More on Curve Card and cash withdrawals and earning points

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• Thomas Howard says:

  22 Sep22 September 10:34

  Does anyone know if financial services payments via Curve on Lloyds Avios Rewards (the £24 pa cards) earn points and contribute towards upgrade voucher spend? Is there any advantage to stringing payments even if you have to pay cash into the credit card account same day to avoid interest?

  • Mark2 says:

    22 Sep22 September 10:58

    yes they do earn points etc

  • pablo says:

    22 Sep22 September 10:59

    They count if they go through as a purchase. If it’s a cash advance it doesn’t earn Avios and doesn’t count towards the voucher threshold.

  • Adil says:

    22 Sep22 September 11:04

    You’ve asked to separate things here. Yes payments (e.g. to Brighton based company) earns avios and counts towards the voucher. You would normally have to pay cash on the same day to avoid interest of foreign atm cash withdrawals, which is a bad idea on this card as they charge cash transaction fee. Using curve should mask the withdrawal as a purchase so no cash fee and no instant interest. Although it’s unclear at this point if that’ll still work after the recent changes.

  • Rob says:

    22 Sep22 September 11:07

    Historically yes, now you need to do a test.

• Tim R says:

  22 Sep22 September 10:46

  How do I recommend my wife for a BA/SPG Amex from my Platinum, what referral reward do I get?

  • Alex W says:

    22 Sep22 September 10:51

    Send the Plat referral link. They can click “see other cards”. But this has been only working intermittently recently. If it works you get 18k MRs.

    • BJ says:

      22 Sep22 September 12:46

      Worked fine yesterday, referred nectar from platinum.

• J says:

  22 Sep22 September 10:49

  Off-topic: I’m on a Hilton diamond challenge. On my profile page there is a progress bar showing how many stays, nights and points I’ve accrued so far, and therefore how many of each category are remaining to meet the targets set. (10 stays, 18 nights, 120k base points)

  Is it necessary to achieve the remaining numbers on all three categories, or just one, to complete the challenge?

  • Rob says:

    22 Sep22 September 11:06

    One!

  • Robman says:

    22 Sep22 September 11:08

    You just need to meet one of the three targets.

  • BJ says:

    22 Sep22 September 12:49

    Where did you get this challenge? I didn’t know they varied, I thought they were all 8 stays in 90 days.

    • Rob says:

      22 Sep22 September 13:28

      Yes, hang on a minute. My earlier reply was based on a misreading.

      If you are on the challenge, it is just 8 stays (or whatever it is). Ignore the charts on the site. Once you hit the 8 stays you get an email from HH confirming the extension of your 90 days temporary status.

      • BJ says:

        22 Sep22 September 13:39

        And when you complete it you should get another email within 24-48h informing you that your status will be extended to March 2020. If not received contact them after points hit for final qualifying stay.

      • BJ says:

        22 Sep22 September 13:41

        Aargh sorry Rob, scrap that, I now misread your reply.

  • Alan says:

    22 Sep22 September 17:13

    They’ve certainly never previously changed the progress tracker to reflect you being on a challenge, this is just showing your progress towards the 3 potential routes to status for the following year. For the challenge you just need to meet the rules they outlined.

• Rob says:

  22 Sep22 September 11:10

  Could always do this, for any oneworld flight. Qatar website allows the same.

  • Richard says:

    23 Sep23 September 15:02

    Exactly. I learnt new two things this week to do with Finnair: as BA emerald, you can’t choose seat on Finnair flights if has a BA flight number. Even if you call Finnair. And apparently same for BA flights with Finnair number. Also: Emeralds get complimentary mini bottle of champagne in economy – but you have to ask. Technically – any item off menu, which includes mini bottle of champagne.

    • swhostring says:

      23 Sep23 September 15:08

      try Royal Jordanian

• J says:

  22 Sep22 September 11:23

  That’s great news, thanks very much. I would really have struggled to get the stays and points done, but nights is within reach.

• Benylin says:

  22 Sep22 September 11:28

  Wildly OT: Does Oxford university accept amex for tuition fees and also accommodation payments

  • Genghis says:

    22 Sep22 September 11:34

    When I was there, all payments were to individual colleges so it’d be on a college by college basis.

  • E says:

    22 Sep22 September 13:50

    Yep they do. You pay through the university shop online. They ask you to include a 3% fee if you pay by card. But they don’t levy the charge so it’s at your discretion.

    • Toff says:

      22 Sep22 September 15:25

      ‘at your discretion’

      only in Oxbridge

    • Jamie says:

      22 Sep22 September 15:57

      ???????? How do you do this when fees are collected by each college? Or have you just been buying sweaters to pretend you went to Oxford?

• Robman says:

  22 Sep22 September 11:32

  O/T. The reason we collect points and take the great advice offered on this website. On a recent trip to Durban, we flew business class out of Amsterdam to Johannesburg and booked an Avis rental car as a flight and car hire package saving over £4K in the process. Took great advantage of the lounges and benefits of BA Gold card earnt through just enough accumulation of tier points. The Avis car was upgraded from a Hyundai class E to a brand new BMW 320d with 600kms on the clock. I have Avis Preferred status earned through Amex Platinum. Checked into the Hilton Durban spending 86000 points for five nights, therefore getting a free nights stay. Without asking, was given an upgrade from a standard room to a one bedroom Executive suite which sells online for a weekend night at around £300 per night. I have Diamond level loyalty card earned through 8 stay status challenge. Free alcohol and food in the Exec lounge from 6-10pm. Wonderful hospitality.

  I wanted to share this post in appreciation of the great advice given on this site through the daily posts and all the valuable insights given by readers through the comments section. Thanks.

  • the_real_a says:

    22 Sep22 September 20:32

    Nice redemption and value there 🙂

• Clive says:

  22 Sep22 September 11:52

  Just a heads up. My SPG/Marriott points have left my account

  • fivebobbill says:

    22 Sep22 September 12:26

    Unfortunately the issue isn’t with them leaving Clive… it’s where they disappear to when they do!

  • BJ says:

    22 Sep22 September 12:34

    Talking of which, are these problems only with existing amex accounts or also happening when people have opened new amex SPG accounts? Due to churn next month but thinking I might be better to delay it a month or two.

    • E says:

      22 Sep22 September 12:48

      Mine is an existing SPG Amex account. Still waiting for August and September points which left Amex as usual but never reached my Marriott account. No idea if it’s also happening to new accounts.

  • Lee says:

    22 Sep22 September 16:53

    My 40K starpoints left at Aug and Sep were floating somewhere unknown

    • Alan says:

      22 Sep22 September 17:14

      Ditto – want to close the card and get my pro-rata fee refund so getting fed up with how long this is taking!

      • AndyW says:

        22 Sep22 September 17:42

        Me too, no response so far from Marriott

      • guesswho2000 says:

        23 Sep23 September 02:04

        Same, I’ve checked with Amex and they have the correct, new SPG/Marriott number, but no points posted for a couple of months now, they’re lost in the ether somewhere.

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