Using your Avios points to pay for British Airways seat selection is coming soon

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• CDB says:

  5 Mar5 March 13:19

  OT Curve – is there any difference between personal/corporate versions with respect to receiving a debit card? As well as tax also useful for tax-free childcare via HMRC. I qualify for the corporate version so was planning to do that unless it came with the old business mastercard.

  • Genghis says:

    5 Mar5 March 13:30

    There is both a personal and a corporate debit card

    • CDB says:

      5 Mar5 March 13:36

      Thanks

      • Hanna says:

        5 Mar5 March 13:55

        When I asked to replace my new Curve which came as pre-paid, they asked me if it’s going to be personal or business. I said business and wasn’t asked anything else. So not sure if they gave me debit business or personal. Limit was £2000 per day but when paying to HMRC it was blocked and had to ask support to check it. They must have allowed bigger transaction and it went through ok. Unfortunately there’s £5K limit per month and £10K limit per annum when you start but I hope to increase it later.

• James says:

  5 Mar5 March 14:05

  I very, very, very rarely pay for seat selection.
  If the price in Avios was very good I would be tempted to do so regularly.

  However I strongly suspect the price will be unfavourable given BA’s usual ‘enhancements’ of late 🙁

  • mark2 says:

    5 Mar5 March 15:09

    I would expect it to be the current price divided by the same rate as hotels i.e. about 0.5p.

• Craig Strickland says:

  5 Mar5 March 16:23

  OT: I was going to cancel my BA Premium and reapply in six months. My wife and I both have one but with renewal dates only three months apart, hers is 2 months in and mine is due next month. My gut feeling now is to downgrade for now and upgrade again when they are separated by six months. We have no problem using both 241s each year, does this sound like the best option?

  • simon says:

    5 Mar5 March 16:37

    Just cancel yours to reset the 6 month clock asap. Then get a subsidary one on her account for you to use over the next 6 months…. Then in 6 months, have her refer you for your new one, cancel hers and get her a subsidary one on your account……

    • Craig Strickland says:

      5 Mar5 March 16:56

      Thanks, I was considering churning but am worried the rules will change. We both have supp cards on each others account so there is no problem in that regard.

      • Polly says:

        6 Mar6 March 06:34

        And l would be getting a gold card too every 6/12 for each other, so you are getting both sets of referral points and bonus points with that card too..ie twice in each year. One lot each. That would give you another 62k a year without even counting the spend on those cards too.

• Alex says:

  5 Mar5 March 17:37

  O/T but my Curve card arrived today. Anyone have any thoughts on whether I’d be able to pay off a student loan with it? I’ve heard paying off a credit card can get you banned, and I’m not sure if this would be treated the same.

  The plan is to try and switch the several hundred pounds a month coming directly out of my salary, and pay it directly to the student loans company with the Curve, earning essentially free points! Unfortunately at 1.5% APR, I’ve no interest to pay it any faster than I need to (pardon the pun)

  • The Urbanite says:

    5 Mar5 March 18:56

    There are a list of merchant types they block in the T&Cs – Gambling, Dating and escort services, Massage parlours, Inbound teleservices, Automated fuel dispensers, Investment services and Prepaid/ cash services. The SLC might count under cash so definitely worth asking them to be on the safe side. They say they carry out a risk review based on your activity – if you use the card normally I suspect they’d be fine with it, but if it’s a barrage of failed prepaid card loads, credit card payments and gambling transactions mixed with huge cash withdrawals, I think they’d bar the account.

    Will your plan work? Had a look on the SLC website under “Plan 1 – How to repay more quickly” and it does say that any additional payments made through the website will have no impact at all on the amount that is deducted from your salary. I think it’d only work for free points if you paid the lot as quickly as the Curve allows. I’m with you on the disincentive to make additional payments. If you’re sitting on 5 figures cash, surely it’s pretty easy to use it to generate several times the interest the loan is costing you.

    • Alex says:

      5 Mar5 March 21:26

      Thanks for the advice both! Firstly I’ll see if I can indeed pay it direct and not via my employer (otherwise, like you said, paying extra isn’t actually a financially sound decision). And then I’ll test the waters with a small additional payment and cash thereafter

      • Gavin says:

        5 Mar5 March 22:22

        You would need to switch to a direct debit method I believe, this is usually only allowed when in the last year of your payments.
        A one-off payment could be done to pay off the loan.

  • Anna says:

    5 Mar5 March 19:42

    I don’t know if you can pay cash into your student loan account (they only introduced them in my final year so mine was paid off about 20 years ago!) but you can withdraw £200 per calendar month on each card you have linked to Curve.

  • FlyingChris says:

    5 Mar5 March 22:22

    You can pay SLC fixed lump sum additional amounts via Credit Card no problem (no Amex, but Visa/Mastercard fine). I’ve just paid the final balance off mine this way. There’s no fees or no need to use Curve.

    However, almost certain SLC won’t let you replace PAYE with monthly card payments – the card payments would be in addition to payroll deductions. When you get within 2 years of finishing payments they will let you come off the payroll system and move to direct debit so you don’t overpay – but even then needs to be a DD.

  • Alex W says:

    5 Mar5 March 22:34

    Yes I paid off my student loan at the 2 year point with my IHG premium Credit Card. Seem to recall I had to do it directly on the IHG Card as Curve wouldn’t work. That may change now if you have the curve debit card version.

    • Scallder says:

      6 Mar6 March 09:33

      Be slightly warned as I tried doing it with my Creation IHG Premium card a little while back and they treated it as a cash advance so as was above the daily limit it didn’t go through (And would of course charge you at the cash advance rate)

• Rob says:

  5 Mar5 March 22:25

  Yes they do

• Londonsteve says:

  6 Mar6 March 02:06

  Drat, I read the Iberia Amex offer e-mail (without reading the small print word for word) and transferred MR points to Iberia Plus. I’ll let the community here know how I get in. The takeaway is always, always, always read the small print.

  • ColinJE says:

    7 Mar7 March 17:09

    Likewise, 80k MR points transferred. Also, a bit worried that I’d got a message my Iberia points were about to expire, though account was empty. Does a transfer in reset the account or is there a danger I could lose the points I’ve just transferred in? If so, I’d better move them to BA pronto. Otherwise I was going to leave them there in the hope that the IT system might assume it’s a Spanish Amex account and give me an extra 20%. Didn’t see anything in T&Cs to say whether the points had to stay or remain to get it (and now I’ve deleted the Iberia email!)

    • Rob says:

      7 Mar7 March 18:00

      Transfer in will count as activity, almost certainly.

      • ColinJE says:

        7 Mar7 March 18:19

        Phew, thanks Rob

• will says:

  10 Mar10 March 15:33

  Iberia Plus avios expire after 3 years lack of activity. transfers don’t count. Do we just move avios over to an active BA account and then move back if we wish to redeem via iberia or does that actual account export at iberia plus?

• Jose María says:

  12 Mar12 March 16:39

  AMR Avios points transferred to an IBP account, makes a reset to the expiration date. Your Avios won’t be expire.

  The transfers that does not count are the ones btwn IBP accounts

  regards

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