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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.

  • Simon says:
    24 May24 May 16:07

    Shut down date for Amex seems to have shifted from 31st May to immediate effect, is that the same for anyone else?
    Guessing that some people were having a large huge blowout.

  • Simon says:
    24 May24 May 16:42

    Yeah just for me. Tried at Tesco to pay for lunch, declined.

    • Anton says:
      24 May24 May 16:44

      tried tesco petrol station and it worked just fine an hour ago

  • Andrew* says:
    24 May24 May 17:00

    Curve replied to my question just now saying 31/05

  • pointsarb says:
    24 May24 May 17:04

    Paid a large sum to HMRC this morning on Curve – no issues but it might have just snuck in before others got declined. Agree with others also that Raffles has no responsibility here. On the contrary, caveat emptor. I know I’ve already had more than my £75 Curve fee back in terms of savings with merchants who either do not take Amex or who treated my Curve as a debit card thus saving me their usual credit card surcharge fee.

    • Mr Dee says:
      24 May24 May 18:32

      Be interesting to know who treated it like a debit card?

      • jonboy73 says:
        24 May24 May 23:00

        I use a site that treats it as a debit card, they must because they don’t accept credit cards!

  • Neil says:
    24 May24 May 17:04

    Sigh. Benefit for me was moving spend to Amex from retailers / restaurants that don’t accept it. Don’t need Forex gimmicks with Lloyds Avios and Norwich & Peterborough for VISA Debit spend overseas (surprised that’s not talked about here… 😉 )

    LIkely to cancel but have a team dinner to pay for tomorrow evening that I was hoping to stick on Amex via Curve.

    It feels like the CEO didn’t have a good enough contract in place with Amex if they are legally able to pause / walk away after only a few weeks use.

    Ho hum

  • Jay says:
    24 May24 May 17:08

    Does anyone know whether you can topup the revolut card using the curve card ? the reason i ask is because i want to keep my curve card in case amex functionality returns. however i dont want to spend £1000 (or £400 if i withdraw £600) without gaining any rewards so my thought is to top up the revolut card with £1000 using curve and then transfer that money back to my bank account.

  • Terry Silver says:
    24 May24 May 17:28

    Tbh, I cant blame them.

    Offers like this are always ruined by people rushing in and trying to take the mick by exploiting the fine print. Because a handful of people probably spent hours withdrawing thousands of pounds and paying it back into their account, this useful little card has been ruined for everyone.

    Shame really but par for the course these days

    • Johnny Tabasco says:
      24 May24 May 17:53

      Possibly. But they were always going to struggle to recover from the backtracking about the withdrawals and then the widespread failed transactions.
      As somone said above they really shouldve limited the ‘beta’ period and so Ive got minimal sympathy for them. Its got very minimal value to anyone now and lets not kid ourselves, Amex wont be pressing play again.

      Though agree there will be people who took the pi%% which wouldnt have helped. But thats the way of the world and they shouldve known it would happen (as shouldve everyone else!)

    • Steve says:
      24 May24 May 18:01

      True. I tried something today that I’d been thinking about for a while. Basically I charged £2000 to my Amex Plat this morning and the cash is already in my bank account. I suspect others have been doing similar for weeks. Now I’m thinking I should have just hammered the Curve Card from day 1. No point holding back if everybody else is making hay while the sun shines.

      • Andrew* says:
        24 May24 May 19:22

        Thought it was £200/day withdrawal limit?

        • Steve says:
          24 May24 May 20:00

          LOL. It is basically an Amex card disguised as a debit card. I can think of half a dozen ways of churning out points without going near an ATM.

          • John says:
            24 May24 May 23:00

            Genuinely curious what method you used (or can think of)? I can only think of ATM withdrawal (but that’s capped) or PayPal transfer to someone else (but there’s no benefit to using curve rather than just amex..)

          • Joe says:
            25 May25 May 04:13

            Mine hasn’t landed yet, was meant to land 2 weeks ago, Has been processed, and in the post.

            I suspect you could charge £xxx on your amex book a refundable hotel (somewhere they take funds up front) Hotels.com for instance.

            Then switch the card in the app to your debit card and refund.

            At the end of the day, as long as you make a transaction to your debit card it can be an honest mistake. (Probably something you can do every other month) using a Visa + Amex counterpart.

            Must be a lot of other way too.

            Thoughts?

          • Alan says:
            25 May25 May 08:05

            I think that has been tried already – they track the original linked card that was used and issue the refund only to that I believe…

          • Alex says:
            25 May25 May 14:48

            Mind sharing how you did it? NS&I doesn’t work…

  • William says:
    24 May24 May 17:47

    I suspect there has been abuse. Might it be possible for the fancy items e.g. Cash withdrawals to be eliminated and for Amex rewards only to be available where Amex itself cannot be used?
    Amex have been successful in expanding the number of available outlets and probably the existence of Curve inhibits further expansion.

    • Olivula says:
      24 May24 May 18:26

      I can see Amex Brighton from my desk and I can tell you Amex isn’t taken in this town with open arms. But the Council loves them for the jobs and biz rates……new HQ building planning permission, Amex Stadium……but using the Amex card in Brighton tough and no Council Tax payments without the Co-op Paypoint workaround.

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