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Get £45 for free if you have a Monese bank account

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Monese is the online banking app which has a partnership with Avios – albeit that the partnership has not gone much further, so far, than letting you view your Avios balance alongside your financial balance.

I know that 2,000 HfP readers have a Monese account following our recent competition.  If you didn’t win, here is £45 as compensation.

If you don’t already have a Monese account, you can use my refer-a-friend code of ROBE820.  You will receive a £5 credit plus a further £15 when you’ve spent £500 on your card.  I think that is how it works – it doesn’t actually tell me anywhere what you get ….

If you are reading this on your phone, the download link is here.

How to get your free £45

As a Black Friday offer, Monese has two offers running:

  • Buy a £50 shopping gift card for £35
  • Buy a £100 shopping gift card for £70

By far the easiest option is to buy an Amazon gift card and add it to your Amazon account for future use (it is valid for 10 years).

Here is a step by step guide to how to do it.  This is based on the £100 gift card but the process is the same for the £50 card.  You can buy one of each per Monese account.

As you can see from the time stamps on the screenshots, it only took me four minutes to buy and redeem each gift card – and it would have been quicker if I wasn’t taking and uploading screenshots!

If the offer comes up as ‘expired’, it isn’t.  It is just overload on the system.  I got ‘expired’ early on Friday but was then able to purchase successfully at lunchtime.  If GIFT100 fails for the £100 gift card, you may find that GIFT50 still works, according to readers.

Step 1:  Make sure you have £70 in your Monese account

I withdrew £70 from my linked HSBC account and it arrived instantly:

Monese gift card promotion

Step 2:  Go to ‘Promotions’, which is under the menu in the top left corner (the ‘head’ icon)

Step 3:  Add the code ‘GIFT100’ (or ‘GIFT50’ for the £50 card):

…. which will lead you to this screen:

Monese gift card promotion

Step 4:  Click on your messages (the ‘bell’ in the top right corner)

You can then activate your gift card.

Step 5:  Choose the gift card you want

You can choose from Amazon, Argos, Asda, Caffe Nero, Cineworld, Costa, Currys ….. and that is just A-C!  For an easy life, take an Amazon gift card (valid for 10 years):

Monese gift card promotion

Step 6:  Click here to go to the page of the amazon.co.uk where you redeem electronic gift cards

And that’s it.  £30 saved.

If you bought the £100 gift card, you can repeat the process with code GIFT50 and pay £35 for a £50 gift card.

I hope the free £45 makes up for not winning our Monese competition.

If you’re not already a Monese account holder, you can download the app here.

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Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2025 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current sign-up bonuses.

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You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

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American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

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British Airways American Express Premium Plus

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The Platinum Card from American Express

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Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

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Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

American Express Business Platinum

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Category

General

Comments (178)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Geoggy says:
    30 Nov30 November 08:29

    Can anyone tell me if they got a confirmation email from Monese when they opened their account?

    I know I did this and I can see the tenner leaving my HSBC account on the day of the email, but I can’t get into the app and can’t see a confirmation email anywhere

    • Shoestring says:
      30 Nov30 November 08:49

      no confirmation email

      I had to log out then log in again to see I was successfully enrolled/ signed up/ approved

  • Roger says:
    30 Nov30 November 08:40

    Has BA 1000 Avios on £100+ spend disappeard from Amex Account?

    I have already spent that amount last weekend but no sign of Avios in my Amex Account or
    Amex offer in My account?

    • Chas says:
      30 Nov30 November 09:38

      Mine has been credited to BAEC this morning at the same time as my normal Avios from my BAPP statement transferred.

    • AJA says:
      30 Nov30 November 10:19

      It took 10 days from date of spending with BA to appear in the Avios balance page on my Amex account. So give it a couple of days. Was also cumulative as I booked two RFS Avios bookings in CE and it showed up on my Amex statement as two separate entries of £50.

  • Roger says:
    30 Nov30 November 08:42

    Anyone managed to change creation statement date easily?
    Customer service is dreadful but still.

    • Liz says:
      30 Nov30 November 09:00

      I think everyone’s come out at the same time so not sure if they would change that.

    • mvcvz says:
      30 Nov30 November 12:13

      Everything about Creation is difficult. I have no idea what would happen if these useless f***ing w***heads should ever be called upon to do something even remotely challenging. The sooner IHG moves its credit cards out of the hands of these jokers, the better.

  • Fran says:
    30 Nov30 November 08:56

    More a demotion than promotion. Never got it to work over multiple attempts. Perception of the company way down.

  • Shoestring says:
    30 Nov30 November 09:07

    not as much skill required as twice winning the weekly DM Shares competition

    • Boi says:
      30 Nov30 November 09:19

      I really want to win something…. I enter loads of competitions but never win (incl every single month of using virgin red). I am so jealous!

  • Kevin C says:
    30 Nov30 November 09:45

    Talking of gift cards, D&D restaurant group are offering an extra £20 on a £100 gift card this weekend. This will hopefully stack with an Amex offer of £20 off a £100 spend (was 20 off 80 on another card). The Amex offer ends today.

    • @mkcol says:
      30 Nov30 November 15:56

      Beware – one of those D&D offers is online only & the other is instore only.

  • Rooster says:
    30 Nov30 November 10:08

    Would not bother with companies like Monese and COT they are both rubbish

    • Doug M says:
      30 Nov30 November 10:17

      In the ‘win market share, buy customers’ phase I think you can do rather well out of them.

    • The Savage Squirrel says:
      30 Nov30 November 10:24

      Managed to get a six figure sum of Avios (so value in the £1000s) that I otherwise would not have got thanks to COT, all at a cost of £250 to join the rewards club (the bonus alone pretty much paid for that). Not sure that counts as rubbish :D. As Doug M says, you cannot expect these unsustainable situations where the company is losing money to last all that long.

    • Rob says:
      30 Nov30 November 11:38

      Numerous readers have told me they got six figure Avios sums from COT. Obviously a niche SME product though.

  • Graham Walsh says:
    30 Nov30 November 10:16

    Baaaa, too late to the game

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