Curve Card and its new ‘acceptable use’ policy

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(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.)

The Curve card is an innovative new payment card which is currently in beta mode. I reviewed the Curve card in detail here but, put simply:

branded as a MasterCard, it allows you to recharge transactions to an American Express card – great for places where Amex is not accepted

when used abroad, it only levies a 1% FX fee (compared to 3% on 99% of UK credit and debit cards) and recharges the amount to any linked Amex, Visa or MasterCard

when used in an ATM, it recharges the withdrawal to any linked Amex, Visa or MasterCard and treats that transaction as a purchase for the purpose of earning points and counting towards BA Amex 241 vouchers etc

Curve was launched with a caveat that all transactions would be subject to a ‘fair use’ policy which was undefined.

A policy on ATM withdrawals has recently appeared on its website:

At Curve we want to be your gateway to everything money giving you more choice and saving you money. However there are certain services which are high risk for Curve and/or expensive for Curve to provide due to third party fees. For these services we have a monthly free usage limit which if passed will result in a small but fair fee to cover costs. This helps keep Curve free to use for the majority of our users.

ATM Withdrawals from credit cards

You can withdrawal up to £200 (or currency equivalent) for free using your American Express or other credit cards per calendar month after which there is a 2% charge. This limit does not apply to ATM debit card withdrawals. Furthermore any behaviour which Curve deems to be “cash recycling” whereby high volumes of cash are taken out of an ATM using a credit card and then used to repay the credit card in order to gain rewards on the funding card or Curve Rewards is not permitted. Such behaviour may result in your Curve account being blocked or cancelled. See Section 6 of Curve Terms and Conditions for further information.

Our platform uses third party systems to identify whether the Funding Source is a debit or credit card. If you believe your card has been incorrectly defined you should contact us where you will be required to provide evidence as such in order for your case to be investigated.

ATM domestic withdrawal frequency

ATM usage is free for up to 10 domestic (withdrawals in the same currency as your Funding Source) withdrawals per month after which time you may be charged £0.50 (or currency equivalent) per usage for each additional ATM withdrawal.

It is worth noting that this new policy should not apply to anyone who applied for a Curve card before last Friday.

The Curve terms and conditions state the following:

1.10 Amendments to this Agreement. We may at any time amend, delete or add to this Agreement, including the Fees and other amounts which apply to your Account (as set out in Schedule 1) (a “Change”) by giving notice of such Change by posting a revised version of this Agreement on the Curve website(s). A Change will be made unilaterally by us and you will be deemed to have accepted the Change after you have received notice of it. We will give you 2 months’ notice of any Change with the Change taking effect once the 2 month notice period has passed, except the 2 month notice period will not apply where a Change is required by law or relates to the addition of a new service, extra functionality to the existing Service or any other change which neither reduces your rights nor increases your responsibilities. In such instances, the Change will be made without prior notice to you and shall be effective immediately.

As this is clearly a change in the fees levied, it requires 2 months notice to be given if you applied before Friday. I have not been charged for a cash withdrawal over the weekend so they appear to be working to this.

Let’s look at where this leaves you with Curve

Under the new rules, you can withdraw – for free – £2,400 per year from an ATM to be recharged to a credit card. Let’s assume that you use a British Airways Premium Plus American Express.

£2,400 will cover 24% of the £10,000 of spend required each year to trigger your 2-4-1 voucher – that is a meaningful contribution

You will earn 3,600 Avios per year which you would not otherwise earn

You also have the other benefits of the card:

Being able to recharge purchases at establishments which do not accept American Express to an American Express

Being able to make overseas transactions for a 1% foreign exchange fee, compared with 3% charged by almost all other cards. Even if you have a credit card with 0% foreign exchange fees (Post Office Platinum, Halifax Clarity) you may be better off paying Curve 1% and earning the rewards on the underlying card.

The 2% credit card ATM fee may be worth paying

It may even be worth paying Curve’s 2% fee to make additional ATM withdrawals – whilst being aware of the ‘recycling’ rule.

Again, lets use a British Airways Premium Plus American Express as an example. Withdraw £100 on Curve and you earn 150 Avios for a £2 fee. At 1.33p each that is not a great deal, of course. However, it also moves you £100 closer to your next 2-4-1- voucher. A lot of people will find an acceptable trade off.

Curve is still a ‘work in progress’ and I doubt we have seen the last of the changes to their model. Given that the Travelex Supercard will be relaunching at the end of the year – presumably still with 0% FX fees, still allowing overseas transactions to be recharged to a Visa or MasterCard (not an Amex) and still with no annual fee – Curve needs to offer substantially more than Supercard to justify the £35 fee and the 1% FX margin.

Full details of how to apply are in my original article.

