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Curve card ‘pauses’ Amex functionality

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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.)

Let’s keep Curve discussion here, please, to stop other threads getting clogged up.

I will do an analysis on this tomorrow.  My gut feeling in the short term is that – assuming you can easily spend £1,000 on Curve in the next three months (and £600 of that can be free ATM withdrawals linked to a Mastercard or Visa, earning points) – you might as well do that.

You will get the £35 credit, which if you have the basic card means you are in the same financial position as taking a refund, and you still have the Curve card for overseas use (if you don’t have a 0% card) and ATM use and for places where it is treated as a debit card.

Curve prepaid MasterCard

And, of course, if you take a refund you would need to pay £35 again later if / when Amex functionality returns. If you have the premium version, the maths is different and you may find the full refund better than a £50 credit.

It is always fun and games working with start-ups ….

The email:

I’m Shachar, the CEO of Curve. Today we’ve got some disappointing news. American Express have asked us to pause their functionality with Curve – which means you will not be able to use your Curve card with your Amex for the time being. This begins at midday on May 31st UK time – you’ll shortly receive another email with practical details of what will happen when we pause the American Express functionality – your Curve will continue to work with Mastercard and Visa.

American Express want to ensure there is a seamless customer support process for their Members when using their Card with Curve. We’re continuing discussions with their management, and hope that American Express decide to come back to Curve soon.

We’re continuing to build something big at Curve. The first ever platform to connect you to your everything money – transforming the way you handle your finances, bringing value and saving you time and money. We’re already connecting up all your bank cards, tracking your expenses in real time and saving you money with zero FX fees when you travel. This is just the beginning – we’re working hard on future features such as the ability to move charges between funding cards after you’ve paid, bespoke loyalty rewards and cash-backs, peer-to peer payments and much more.

As a big thank you for being one of Curve’s early adopters we are giving Blue card members £35 and Black card members £50 worth of Curve Points if you spend a total of £1000 over the next three months. You’ll be able to spend your Curve Points at any merchant that accepts Mastercard using your Curve. Please see our FAQs for further details.

We hope you choose to stay with us to continue the exciting journey we’ve begun together. Please write to me directly – I’m happy to answer any questions you might have.

I’ll keep you updated.

Yours,

Shachar Bialick

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Comments (435)

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

  • D says:
    24 May24 May 13:46

    Isn’t it funny how people’s opinions and views on things change so quickly? So many here are spewing how they thought that it was doomed from the start, yet they still bought into it. As has been said earlier about taking a punt with a start-up; you pay your money, you take your chances.

    • Aeronaut says:
      24 May24 May 13:54

      I didn’t buy into it!

      • harry says:
        24 May24 May 14:57

        heh heh 🙂

        • Genghis says:
          24 May24 May 16:32

          We should have listened to you all along Harry lol. I said it was a punt from the start. I have cancelled my Curve card. I do not see any value that I could get from using it – undeclared reward scheme, only accepting Visa and MasterCard (which I could use anyway). Poor product.

          I don’t understand all the stick Raffles was getting. He told us the facts and gave his opinion. We all make up our own mind on whether the product is right.

  • Yuval says:
    24 May24 May 14:10

    For me, the bigger issue is the manual refunds that I’m due from Curve – I used the card a few times for hotel pre-authorisation charges (I guess I wasn’t supposed to but missed it) and now all of those charges are on my Amex and I can’t dispute them. Just hope they don’t go bust before I get my £300 back…

  • John says:
    24 May24 May 14:32

    You’re exactly right. It’s really amusing reading the comments.

  • JamesLHR says:
    24 May24 May 14:34

    Wow!

    I was an adopter of Curve and have been fortunate to use my card, with the primary purchase of using it for Amex purchases. It was quite satisfying buying items in B&Q with their big no Amex sign whilst charging to an Amex! The obvious benefit was being able to accumulate additional Amex points where I wouldn’t have earnt them previously. I didn’t suffer any failed transactions or duplications so for me it was seamless, charging to either the BA Amex or SPG Amex.

    I always had a contingency which was my Virgin Black for non Amex spend so I will just revert to this. Furthermore, I have the Lloyds Amex/MasterCard for foreign spend so that is covered.

