London can seem like a bit of ghost town at Christmas. You can board the tube without losing an eye to a rogue elbow. Even the pigeons seem to have taken a few days off to gorge on foraged Christmas party leftovers.
Despite this, it’s pretty much business as usual here at Monzo Towers (with a bit more tinsel!), but there are a few things to look out for and remember over the festive period when using your card.
Tracking your festive spending
If you’re like us, you’re keen to make sure you’re not strapped for cash come the end of the month. That means that keeping close track of your spending out and about, especially those pricey gifts we know you’re buying for your friends (including us here at Monzo… no? Worth a try!).
As you’ll already know, there are 10 predefined categories that you can use to categorise all your spending. One of them is ‘Shopping’, a good one for all that extra present buying. Simply tap on the category on any transaction to change it if you think it fits better in ‘Shopping’ than in ‘Groceries’, ‘General’ or whatever.
“But wait!”, we hear you cry. “I still can’t track exactly what I’ve bought against a Christmas budget, or see what I’ve spent on different members of the family.”
Good job there’s a nice solution for that 😉
Add a note to any transaction, and use a consistent tag (‘Christmas’ would do, but here we’ve used 🎅). Then you’ll be able to search on that tag using the search bar, where you’ll be able to scroll through all the relevant transactions, as well as seeing the total amount spent (which appears at the bottom).
Know your limits
If you have plans to hit the sales on boxing day, it’s worth checking your transaction and withdrawal limits. The daily cash withdrawal limit for people who have had their ID verified is £250 and there is a per transaction limit of £1,000. So if you want to buy something pricey in the sales, like a TV, you'll need to ask the cashier to split the payment across a couple of transactions if it's over £1,000. It’s also worth bearing in mind there is a rolling 30 day limit of £1,000 for cash withdrawals. If you haven’t verified your identity, both limits may be lower.
iOS users can view their limits in the app by tapping on ‘Card’, then the profile icon in the top right and tapping the 'Spending and Top Up Limits' row (coming soon to Android). If you’re unsure if you’ve completed identity verification, reach out to us via the in-app chat and we can fire over a prompt. It’s super easy and takes 5 minutes to complete.
Losing your card
We've not got official statistics on this, but we’d put money on December being the peak month for lost and damaged Monzo cards. Report your card lost and we’ll have a new one dispatched for you the next working day.
Usually cards should only take 1-2 working days to arrive, however, do bear in mind that Royal Mail operates a revised schedule over Christmas which may affect delivery times by a few days.
Refunds over Christmas
If you’ve been a bit too ready to shop, perhaps buying just a few too many gifts for yourself (haven't we all?), maybe you’ll want to take some items back to the store for a refund.
As ever (and as with any other bank), refunds take between 2 to 5 working days to show up in your Monzo feed, so bear that in mind, particularly since there are a few bank holidays towards the end of the month.
Chatting to our support team
We’re aiming to keep our 24/7 support for urgent issues, and 8am-7pm for everything else. But the customer support team may be a bit stretched at busy times over the festive period, particularly bank holidays. This might mean that the response time is a little longer than usual. Please bear with us!
Thought of something we haven’t covered? Want to ask us a festive season question? Ask us on Twitter or leave a comment on our forum!