We’re looking into a feature where Monzo calculates your tip for you, and you can choose to exclude the amount from your remaining balance, so that you can budget better.
@mnouira has left a great suggestion on the features Trello board, which suggests "it would be good to use all the data available to make “smart” suggestions for tipping. Things like merchant category, customer habits, account balance etc…
This algorithm would need to learn from the amount of data collected and make meaningful suggestions (e.g. never suggest a tip if transaction comes from Walmart or suggest a 20% tip because customer always gave 20% tip at this restaurant in the past)"
We’d love to discuss this in more detail here, and hear thoughts from others in the community!
Excited to start figuring this out with your help!
This might be a bit chicken and egg, but it might also be useful to understand how others tip at certain locations. No personally identifiable info, but if most customers tip 20% at X restaurant, that would be good to know.
If you add this to Monzo USA, it would be great for this feature to be enabled for UK users when they are in the US. It wouldn’t make sense in the UK, because restaurants deduct the total amount immediately, but for those travelling, it would be useful if t “Welcome to the US” message allowed enabling this.
I would suggest to leave the tip % empty so that each individual can fill in as per his/her preference. Once Monzo builds a lot of data, it can start building an algorithm to predict the %. Right now, IMHO, it will be an overkill to focus on this “good to have” feature.
Can you please make sure that we don’t get charged twice for any restaurant payments? I used Revolut card to pay at a restaurant last week. I was charged twice, though the second charge is still pending. But my account was debited for 2 payments - First one for the bill amount and the second one for the amount including tip amount. I am surprised that my account balance went negative because of this double payment. I had to top up my account to replenish the difference. This makes me think why I should use debit cards for any restaurant expenses.
One is pending so your actual account balance isn’t negative, but your available balance will be. Probably just better to tip in cash, in all honesty. One of the payments won’t clear and then you’ll have that as balance
When you pay with (insert your competitors name here,) at a restaurant - one of your online and mobile competitors - the transaction confirmation on your phone also has a suggested tip with three options to help you out. You could explore that!!!
That’s what I’ve always done when I’ve been in the states. Meal bill on the card, but tip given as cash. Two advantages of this, as I see it: resolves the ‘double billing’ issue; and you can be sure to give the tip to the server you think deserves it rather than trust in the restaurant to distribute the tips fairly.
Granted, the disadvantage is that you have to make sure you have enough cash to hand in the first place. In my case, I don’t like eating out at places where I don’t know what the menu might be, so I always Google them a day or so beforehand, which means I have an idea what my meal may cost and so can make sure I have enough cash in hand in advance.
I know I will eventually get the second payment refunded. But not sure how long it is going take for this. Especially, right now, couple of hundreds are on hold.
This sounds good when the tip amount is just $20 / $30 bucks. It is not convenient when the tip amount is more than $50 as I don’t carry much cash in my wallet
With your Monzo account, we’ve already taken steps to make sure this doesn’t happen.
As a bit of background for anyone who is unfamiliar with how this works - payments happen in two parts. The first step, when you make a payment is an authorisation. This is when a merchant asks Monzo permission to charge your account for the amount of the bill.
The second part of a transaction is called the presentment - which is when the money is actually moved from Monzo to the merchant, this usually happens a few days after the actual purchase.
Transactions when you tip can confuse this even further because the amount of the bill will be charged at the point of authorisation - then, the additional amount that you tip is added at the presentment stage.
Sometimes, this can result in an entirely new charge and a temporary double charge to your balance.
We’ve made a change for this on our backend to prevent the likelihood of that happening. If you eat out and the bill is $50.00, for example, at the point of the authorisation, we’ll ringfence the $50.00 from your account and you’ll see your balance change.
Then, if you were to leave a tip of, $15.00 - when we receive the presentment from the merchant, instead of recharging you the full $65.00 again because it appears like a brand new payment - we’re able to match it to the original authorisation for $50.00. This allows us to only charge the additional $15.00 when we receive the final settled amount so you’ll see one total amount of $65 deducted from your balance
I also don’t just tip food establishments, I also tip for rideshare, food deliveries, and artists. The latter of which usually require a separate transaction to send a tip.
why have two transactions, it would seem much easier to have just one authorization for the bill and tip combined, and use something like flux to get an e-receipt which includes tip left
You spent $65 at Joe’s Pizza (including 30% tip).
my initial reaction now looks a bit silly given the post I reacted to was 
flagged. Maybe the virgin poster works for JCB? 