The offer is open to new and existing customers for the rest of 2022.
A brand new cashback offering has launched with Monese, and it knocks all the rest out of the park – though there’s not long to be eligible. Here’s everything you need to know.
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What is Monese?
Monese is a digital bank, along the lines of Monzo, Starling, and Chase. This means there are no branches and everything is managed from the app.
You can send and receive money, set up Direct Debits and standing orders and most of the things you’d expect.
There are different priced accounts, though the free option will be best for most people (though you’ll be charged for ATM withdrawals). Paid versions have extras such as fee-free spending overseas and lower fees on international transfers.
However, unlike most other banks, Monese isn’t a full UK bank, meaning it’s not protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). It is however still regulated by the FCA and the bank says all money is protected if they were to go under. Still, I wouldn’t keep too much cash in the bank just in case.
How the 1.5% cashback offer works
Those who are eligible (more on this in a bit) will get 1.5% cashback on most spending with their Monese card between 1 August and 31 December 2022.
There’s a £2,000 spending cap each month, meaning the most you can earn will be £30 a month, or £180 a year.
Cashback earned will appear in your account at the end of the following month. So presumably this means if you spend in August, you’ll get the cashback at the end of September, and so on.
You’ll earn this on most everyday spending, but there are exemptions. I’ve lifted this list from the Monese site.
Exemptions include:
- account and prepaid card funding,
- bail and bond payments,
- bank fees such as product fees,
- promotional merchandise,
- financial consultations and loan fees,
- cash withdrawals,
- cheques,
- cryptocurrencies,
- debt repayments,
- deposits,
- gambling transactions,
- money orders,
- money transfers,
- MoneySend transactions,
- pawnbrokers,
- precious metals,
- savings bonds,
- securities — stocks, bonds, commodities and mutual funds,
- stamp and coin stores,
- travellers Cheques and foreign currency.
You can read the full terms and conditions here (or the June iteration here).
This video was made when the offer first ran in June 2022, but other than the dates it’s still correct.
How new customers can get the cashback
If you open up a GBP account for the first time and then add £250 to the account before 31 July 2022, the 1.5% cashback will be activated and start on 1 August 2022.
You can also sign up via a friend’s referral link or other promotion to get an extra bonus of up to £30
Monese welcome offers
Monese: Get up to £30
This offer is slightly better and could earn you up to £30 in credit. However you will need an existing Monese customer to share their referral code or link.
**My link has reached its limit however if you find someone who can share their own referral code you’ll be able to take advantage.**
Sign up with a promo code (ANDR4552 (code expired). You can sign up for any tier, though I’d go for the free plan.
Once you get the card, use it for any transaction to earn £20. There’s no minimum spend required to trigger this bonus.
To get the next bonus, you need to spend another £500 on the card or send the same amount abroad. This can be any number of transactions. Once you reach that level you’ll get another £10 credit added to your account.
IMPORTANT: Payments with your Monese card towards things like credit card bills don’t count, so you will need to “spend” the money.
Monese: Get up to £20 for joining (EXPIRED)
*Ends Friday 22 June at 5pm*
You can get up to £20 free cash from Monese.
New customers can get up to £20 added to your account. You need to open an account with the promo code CLEVERCASH21. Use this on sign up, not on the promo tab within the app.
Then once you’ve used the physical debit card you’ll get £5 added to your account. Spend a total of £500 with the card and an extra £15 will be added. Full terms and conditions here.
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How existing Monese customers can get the cashback
It’s not just newbies who can get this deal, and earn the cashback until the end of 2022. However to activate it on your account you need someone to successfully use your refer-a-friend link when they sign up.
They’ll also need to do this and add the £250 to their new account by 31 July 2022 – so there’s not much time.
You can find your invite link on the homepage of your Monese app, or in the “invite” tab on the bottom menu. You’ll also see how many invites you have left, with a total of 15 available per account.
If they spend £500 on the card within a year you’ll also get £30 added to your account for each person.
How does it compare to other cashback cards?
1.5% is better than you’ll get on every other card, with Chase Bank’s 1% for 12 months the next best bet for most people.
However, the welcome bonuses from American Express can be worth much more over a shorter period, and it’s possible for some to get more than one of these.
I’ve signed up to Monese in July and deposited £250 to the account but didn’t receive any message about the 1.5% cashback rebate this month (Aug). I’ve also referred a few friends in July and all of them had deposited 250£ in it. Don’t know if I’m eligible for the 1.5% cashback from Aug.
Also I just noticed a slight update in the referral bonus from friend. From Aug onwards, you will only get 10£ referral bonus for the initial transaction, and your friend will have to spend further 500£ to get the remaining 20£.
Having added £250 to the account by end of July, is that all that is needed to satisfy the terms and conditions to get the 1.5% cashback or do you have to maintain a minimum £250 balance in the account at all times?
Just signed up for the July 2022 cashback offer as a new customer and have topped up by £250 as required. There was no mention of the 1.5% cashback when I was applying or on the app. Will this start on August 1st when I begin to use the card?
*Update: It is now August 3rd and the 1.5% cashback has still not been activated. I contacted Monese and was referred to a link listing the required terms. These mentioned referral codes but I understood you could just apply as a new customer without a referral. I’m going to close this account and continue using Chase!
Hi Andy, whilst I recognise the 1.5% cash back here is better than chase at 1%, I wonder how that evens out when you also consider the additional 5% that chase offer on round ups? Obviously it would depend on degrees of spending, I guess we would need to look based on ‘average’. Would be interested to know your thoughts ?
Am I going to get cashback also on purchase made with monese virtual card or the cashback is linked only to a physical card?
I cannot see any mention of physical or virtual card in the terms, it just states “card purchases”
However, you may as well order the physical card as it’s free at the moment (was £5 a while ago) and you will only qualify for the £30 referral/invite bonus when you use the physical card (£20 bonus on first purchase, £10 bonus when you have made purchases totalling £500)
How do you know if you got the 1.5% cash back ?
I referred a friend in June and on 1st July I got an alert from Monese to say the 1.5% cashback reward is activated.
The alert does not show in my Monese account for some reason, but I took a screen shot of it when it popped up.
HI Andy,
Would you mind existing Monese customers putting their referral code on here to allow others to get the higher cashback amount?
The exemptions list above includes “debt repayments” so it doesn’t look like you can earn cashback on these, unfortunately.
This comment was supposed to be in reply to Rob’s question!
Would you recommend this one as a switching account once we get the bonus? Is this account recognised as valid for switching?
Sadly you can use it for switching
Used clevercash21 promo as new customer, but sadly didn’t see any Cash added up in the account. Account opening was very smooth though. Do we need to order card to avail this offer. Kindly reply. Many thanks.
Yes, order a card and spend with it
Do you know if the 1.5% cashback would be rewarded by using Monese to pay off monthly credit card statements (eg on Amex, etc)?
Unfortunately not.