South East Asia travel

Hey!

I am just waiting for my Monzo card but had a few questions if anyone can help?

We’re leaving to travel around South East Asia (Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines and Indonesia) before heading to Australia. We’re hoping to travel for at least a year. Anyone have any experience using the Monzo card in these places? Someone I know has been using it in Bangkok and said she’s still getting a £4 to withdraw cash?

Weve got the Halifax Clarity credit card for back up/bigger spends/ICOE so now we’re basically looking for the best current/debit/prepaid option! Any help/advice/recommendations are welcome and appreciated :grin::+1:t3:

you could read the “travelling with Monzo” link on this forum which covers most of the Countries you might be visiting

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Thanks. Sorry, need to the forum and found all the countries theads after I’d posted! Thanks

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All of those countries are basically cash economies (tho Thailand is changing a little for dept stores, 7/11, petrol station interaction) and so its going to be ATM use.

Thailand you will pay a +200 bht ATM fee for foriegn cards most machines dispense a max of 20 notes so 20k baht or less. I think some Ayathaya bank machines will give 30 a go these days.

Laos I struggled, but managed to get money out of some ATMs for 20,000 Kip on top of a Max 2 Million withdrawal. Make sure to carry spare money in Laos, I spent almost a hour scooting round a city trying machine after machine with many terminals being ‘down’ not only Monzos fault.

Not tested Monzo in Cambodia yet but ANZ bank which is all over cambodia is a modern bank much better than its local competition… Would hope it works there.

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As Ian mentioned, you’ll find your travel tips for each country in a dedicated topic for the country.

Probably the most important thing to bear in mind here though is Monzo’s limits (for how much you can load on a card, spend etc.) particularly as you might need to withdraw quite a lot of money from ATMs. The limits are in the iOS app (where your useage vs the limit is also tracked) & on the website here

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@alexs @PhatPheddy thank you both! :slight_smile:

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