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More on Curve Card and cash withdrawals and earning points

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A quick update on this subject, which has been discussed at length on HfP this week.

Whilst Curve announced last weekend that they were changing the coding on transactions, which would make ATM withdrawals visible to your card issuer, it turns out that they did not actually go through with this change until Thursday.  We were told it was happening last Monday.

If you made a cash withdrawal during Monday to Thursday and it was treated as a purchase – which it will have been – this does not necessarily mean that your card issuer will not pass on these new charges.  You need to have a transaction done from Friday onwards before you can be sure.

I did test Creation (IHG, Marriott credit cards) and MBNA (Horizon) transactions yesterday so let’s see how these end up.  You might want to wait before doing any further withdrawals.

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


best travel rewards credit cards

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – October 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

Get 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.

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

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

50,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

18,000 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:

American Express Business Platinum

Up to 80,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

Get up to 40,000 points as a sign-up offer and FREE for a year Read our full review

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

10,000 points bonus – plus an extra 500 points for our readers Read our full review

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios 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 when you spend at least £2,000 per month.

Barclaycard Select Cashback Business Credit Card

Get 1% cashback when you spend at least £2,000 per month* Read our full review

Comments (199)

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

  • Thomas Howard says:

    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:

      yes they do earn points etc

    • pablo says:

      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:

      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:

      Historically yes, now you need to do a test.

  • Tim R says:

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

    • Alex W says:

      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.

  • J says:

    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:

      One!

    • Robman says:

      You just need to meet one of the three targets.

    • BJ says:

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

      • Rob says:

        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:

          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:

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

    • Alan says:

      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:

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

    • Richard says:

      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.

  • J says:

    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:

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

    • Genghis says:

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

    • E says:

      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:

        ‘at your discretion’

        only in Oxbridge

      • Jamie says:

        ???????? 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:

    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.

  • Clive says:

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

    • fivebobbill says:

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

    • BJ says:

      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:

        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:

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

      • Alan says:

        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:

          Me too, no response so far from Marriott

        • guesswho2000 says:

          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.

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

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