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

Cambus says:

27 Apr27 April 09:22

Experience so far. Card arrived on Saturday in an unnecessary and expensive looking black box, Given the IOS app is clunky and less than intuitive (it wasn’t obvious to me initially how to validate the card, and then which card is the default – eventually reading through the FAQs found the default card was the one with the Curve logo on it, but the graphics just weren’t clear enough for me), perhaps funds could have been spent on the app rather than the fancy packaging.

I’ve had one online transaction declined before I was made aware of the CNP issue which has appeared on my underlying card. Not an issue as it was a small amount but will get irritating if the problem persists.

Overall, as I expected the manufactured spend aspect of the card would be curtailed, I feel it’s still useful to use where Amex is not accepted. On the other hand, a £200 limit on foreign withdrawls is way too low. Given the way the goalposts seem to keep moving on what is a paid for product, their marketing team is going to have a harder job selling the card now to new applicants.
PlaneSimple says:

27 Apr27 April 09:23

I applied a while ago and received my card at the weekend. I have had one ATM withdrawal, to initially register the card, successful and the remainder of my attempted online transactions fail. I have also had two unidentifiable £30 charges to my Amex from Curve (which don;t amount to any of the failed transactions, so I’ve no idea).

I assume the two month notice period applies to me. How risky/likely is it that going over the £200 from an ATM per month gets flagged up as unfair usage before my two months are up?! Don’t want to go daft but it is an easy way to withdraw and I will do so for more than £200 this month.

Anyone?
- Curvey says:
  
  27 Apr27 April 09:47
  
  I’ve withdrawn £400 this month as I didn’t know about the fair usage policy. The 2months would apply to me. I haven’t been charged anything funny.
  - SoloFlyer says:
    
    27 Apr27 April 13:47
    
    I’ve withdrawn £1000 since Saturday. I wasn’t aware of the fair usage policy either so going to cool it down now I think haha. The new rules make sense though
Nathan says:

27 Apr27 April 09:48

This is a huge blow for me as I regularly withdraw £1000 plus from ATM’s when on holiday using the Travelex supercard rather than converting currency before I get there. I really don’t see much benefit of Curve over the supercard other than it working with Amex but the 1% fee plus this new cap has made it a bit… substandard compared to supercard IMO
- BrianDT says:
  
  27 Apr27 April 10:41
  
  Just interested to know. What sort of exchange rate would you get compared to buying at home ? More or less ? And which countries are favorite if you wait until you arrive ?
  - Genghis says:
    
    27 Apr27 April 10:49
    
    Generally speaking, you get a much better rate when withdrawing money abroad as you get the wholesale FX rate (withdrawing on a load free card such as Halifax Clarity) vs the larger spreads seen at Bureaux de Change.
Rum says:

27 Apr27 April 10:01

Playing devil’s advocate here, but hopefully I am not the only one wondering why people withdraw so much cash whilst abroad.
If you can use a card to pay for stuff abroad, use that instead of cash. Pay with cash for the bare minimum number of things or where cards are not accepted.
- Mike says:
  
  27 Apr27 April 10:34
  
  Same, I only use a minimal amount of cash when abroad (where I use my supercard anyway).
  The main benefit of this card (for me) is to be able to charge my Amex when the merchant doesn’t accept it.
  
  Taking out the card only to do “cash recycling” is… well at worst getting yourself red flagged for possible money laundering. Really not worth it.
- Genghis says:
  
  27 Apr27 April 10:40
  
  It depends where you travel. If in MEDCs, I pay for things with card whenever I can but trying to pay a stall holder in Thailand for your Tom Yum soup by card may draw a blank face…
- Nathan says:
  
  27 Apr27 April 17:21
  
  In places like S.E Asia, everything is cash, Thailand in particular for me is impossible to use just card.
Ian says:

27 Apr27 April 10:03

I tried to use the Curve card for the very first time trying to pay a £450.00 bill a few minutes ago.. The billing site said my card was declined. I tried three times and gave up having no idea what was wrong. I activated the card and linked correctly so I was confused.

Unfortunately 3 x £450 pending transactions have appeared on my BAPP card. The billing site hasn’t received instant payment either.

I phoned American Express who can’t refund me until the payments go through. I now notice Curve only have email support for this type of query. I am certainly not impressed so far and will have to see what happens now 🙁
- Paul L says:
  
  27 Apr27 April 10:43
  
  Was this an online transaction? Your first transaction needs to be by chip and pin.
  They also emailed me when I signed up to say there were some online payments which should be fixed by today, so that may still be ongoing.
  - Ian says:
    
    27 Apr27 April 11:52
    
    yes it was an online transaction. I have emailed them now and waiting for their reply.
- Mr Dee says:
  
  27 Apr27 April 12:36
  
  It is probably showing as pending rather than a posted transaction, similar to how supercard did this, its annoying and I think curve is actually declining the transactions rather than amex
- Ian says:
  
  27 Apr27 April 12:58
  
  Here is the response from Curve.
  
