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Curve Card is now available to the public as a debit card

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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.)

Curve Card, the Mastercard that allows you to merge all of your Mastercard and Visa cards into one product, launches to the general public today.

It had previously been available only to anyone who had self-employed income.  It had a generous cashback rewards scheme despite being free because it could charge higher fees to retailers.

The consumer version will be less generous, because Curve does not have any fee arbitrage to play with.  There will be a rewards scheme available soon, however, and I will let you know when it launches.

Put simply, every transaction you charge to Curve is recharged to a linked Visa or Mastercard.  Via the Curve app you can select which card is charged per transaction, allowing you to add your debit card and various Visa and Mastercard credit cards and then switch between them at will.

Financially there are two reasons to use Curve:

You can withdraw £200 of cash per month from an ATM and have it charged to your credit card as a purchase – this means it earns miles and points. 

Foreign currency transactions made on Curve are recharged to your linked Visa or Mastercard in Sterling with a 1% foreign exchange adjustment.  This makes it a better deal than using the underlying card which is likely to have a 3% FX fee.

There will, soon, be a rewards scheme of some sort

There are more practical features too, such as the ability to export your spending data for analysis and the ability (as I found out myself in November when I lost my wallet) to lock the card from your phone.  As Curve is contactless, it is also a way of making any non-contactless Visa or Mastercard you have into a contactless one.

The Curve website is here if you want to know more.  You need to download the Curve app for your phone and order a card from there if you want to try it out.

Curve will pay you £10 for trying it out if you use our link.

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

15,000 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 (114)

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

  • JamesB says:
    17 Jan17 January 11:28

    OT: £125 on offer for switching to a natwest current account including the basic select account with no minimum monthly payment. As far as I can see there is no need to transfer DD but £1500 needs to be paid in the first month. Available to both existing and new customers who switch. Details on their website.

  • Matt says:
    17 Jan17 January 12:38

    Can only see their Freedom rewards and Hilton cards when I look now.

  • Alex W says:
    17 Jan17 January 12:42

    @Matt – Tesco debit or credit card, assuming they still do hotels.com vouchers.

  • S879 says:
    17 Jan17 January 13:06

    OT: I am thinking of opening the Lloyds Avios Credit Card. I can see one of the benefits is the no FX fees when abroad. What about when we are not abroad and we pay in a different currency such as booking a hotel in say Zurich in CHF instead of GBP. Apologies if it’s a silly question but I pay for a lot of stuff in USD etc so wanted to know. Thank you.

  • Neil Donoghue says:
    17 Jan17 January 13:33

    Is there champagne in the QF business lounge? I know there is in Cathay but I’m due to fly next week and haven’t seen the new QF lounge. The champagne will be the decider…And the dumplings of course!

    • Rob says:
      17 Jan17 January 13:44

      I think there is but only for F passengers or some odd restriction?

      • Neil Donoghue says:
        17 Jan17 January 14:29

        Thanks Rob! I’ll pop in for a quick gin and then head over to Cathay. Flying out to Helsinki for a quick tier point run to kick off 2018.

  • Andrew says:
    17 Jan17 January 15:12

    OT: RFS booked in CE to Madrid at end of Feb, both inbound and outbound in the 789. I’m a bronze member… any chance of me blagging a sest in first? Do they open 72 hours before departure? Or is the cabin not used?

    • roberto says:
      17 Jan17 January 15:30

      I did one of these in November and was on the 777 but they released the WT+ seats to the economy pax three days out and due to low load did not open the first section as far as I could see. YMMV of course but keep checking.

      You’re bronze so will be able to book your initial seat 7 days out of course.

    • Rob says:
      17 Jan17 January 15:38

      It will be closed unless business is full.

  • max28 says:
    17 Jan17 January 17:57

    (Slightly OT although BA Amex related): Interesting datapoint for the HFP community – when booking a BA flight today, I had a page (just before the final payment page) offering me to sign up for the BA Amex, with the following message:

    “Receive a £50 statement credit and 1,000 bonus Avios points when you get a new BA Amex credit card:
    – Receive a £50 statement credit on the BA Amex credit card when you spend £100 in the first three months of membership
    – Get 1,000 bonus Avios when you spend £500 on the card in the first three months of membership
    – Earn 1 Avios for virtually every £1 you spend on everyday p[urchases

    Perhaps a sign of things to come?

    • Rob says:
      17 Jan17 January 18:52

      They’ve been doing this for months. Used to be a very bad deal for the PP, this is OKish for the free card compared to signing up directly.

    • Rob MC says:
      17 Jan17 January 18:57

      Just done a dummy booking and it comes up. Only issue is you would lose out on a possible 18k referral ..however the cash would offset that a lot

  • Marcelo says:
    17 Jan17 January 19:45

    Completely agree. I have an Aqua and very happy with it. Have used already in 3 different countries and the card has never been denied. The low limit and not being contactless is quite annoying though (the latter one Curve can solve).

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