Should you use your Monzo card as your main card?

Like rewards, the Monzo app and user experience has a value too. Also, a really terrible UX has negative value in the same calculations. My personal highest payout rewards Mastercard is my Aqua card at 0.5%. But, if I value Monzo’s great experience at, say, 0.2%, and I put Aqua’s terrible experience at -0.5% (it’s so bad, it’s equivalent to nothing to me), Monzo wins by a mile.

My Barclaycard freedom rewards Visa has rewards worth about 0.3%. But I’ll value lack of Android Pay at -0.3%. So again, worth nothing, and Monzo wins.

Avios have so few redemptions that are really worth bothering with (short-haul flights in Asia? Some of the non-flight redemptions, but at a very low value) that I’ve never been bothered to even consider that route, either (the Tesco credit card works out, what, something like 1/3 of an Avios per pound spend? That’s nothing for my needs).

Amex has the only rewards that can outweigh Monzo to me, but the negative value of the hassle of using Amex (which I’ll consider a fixed negative, not a percent, as it’s far more worth it on large purchases) makes them pretty similar to me.

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That makes perfect sense.

I’m on the “woo, rewards” band wagon currently as I’ve finally cashed in some AMEX points and I’m taking the family away to the Canary Islands.

I’d never really looked into it properly before, but since doing so, I’ll try and get every little advantage where possible. Although, like you, is the UX is bad, I won’t use it at all.

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Definitely, I love my Delta SkyMiles I get from converting MR points to Delta, very useful. But so is a highly reliable, almost universally-accepted payment experience with a slick, easy to use app giving me excellent data. For big purchases, definitely the Amex. For daily spend, it’s a bit tougher. Certainly, I don’t bother with Amex anymore usually at places I know are buggy with it (like Superdrug, Wilko, etc where contactless fails due to not having the proper kernel config).

Also it depends where you are, in some countries, my no-FTF MBNA Amex (with no rewards and a worse exchange rate than MC) is worth its weight in gold simply because Amex bans DCC and some countries are awful for forced DCC.

Hi Andy. I’m very sorry to hear that you’ve had issues with our card - others haven’t and therefore don’t necessarily share your dissatisfaction. When we’ve had issues, we’ve worked very hard to be transparent about what happened and why, and if you’ve ever reached out directly to customer support, I know that we would have done our absolute best to assist you.

With that said - I’d like to politely ask you to not to refer to contributing members of our forum “blind acolytes” or other similar terms. The enthusiasm for our product is amazing to see, and some people are naturally more enthusiastic than others, but we’d ask that contributing members of this community express any dissatisfaction in a more constructive way rather than using dismissive ad hominem language.

Many members on this forum, when faced with a problem with our product and service, will work with us to identify what went wrong and help us find a solution where possible, because they believe in our vision and our product. When we are developing new features their feedback is absolutely critical in helping us build something great. Others aren’t used to this approach, and are quicker to express dissatisfied thoughts to let us know when something, in their opinion, hasn’t been acceptable.

Both of these approaches are valid - as long as people aren’t attacking, dismissing, or belittling others with different viewpoints. We’re all users of and contributors to the same company, and I’d hope that we can all agree that everyone has the same end goal in mind, to create something amazing, even if we may have different attitudes and approaches as and when things go wrong.

We’re more than happy to have you as a member of our community and a user of our product and I hope we can show you that we’re trustworthy so that you don’t leave us, “when the main banks catch up” (I’d argue it’s an if, not a when, but clearly I am biased :wink:)

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Well I’ve got 9.75/7.75 so I’m nearly there :wink:

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Wow, that’s a complex prescription. Sphere correction, cylinder correction, near vision add, prism, everything…

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…but not pupiliary distance (PD)

PD is a dispensing tool, so sadly doesn’t have to be on the prescription :frowning:

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I always insist they write it on so I can order varifocals online :wink:

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The times I don’t use Monzo as my main card:

  • Big supermarket shops (usually > £50) or other large/similar purchases. These tend to go on my American Express (or linked Visa Credit card if Amex isn’t supported) as I get Miles+More points and the 'Credit card protection". I usually pay it off via my Monzo account that month though.
  • Cash withdrawals. Mainly to avoid Monzo paying the ATMs fees - Nationwide can pay them instead :smiley:

That’s it. Otherwise Monzo is my main card and main personal banking (and, once they have joint accounts, we’ll move entirely over bar the credit cards).

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My main current account is with the Co-operative Bank. I receive an incentive of £5.50 a month. To move to Monzo would effectively cost me £66 a year. I have to question the logic of making that move.

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I am now using monzo as my main bank and moved wages and any other payments over so I hope all goes well and I don’t have any regrets later on down the line.

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Definitely! Nothing better than getting the old coral out on the tube!

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Is there still a bylaw covering that? :joy::joy:

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I really dislike the colour it brings unnecessary attention.

Such as?

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It will depend on what country you are in.

While it is £30 for Mastercard PayPass (and Visa PayWave) in the UK, it is not a foreign currency equivalent of £30 abroad, so could be higher or lower (Estonia had €10 limit until they increased it to €25)

As examples limits could be €25, €30, CHF 40, NOK/SEK 200, CAD 100, ISK 4200, ISK 5000, etc depending on the country you go to but in some countries like Iceland it will also depend on which bank provides the POS service (Íslandsbanki terminals have a lower limit than others).

The minute you take out the card, everyone starts looking due to have bright it is. So I’m waiting for my curve card to arrive.

I have never noticed this at all and tbh it wouldn’t bother me… also I have never noticed anyone looking at my card nor do I look at other peoples cards so I don’t get how you notice this… :upside_down_face:

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I always notice what bank cards people use, but that is because I am interested in banking. Were they wearing a soccer t-shirt I wouldn’t even notice what team it is for, because I dislike soccer. It is a natural phenomenon to have heightened observation of some things and tune out others.

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