    The deliberation is whether to keep the Curve card for ATM withdrawls. It enabled an extra £200 in transactions for trade spend, plumber etc where the transaction has to be in cash. This wouldn’t have ever generated points previously. It also allows me to have £200 in foreign currency before I go away and to avoid any cash advance fees I used to pay. It might just cover its cost with this benefit. As people say, it depends on the viability of the product.

    I would have thought some serious cash flow is in and around Curve, it’s not just the sign up fee they’re pocketing, they’re taking a percentage of every transaction, so for every person that is getting as much of a good thing as they can, the £’s were adding up for Curve.

    Will be interesting to see how the next few weeks pan out. Without Amex, I’m not sure of the appeal to the general public. Your standard credit card user doesn’t have multiple cards and they’re likely primarily loyal to one card provider so the ability to chop and change but carry one card isn’t for the 99% it’s only for the 1%.

    • Tilly71 says:
      24 May24 May 14:45

      You could of used B&Q gift cards purchased from Tesco bought using Amex instore gaining you 150 cc points per £50 spent.

    • Nick says:
      24 May24 May 14:47

      You used it at B&Q, rather than tradepoint?

      The point is that there should be no appeal for this card to the general public, because it is not available to the general public. Of course it is, because Curve do absolutely no checking to make sure that its customers really are business customers. Of course a genuine business customer would use Tradepoint rather than the B&Q checkout (which you may have done, to be fair. And even if you didn’t I’m not really criticising you – I’m sure a large number of users are not really people who need the card for the purposes of their business).

  • Jonny says:
    24 May24 May 14:39

    I think the main mistake Curve made was rolling it out to too many people in beta mode, the volume of transactions undoubtedly exacerbated any problems that surfaced.

    have already benefited well from the card and am staying put for the time being myself, though can’t see it getting much use unless Amex comes back.

  • Alan says:
    24 May24 May 14:45

    There seems to be a huge preconception that Curve will be folding soon, all because Amex will no longer be supported. Amex is clearly unhappy with the volume of queries directed at them so have naturally suspended the functionality. My guess is Amex probably want Curve to demonstrate they can deal with any transactional issues before reconsidering the partnership (gut feeling is amex probably don’t want the hassle though).

    Also, the anger directed at Raffles is totally unnecessary. We are adults at the end of the day and if we can’t make informed decisions then you have no one to blame but yourself.

  • Toby says:
    24 May24 May 14:46

    There is definitely some pausing going on right now with Amex. Just tried buying something with my Amex linked and it declined. Changed the link card to something else and it worked. Then tried again with the Amex, it declined. It really is a shame!

    Remember, even if they refund £35 to everyone, they still made money with every purchase made on the curve. I put through £4.5k, they’ll get £67.50 at a 1.5% rate back!

    • jonboy73 says:
      24 May24 May 22:55

      I’ve just used mine for a £1000 purchase linked to amex, went straight through…

  • oyster says:
    24 May24 May 14:56

    It’s £35.
    Why are people getting so hung up about it?

    Easy come, easy go and all that. We killed the goose.

    • harry says:
      24 May24 May 15:01

      you lot didn’t kill the goose, it was suicide (possibly by gavage lol)

      poor failure by Curve mgt to make it work smoothly leading to Amex’s irritation at the hassle & complaints

    • Leo says:
      24 May24 May 16:43

      I cancelled today and now feel a bit guilty about not supporting the start-up. In reality I only took it out of the box once to look at it and then put it back a few weeks ago. I don’t really seem to spend money at places that don’t take Amex – is it just me? I’ve been putting all my VAT and Tax through Supercard linked to my IHG visa so I was already happy with that. Meant I easily got the IHG free night and enough points to pay for Ambassador. Okay Supercard is going soon – but it might come back allowing debit card payments in the UK. If not well the % charged by HMRC on credit cards has dropped to a point where you are “buying” cheap points. Not sure what the gripe about £35 is here – thought everyone on this point was supposed to be loaded reading most of the comments. I also don’t get the criticism of Rob – as others have said, we’ve all had plenty of breaks from this free site and yes it is you own personal responsibility to read the terms and conditions of any product mentioned on here.

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