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Curve adds 1% cashback – you can double-dip with Visa and Mastercard rewards

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Curve Card, the ‘all your cards [unless they are Amex] on one card’ card, has just launched its new rewards program, called Curve Cash.

As a reminder, Curve offers to consolidate your entire card portfolio into one card, letting you pay with a Curve Card and re-charging your preferred linked credit or debit card.

Key benefits of Curve Card for points collectors include:

being able to pay abroad and have the charge re-charged (in £) to your linked miles and points Visa or Mastercard, with either a 0% or a very low FX fee – far lower than the standard 3% on your underlying card

being able to withdraw £200 of cash from an ATM every 30 days and have it recharged as a PURCHASE to your linked Visa or Mastercard (unless it is a NatWest, RBS or Tesco card)

It is particularly useful in combination with rewards credit cards in situations in which retailers do not (or charge a premium to) accept credit cards but do take debit cards.  HMRC is a good example – you can pay your tax with Curve and have it recharged to your linked credit card as a purchase, earning reward points.  Last week we looked at the value of signing up for a Curve Card.

Curve Cash lets you ‘double up’ on your rewards

This new program works in addition to reward programs on your underlying cards.  This means you can ‘double dip’ on spend you push through your Curve Card.

The new scheme offers cashback at many top retailers.  You get different benefits depending on which card you hold:

Curve Blue (the free version): 1% instant cashback on up to three pre-selected retailers for 90 days.

Curve Black: 1% instant cashback on up to three pre-selected retailers indefinitely

Curve Metal: 1% instant cashback on up to six pre-selected retailers indefinitely

You can select the retailers you earn cashback at.   The choice includes top brands such as Amazon, Apple, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Tesco, M&S, Pret, TFL, Uber, Gett, Spotify and Netflix. 

A quick back-of-the-envelope guestimate is that a Curve Black cardholder should be able to easily earn £5 cashback per month (50% of the monthly fee) and a Curve Metal cardholder £7.50 (60% of the monthly fee if you are on the £150/year option).

This assumes that your top three choices account for £500 per month of spending (let’s say TFL, Pret and Waitrose) and your top six choices account for £750.

It could be a lot more, of course.  If you have a family and are spending £100+ per week at Waitrose, Asda, Tesco, Lidl, M&S, Aldi or Sainsbury’s then you would generate £5 per month just from your top merchant.

This is a fairly good selection although you should do the maths before you select your retailers.  Netflix and Spotify, for example, would yield fairly low cashback despite their recurring transactions: 1% on £9.99 is only 9p a month.  You are likely to spend far more at supermarkets, Amazon or TFL.

If you use a Visa or Mastercard as your primary rewards credit card – which probably means you focus on the Virgin, Lufthansa or IHG Premium products instead of a BA Amex – you should do the maths to see if Curve Cash makes it worthwhile getting a Curve Card.

If nothing else, Curve Cash should be worth at least £10 to you if you apply for the free Curve Blue if you spend £300 per month at your chosen Curve Cash retailers.  After 90 days, however, the free Curve Blue stops giving rewards.

You can find out more about Curve Card in our full recent review here.

PS.  If you applied for Curve before February 2018, you will remain by default on the old Curve Rewards scheme.  This has a smaller list of merchants but a higher cashback rate.  You can switch to Curve Cash by contacting Customer Services.  This may not make sense for everyone, depending on which plan you are on – you should have received an email in the last 48 hours explaining your options.

PPS. 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? – November 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:

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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

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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

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Capital on Tap Pro Visa

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Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

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British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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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 (111)

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

  • BJ says:

    A whole herd of elephants in the room today unless ofcourse you triple or quadruple dip.

    • Mr(s) Entitled says:

      How would one quadruple dip?

      • BJ says:

        Double dip with this + avios ee store + coade which often work with the latter although sometimes at reduced rate

      • Andrew says:

        I’d guess triple comes from somewhere like Waitrose, where many people collect extra Avios through the BA Exec Club in-store scheme, or I collect points through the Nextjump scheme depending on which card I use.

        Not sure if Curve Cards will work if added to those schemes though? They are just a debit card after all, so presume they will.

