well for me. I figure use the service that works best, I just wonder how long starlings free foreign cash withdrawals will last. Seems to be an expensive feature…

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Just been in Spain for five days

Admittedly my girlfriend had a little bit of Euro cash on her which covered maybe two small purchases when we were a bit off the grid, but I never did get around to getting any cash out and we put 90%+ of our spending on my Monzo card

Obviously not every country will be the same, but this limit was no bother at all for me

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I got laughed at in Helsinki for asking where the nearest ATM was :frowning:

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As there’s no transaction fee on card spend and the exchange rate is competitive, why not just use your card wherever you can? Even for extended travelling, why would you need to withdraw “thousands” in cash? Just change the way you make purchases. QED.

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Because in lots of countries outside Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, NZ cash is still king and the majority of merchants do not accept cards. If they do there is often a 3-8% charge.

I’m currently 6 months into a year of travelling and this applies to 8 of the 11 countries I have visited in Asia and South America so far.

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Does this work?

Does anyone know if I did can do cashback with my UK monzo card in the US? if I did would this count against ATM limit?

Cashback is common here.

I’m more curious to know if cashback in the US will even work with a UK debit card. Isn’t cashback processed over local debit networks?

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Pretty sure people have said this isn’t an option with uk cards

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