  I can confirm that due to a bug in our partners’ system some Curve customers are currently experiencing declines together with charges to their underlying cards when purchasing online or over the phone.
  
  I am sorry you appear to be among them. Please hold off from performing online or over the phone transactions until further notice.
  
  We anticipate your funds will be automatically refunded to your original underlying card within 3 days – but I am going to personally take on your case to see if it can be done sooner.
  
  I also want to re-assure you that if you provide you are financially out of pocket because of this situation in any way due to interest or third party fees and charges we will seek to put this right.
  
  This is a highly frustrating situation which we hope will be resolved by tomorrow. We will send out an email once resolved.
  
  We’re sorry about this – thanks for your patience and support as one of our first customers.
  
  Regards,
  
  Angus
Roberto says:

27 Apr27 April 10:22

I am in Malaga normally and done about €35,000 through my supercard here , Barbados , the US and in Asia since I had it. I have paid all sorts of bills and do get the odd delcine. I use it every week in a viarity of ATMs drawing as much cash as I want (normally in €200 or €300 batches ) and get a good rate. Yes it goes pear shaped every now & then and prefers ATMs in major banks in areas covered by fibre optic.

Its way more beneficial to travelers than curve except if you pay for good and services on your card and its linked to a high earning Amex product.

I will try my curve if it ever gets delivered but I think I will just be longing for my supercard to come back. £75 down the drain probably…
Charkie Whiskey says:

27 Apr27 April 10:22

Raffles, can we please be absolutely clear on The Amex ATM limits?
If I use my bank’s Visa DEBIT card to withdraw money in the UK and have nominated an Amex as my Curve destination card, what is the monthly withdrawal limit?

Ditto if I use my Curve card overseas with my Clarity card as the nominated Curve destination card?
- Genghis says:
  
  27 Apr27 April 10:54
  
  The FUP says “You can withdrawal up to £200 (or currency equivalent) for free using your American Express or other credit cards per calendar month after which there is a 2% charge.” So if you use your Amex, £200 is the maximum that can be taken out for ‘free’.
  
  The FUP also say, “ATM usage is free for up to 10 domestic (withdrawals in the same currency as your Funding Source) withdrawals per month after which time you may be charged £0.50 (or
  currency equivalent) per usage for each additional ATM withdrawal.” So it seems like you are limited to 10 ‘free’ withdrawals a month (regardless of underlying card type).
  - Charlie Whiskey says:
    
    27 Apr27 April 11:32
    
    Thanks – got it.
    It was the meaning of the phrase” ..using your American Express or other credit cards” that threw me.
    “Using” in this context means the one nominated in your Curve app that you are using as your funding source.
Danny says:

27 Apr27 April 10:50

Slightly OT: Any tips on how to successfully use a credit card with an overseas billing address to make tax payments to HMRC through the Worldpay platform? Shouldn’t be a problem, as there’s a drop-down field on the payment screen to choose the country of your billing address and we’re not talking about high-risk countries here (I live in Hong Kong). But every time I try, even with my UK-issued HSBC Premier Mastercard, Worldpay declines the card even after I’ve successfully gone through the Verified by Visa/Mastercard Securecode security check. Must be a Worldpay issue, as HSBC and the other banks say the transactions never even reach them, and (since its happened with multiple cards) I can only assume it’s something to do with my overseas billing address. Any tips? Infuriating to miss out on the new Avios goldmine for tax payments simply because I’ve got an overseas billing address.
- Stephanie says:
  
  27 Apr27 April 11:10
  
  If you use curve, then I suppose you can “shield” your address, if your curve is register to an UK address?
  
  I know AMEX would allow you to register a secondary address, I use that to get pass Japanese website if they only allow Japanese addresses.
  - Mr Dee says:
    
    27 Apr27 April 12:34
    
    Yes but then there is a fee to pay of 3.4% I believe if using curve
- Mr Dee says:
  
  27 Apr27 April 12:31
  
  Could be based on your IP address which is a common trigger for declining payments and worldpay do check this against the rules of the merchant.
  - Mr Dee says:
    
    27 Apr27 April 12:32
    
    The rules being what payments to accept decline set in their control panel of the merchant.
  - Danny says:
    
    27 Apr27 April 13:38
    
    That’s a very helpful suggestion, many thanks. Will try again with a UK IP address and see if the payment goes through.

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

Curve Card and its new ‘acceptable use’ policy

Let’s look at where this leaves you with Curve

The 2% credit card ATM fee may be worth paying

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