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Supercard announces full launch in the Summer – how does it compare with Curve?

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Supercard, the Travelex-backed foreign currency payment card, has emailed its beta users – a large % of whom were recruited via Head for Points – to say that the scheme is finally going to open up to the public.

(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.)

I was expecting some sort of announcement from Supercard after the Curve launch.  I am a little surprised by the timing though.

All existing Supercards will stop working on 6th June.  Beta testers and other people who have an expressed an interest will be invited to reapply for a new card later in the Summer – no date given.

Supercard

I covered Supercard a lot last year.  I have been very quiet about it since, as the beta was not accepting new users, so it is worth a recap of the product.

Like Curve, Supercard is a plastic credit-type card which does not have a credit limit of its own.  Instead, any transaction you make with the Supercard is recharged to a different Visa or Mastercard you own.  There is an app to manage your linked cards and transactions.

This sounds very similar to the Curve card which I wrote about last month and which is due to ship to the first 10,000 users later in March.

The two products are different in some key ways:

Curve has a one-off £35 fee for the basic version, offset by a £10 credit on your first transaction if you are referred by an existing cardholder, whilst Supercard is free.  Curve will have a loyalty programme for users but there are no details yet.

Curve can recharge any Mastercard transaction to an American Express, Visa or Mastercard.  Supercard can only recharge to a Visa or MasterCard.  This means that Curve is the only option if you want to bulk up your Amex spend at non-Amex retailers.

Curve has a 1% fee when used outside the UK.   Supercard has no foreign exchange fee.

Curve can be used in the UK.  It can even be used to withdraw cash from UK ATMs and recharge the withdrawal as a purchase to your American Express card.  Supercard is not meant to be used in the UK.  During the beta process people have been doing it – and Supercard has not, I believe, been imposing the threatened 50p per transaction fine – but I would expect this rule to be applied more firmly when the full roll-out takes place.

The lines are now clearly drawn:

Supercard will be the preferred option for people who want no card fee and want to avoid all foreign exchange fees when spending abroad

Curve will be the preferred option for people who are concerned about reward points (the 1% is likely to be worth paying in return for the rewards offered on a linked Amex card), who need to build up spend on their Amex card to hit a bonus or spend target or who do a lot of UK spending at merchants who do not take American Express.

Of course, as there is likely to be a five month gap between Curve shipping (late March) and Supercard shipping (probably August, after your Summer holiday), you need to factor that in as well.

You can find full details on Curve – and my £10 referral code – in this HfP article from last month.  You can more information on Supercard in this article.

If you want to pre-register interest for Supercard, you can do so here.

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Comments (115)

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

  • Tony says:
    10 Mar10 March 09:07

    I’ve found that Supercard transactions no longer show the merchant name when they appear on my Visa card’s statement. They all show as “Tuxedo yadayada Chester”. When you’ve used it 30 times after a trip, its hard to identify what’s what without having to plough through the app details and cross reference. No idea why it changed, and neither do their customer service dept.

    Having to reapply is a crazy business decision on their part too.

  • Jason S-T says:
    10 Mar10 March 09:13

    I am really looking forward to trying Curve so I can earn Avios on my BA AmEx. With regard to FX and Supercard, I have been using WeSwap.com for sometime now on multiple foreign visits, really like the convenience, cheaper ATM cash withdrawals and the competitive FX rates I get. Could not see any article on WeSwap on Head for Points so interested to know other people’s opinion. Has been covered on Money Saving Expert though.

    • Pol says:
      10 Mar10 March 13:19

      Same issues as Raffles pointed out for Revolut. Can only be loaded with debit card so no points earning opportunity.

  • Kevin says:
    10 Mar10 March 09:17

    Hi guys, do I understand correctly that I can link a credit card to my Supercard and pay off various UK bills and Supercard would only charge 50p per transaction? Not the 1.5% that many websites charge?

    Thanks

    • Alan says:
      10 Mar10 March 09:40

      Yes, or potentially not even 50p as they don’t always charge it. Worked nicely for me at the weekend.

    • Rob says:
      10 Mar10 March 12:09

      Correct. But you are not meant to use it in the UK and obviously the 50p ‘fine’, when paying massive bills, does not even begin to cover their loss on the transaction.

      • Singing Dwarf says:
        10 Mar10 March 14:05

        No at all.

        From the Ts&Cs: “Your Supercard CAN be used in the UK for point-of-sale transactions or ATM transactions only if You have a UK debit card as Your Registered Card. If your Registered Card is a credit card, Your Supercard WILL NOT WORK in the UK. Using Your Supercard in the UK will attract additional fees ”

        My highlighting. Nothing to say you MUST NOT use in the UK at all.

        • Rob says:
          10 Mar10 March 16:20

          But why would you use it with a debit card? All the discussions we have had, and my comments, were based on putting a credit card behind it for obvious reasons.

          • Singing Dwarf says:
            16 Mar16 March 14:04

            You wouldn’t.

