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IT’S BACK: Get £20 for free if you have a Monese account (only 4 minutes needed)

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It’s back!  Monese ran this offer a couple of weeks ago and it has returned.  You can buy a £100 gift card – for Amazon or other retailers – for £80.  A lot of readers took advantage but a lot more missed it when the codes ran out.  I recommend you jump in ASAP.  

How the Monese gift card promo works

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 “Win 1 million Avios” competition.  If you didn’t win, here is £20 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 £20

Monese is letting you buy a £100 shopping gift card for £80.

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.  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.

Step 1:  Make sure you have £80 in your Monese account

I withdrew £80 from my linked HSBC account and it arrived instantly:

You must load the £80 before you add the promo code below, otherwise you will get an error message.

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 HNY100:

Monese gift card promotion

…. 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:

Ignore the £70 reference in the image below which is from November.  Your screenshot will show you paid £80.

Monese gift card promotion

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

Enter your code:

Monese gift card promotion

And that’s it.  £20 saved.

I hope the free £20 makes up for not winning our Monese competition.  I also hope this works for you if you missed out in November.

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


Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2024 update

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

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

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.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

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:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback on your spending.

Barclaycard Select Cashback Business Credit Card

1% cashback uncapped* on all your business spending (T&C apply) Read our full review

Comments (68)

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

  • @mkcol says:

    How bizarre you didn’t qualify.
    I always forget to have the right amount of money in there to start with so got the same error message, then remembered to top up & hey presto worked just fine.
    And I’ve been able to take advantage of all the other previous promos they’ve done.

    They clearly have deep pockets.

    • BJ says:

      Odd, I’ve had the lot and my partner too. He misses out this time though as currently overseas.

      • @mkcol says:

        Just noticed they’ve emailed the offer too, so either everyone’s getting it & Rob didn’t have £80 in his account, or it is targeted widely.

  • Stephen says:

    “Not eligible” for me too – I took part last time. Rob, you may want to correct the code – the title of Step 3 says GC100 whereas the text says HNY100.

    • Rob says:

      Fixed!

    • @mkcol says:

      Did you have £80 in the account to start with, as they also spit out an error message if you apply the code with insufficient funds in the account? That’s how I found out!

  • MattB says:

    Thanks just worked for me. For reference already took advantage of the previous £100 for £80 and £50 for £35 deals.

  • HayMow says:

    Rob – presume Step 3 purple heading text should refer to HNY100 not GC100?

  • MD says:

    Worked for me, even though I’d also used the previous offer a few weeks ago – sorry Rob! And many thanks for the heads up.

  • Sussex Bantam says:

    Nice ! Thanks Rob

  • aston100 says:

    Seems to take forever to transfer funds from Halifax to Monese.
    I think it took between 2 and 3 hours on each previous occasion for me.
    Anyone getting a quicker transfer time from their bank?

    • Rob says:

      HSBC is instant.

    • Shoestring says:

      Halifax was instant for me

      • aston100 says:

        What am I doing wrong?

        • Shoestring says:

          probably nothing, all I can do is say what happened for me, regular current a/c with about £300 in it

          • aston100 says:

            Fair enough. It has been over 45 mins since i xfered the funds. Nothing showing on the app. Refreshing every 5 mins.
            Wonder if it would have been quicker/better to have used a debit card to top up maybe?

          • Shoestring says:

            mine was Halifax debit card

          • Rich says:

            Debit card should be instant. No reason why you can’t top up again by card if you’re in a hurry. You can always transfer the money out if necessary.

            I intend to keep some in there and use it for spending abroad, as it has much higher limits than curve or Revolut

          • aston100 says:

            So I just used my debit card and it added the funds instantly. And then at the same time the original £80 decided to come through too. So now I have £160 in Monese. But now the code has expired.
            FML 🙁

    • AndyW says:

      It took ages for me last time, and still waiting now after 10 mins this time. This is from NATWEST. All other transfers seem to be instant

    • Harry T says:

      First Direct and Revolut transfers very far from instant for me. Always have problems with transfers to Monese.

      • MD says:

        Did you do it as a bank transfer or debit card payment from Revolut? I used my Revolut debit card and it was instantaneous.

  • Doug M says:

    I hope Shoestring appreciates the speed you got this posted with.

    • Shoestring says:

      🙂

      I’ve had my gripe, made my point & will now shut the Freddy Flintstone up

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

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