Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

An update on Curve – you receive £10 credit when you are referred

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

(EDIT:  Curve has changed a lot since this article was published.  Please do not rely on the information here.  Instead, please click here to read our detailed 2020 Curve review, which includes a link for a free £10 credit when you sign up.)

On Thursday I ran a long article about Curve.  This was, I think, the most-read article ever on HfP – it was certainly the most-read article on the day of publication.

Curve has a number of fascinating features.  Most relevant for our market, it allows you to pay for anything where a Mastercard is accepted and have it recharged – as a purchase – to an American Express card.

Even cash withdrawals are recharged, as a purchase, to your Amex.  I have been testing the card for a few days and I can confirm that this works perfectly.

Let me repeat this bit – you can buy something using the Curve card at a retailer which only accepts Mastercard, or even make a cash withdrawal at an ATM, and it will be re-charged to your American Express card (or a Visa or Mastercard) as a purchase.  It will earn miles and count towards any sign-up bonus.  It also works abroad, even on overseas cash withdrawals.

Curve prepaid MasterCard

I have been taking part in the Curve pilot programme and I can confirm that the card does everything that it says.

The cost of the basic Curve card is £35.  There is a £75 premium version but I don’t know enough about the benefits to recommend it at this time.  This is a one-off fee, not an annual one.

What I didn’t know on Thursday is that, if you used my referral link to apply, you will receive a £10 credit into your Curve account.  This means that the net cost of joining up is only £25 and not £35.  The £10 is credited once you make the first transaction on your card.

If you haven’t signed up and are still interested, you will find full details and my referral details in the article from Thursday.

My referral code, if it doesn’t track automatically, is oqb4J.  It is a letter and not a zero at the start.

Note that Curve is targetted at the business market and you should have some sort of freelance / self-employed / SME income or involvement (although not necessarily full-time) in order to apply.

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

18,000 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:

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

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

Category

General

Comments (116)

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

  • Tariq says:
    20 Feb20 February 06:27

    Great news! Bit of a commercial/marketing failure not to have nailed the benefits of the premium card up front – massive loss of revenue opportunity for them there…! Any ideas when we will expect to receive the cards? Are they sending them straight out next week or is it going to be a longer process?

    • Hilly says:
      20 Feb20 February 06:35

      Cards are being sent out “in March”.
      For £10 off the deal here is my referral code : 4yOXc

    • Andrew says:
      20 Feb20 February 12:31

      Given the number of people on here who said they were getting the black card ‘just in case’ it may have been marketing genius to have not detailed the benefits of their reward scheme

  • Stuart says:
    20 Feb20 February 06:34

    I’ve ordered one for myself and thought I’d try to order one for an employee, connected to my company Amex. The application seems to have gone through OK. Would you see any reason why this might be a problem?

    • harry says:
      20 Feb20 February 10:32

      If you have given the employee’s details in all the correct places, I can’t see it is fraud. So you linked an Amex card with cardholder ‘Stuart’ to a Curve card with cardholder ‘Employee X’, ie with different names?

      • Stuart says:
        20 Feb20 February 14:26

        Yes. At the moment he uses a prepaid Mastercard. If he spends on a Curve Card, against my Amex I’ll lose nothing and gain points.

  • Richard says:
    20 Feb20 February 06:49

    Rob. I have a supplementary Amex card for my wife. How does this work with Curve? Do we each need a card. Many thanks. Richard

    • Genghis says:
      20 Feb20 February 06:54

      Yes. I haven’t ordered one for my wife tho as her current non-Amex spend is really low and couldn’t justify the expense

    • Rob says:
      20 Feb20 February 08:54

      You can link both to your Curve card if you say your name is on both. Not sure why the point would be though?

      • leo_c says:
        20 Feb20 February 09:22

        My wife has an Amex linked t mine, so it doubles our spending- would be nice if she could have a curve. Linked to mine for her other cards (e.g. M&S)
        on another note Rob…it would be mouth watering if the future curve rewards could be converted to Avios???
        Leo

  • Archie says:
    20 Feb20 February 07:02

    Just to clarify, you receive the £10 credit for folowing any referral, not just the author’s as stated above. Why not encourage your friends and family to sign up and both share in the discount using your own code!

    • Fredo Frog says:
      20 Feb20 February 07:36

      Because some of us show our appreciation to Raffles for running the site and bringing these opportunties to our attention, through supporting him in clicking on his links and encouraging others to do likewise.

  • John says:
    20 Feb20 February 07:09

    Even at £25 it still doesn’t seem worthwhile for me.

    Unfortunately I bought a new house in January which involved one-off £7000 spend on IHG premium – if Curve had been available, that could have been 7000 avios instead of 14000 IHG points. I wouldn’t pay £25 to convert 14k IHG to 7k avios.

    OT – barclaycard said they would waive the fee for next year

    • Nick says:
      20 Feb20 February 09:15

      Why are Barclaycard waiving the fee?

      • Waribai says:
        20 Feb20 February 12:54

        Because you say “I’d like to cancel my fee paying card!”

      • CV3V says:
        20 Feb20 February 17:51

        they offered to waive the fee for me too, as a valued customer. All i had ever bought was a bottle of water, 69p, to trigger the points bonus.

        Still cancelled though and reset the 6 month timer, as i want to get the Hilton card. After maxing out my stays with IHG for the last few years, earning Spire status and then matching it to Hilton Diamond status the guaranteed benefits of Hilton have been a real, valuable benefit (upgrade, free breakfast and lounge access).

  • mr bridge says:
    20 Feb20 February 07:13

    silly question, has any one tried linking their supercard to curve
    eg:
    use supercard abroad linked to curve then curve linked to amex??

    • Leo says:
      20 Feb20 February 08:21

      Only Rob could answer this as no-one else has the card yet…..

      • Mark says:
        20 Feb20 February 19:54

        I can tell you it is unlikely to work as Supercard won’t allow prepaid cards to be linked.

        And yes, I tried it (with a 3V card!) to test it out… 🙂

  • Jono says:
    20 Feb20 February 07:37

    How about the people who are posting their own referral codes set up your own blogs, post them there and see how much traffic you get?

    It makes sense to refer direct friends and family but not to post codes in comments… We get so many tips and so much info here, it isn’t asking much for people to let Rob have the referral rather than a stranger who’s done nothing except post a comment ffs…

    • Fredo Frog says:
      20 Feb20 February 07:41

      Hear Hear

    • RIccati says:
      20 Feb20 February 07:46

      The comments contribute with valuable knowledge and observation.

      One-directional blog would surely lose some life.

      • Fredo Frog says:
        20 Feb20 February 08:03

        No one suggested a one-directional blog. Comments from readers are indeed valuable.

        Hawking your own bonus codes on Raffles site is disingenuous in my opinion.

        And makes for a dull read.

        • Mike says:
          20 Feb20 February 09:15

          I’ve just made a similar comment, totally agree with you – naughty to try and divert business away from Rob

    • James Alexander says:
      20 Feb20 February 09:03

      Agreed!!!

  • Billyk says:
    20 Feb20 February 07:50

    I for one couldn’t agree more we all get so much from this site that it’s only fair to use Raffles code

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

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

NEW: Sign-up bonuses boosted to 3,000 and 18,000 points

Latest Forum Posts

Get 40,000 bonus points (worth 40,000 Avios) and £300 dining credit with The Platinum Card

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get £10 when you spend £150 on your free Currensea card

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? SPECIAL OFFER TO 12TH MAY EARN POINTS WORTH 30,000 AVIOS WITH CAPITAL ON TAP

Get 20,000 bonus points, four airport lounge passes and your first year free with American Express Gold

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!