            The point is that it SHOULD not work in the UK when linked to a credit card. I’m sure that they will rectify the fact that it IS working when they go live – or perhaps charge a prohibitive fee for doing so.

  • Jason Cousins says:
    10 Mar10 March 09:28

    I’ve found the Supercard, whilst excellent in principal, is diabolical in practice. I’ve had so many issues that I thought it’d be easier to list them:
    1. App Functionality: regularly faulty and Customer Services always at a loss as how to help
    2. Card Declined around 50% of the time in various countries.
    3. A number of ‘declined’ transactions’ charged for and a hell of a problem to get a refund
    4. Delayed transactions, in one case a transaction took almost 3 months to my linked card.
    5. Refunds to the card never show. This one had to go to head office as I was lied to about how this worked.

    All in all, with over 6 hours of telephone time and dozens of emails did not equate to the savings made on the card.

  • Russell Evans says:
    10 Mar10 March 09:31

    Do I understand correctly that I can use Supercard at a UK ATM to withdraw Sterling, paying only 50p (if applied during the BETA) for the privilege whilst earning points/miles on a linked Credit Card? I can then use the cash to repay the credit card before the bill has even generated?

    • Alan says:
      10 Mar10 March 09:41

      It’s meant to be £2 for UK ATM withdrawals according to their FAQ, am waiting to hear from others as to whether they charge it or not.

  • Alan says:
    10 Mar10 March 09:40

    I’ll probably continue to use Supercard abroad and Curve in the UK

  • Colin JE says:
    10 Mar10 March 10:20

    I’m a bit confused as to whether the Curve card is classified as debit or credit card?
    Your previous article discussed the enhanced interchange fee that Curve, as a business credit card, can still get from retailers. But you also mention that it might avoid paying the £5 fee at BA, which I thought only applied to debit cards. How so, if it’s a credit card, charging the retailer a credit card fee?
    Very interested, as I would pay my tax and VAT using the Curve if it was a debit card!

    • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
      10 Mar10 March 10:22

      It’s a prepaid debit card. They also attract enhanced rates of interchange.

      • Rob says:
        10 Mar10 March 12:08

        But it does not have full debit card functionality, eg Amex won’t accept it to settle card payments.

  • Colin MacKinnon says:
    10 Mar10 March 11:41

    OT question:

    My wife has 20,000 in cash euros (and the paperwork to show they came legit from Spain!).

    What’s the cheapest way to turn them in GBP and credit a UK account?

    Or does she take an RFS to Spain and pay them back in to her Spanish bank and then use a FX transfer service?

    • Alan says:
      10 Mar10 March 11:44

      I’d imagine FX transfer service possibly the best route however I must say whenever I’ve had foreign cheques I’ve found Metro Bank to offer excellent conversion rates with no fees – not sure what their rates are like for cash.

      • Lady London says:
        10 Mar10 March 12:47

        IME Metro Bank is good for Europe but not for the US.

        Beware also there are a couple of wrinkles where a transaction in Euros may still be charged – such as if a US bank sends you Euros. They actually do not do their own clearing and some other things – they tell me these are done by Barclays for them. Thus if a US bank sends you Euros – you will get charged. You won’t just receive your money at the interbank rate. Their t’s and c’s do not advise this. The humungous number of calls I had to make to them over a period of months trying to sort out 2 business transactions which fell into this category was the beginning of my readiness to contemplate using another bank.

        • Alan says:
          10 Mar10 March 19:36

          Ah OK, interesting. In my case I had a USD cheque and saved about £65 or so by paying it into them rather than RBS, so was pretty happy 🙂

    • Rob says:
      10 Mar10 March 12:05

      Citibank lets you run dual currency current accounts and you can switch money between £ and Euro online, presumably at a decent rate.

      • Henrik says:
        10 Mar10 March 12:56

        Though I found citi FX rates to be 2% worse than midmarket rates, at east smaller online transactions.

      • David says:
        10 Mar10 March 13:10

        You could presumably pay the cash into a Citi EUR account then use an FX transfer service to move the money to any normal GBP account at a better rate than Citi offers themselves.

        • sandgrounder says:
          10 Mar10 March 17:10

          Citi used to be a lot better than it is today. For example, if I go to the site now and try to transfer £100 to my Euro account I am offered 124.34 Euro. Compare this to 128.14 on xe.com as I write.

          You used to be able to transfer sterling using faster payments into the currency accounts and it was converted with no fees (although this was against the Ts&Cs). Sadly, this loophole was closed a while ago. The accounts are still useful because you can hold USD and Euro and they have no fees, and as David suggests you can use a third party to make the transfers. I receive a rent from a property in the Eurozone, and my tenants can send a SEPA payment for free. Citi will also allow you to send SEPA for free. They do not charge ATM fees to use your debit card abroad when linked to the correct currency account, and you can have a USD chequebook which clears through New York, handy for sending birthday presents to US-based young relatives. These new super-dooper linked ‘cash-as-purchase’ cards win for me though, due to the obvious reward-earning potential.

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