        • Russ says:

          BA in-store or Virgin in-store? Would be very interested if it was BA for avios as our Waitrose spend with Virgin hardly ever tracks.

          • Andrew says:

            It looks like Waitrose has dropped from the in-store rewards programme at BA (or maybe it was my imagination it was there?) I definitely still get between 1% & 5% instore via NextJump though and it always tracks and double-dips with the neaer permanent BoS, Halifax & Lloyds offers.

          • Russ says:

            Thanks for clearing that up Andrew.

  • John says:

    Using this for supermarkets (or any other is a bit silly when you can get 4-6% off with gift cards. Anyone using TfL enough that it would be in your top 3 or 6 would be better off with annual travelcards, or moving closer to their workplace, or expensing their travel.

    • Harry T says:

      How can you get money off with gift cards? Haven’t heard of this.

      • Richard says:

        Harry, some employers have a relationship with a third party such as xexec which will sell gift cards for Sainsbury’s and other supermarkets at a % under face value.

      • BJ says:

        You get the gift cards for less than face value, just for example amex offers.

    • Bazza says:

      That’s not true with the fare freeze Khan has kindly put in place. You need to look at the numbers again.

    • Rooster says:

      Yes only but you can only do this with some, for all others who don’t offer a discounted gift card its good ie Aldi, Lidl, McDonald’s

  • Doxford says:

    tl;dr
    heres another lame excuse to post about curve
    benefits are better elsewhere
    rob wants to shill his referal code

    • Hmm says:

      Well I found it informative Dickford!

    • BJ says:

      He runs the site, totally fair, the site doesn’t run on peanuts

    • Jonb says:

      Basically. Funny how he doesn’t mention curve doesn’t work with bank offers such as Club Lloyds.

      • Russ says:

        We don’t really need or appreciate spoon feeding and tend to flush these things out in the comments.

      • Rooster says:

        Nobody said it would work, that is just your assumption that it should work, use the card direct it isn’t rocket science

        • jonb says:

          What are you waffling on about? I didn’t make any such assumption. I lightheartedly highlighted how Rob left out any negatives the card has. My word I’ve hit a raw nerve haven’t I; not everyone knows Head for Points posts advertorials rather than proper articles!

    • LeeR says:

      +1

  • Davidc says:

    I’ve got a free curve card and have an upcoming corporation tax bill to pay of around 15k.

    Is there a best way of paying this ie upgrading for a month or something similar?

    • Froggitt says:

      £3750 a day for four days, paying off your CC partway through if your limit isnt large enough

    • Ben says:

      You do not need to upgrade. But you might need to message their support team to increase your limit.

      Although my account has an annual limit of 100k, there is a daily limit of 4.5k .. so you might have to pay the corporate tax in instalments ..

    • Rooster says:

      Just pay it over several days

  • Roger says:

    Is Curve still the best card to use for spending in Europe while on Holiday?

    • John says:

      No, it never was the best, as you have to remember not to use it on weekends UK time.

      If you have Visa/MC cards that earn rewards but have forex fees, Curve basically lets you earn the same rewards but avoiding the forex fee during weekdays UK time. But only up to £500 a month if on the Blue tier.

      • krys_k says:

        So which is best card for foreign spend to earn rewards? I’ve got 4 months of near constant travel coming up and my Lloyds Amex / Mastercard was cancelled yesterday. Thanks

        • Sussex bantam says:

          I’ve switched back to my Halifax clarity card No reward points but free FX

        • Stuart says:

          MBNA horizon

        • TGLoyalty says:

          Not quite true if you spent the whole £15k abroad on an AMEX Gold credit card you’d probably be better off than if it was on a Clarity card (though you are buying points effectively but then it’s got harder to earn them in the UK)

        • Shoestring says:

          You’re buying the points. But true enough – if you hit £15K spend (exactly) to earn the 10,000 bonus MR points on a Gold card, no reason to be scared of using the Gold card abroad & paying 2.99%.

          You earn 2 MR points/ £1 on foreign spend
          You earn 0.67 MR point/ £1 on all spend (because of the 10K MR bonus)
          —> Spending £1000 abroad earns you 2677 MR points but costs you 2.99% or £29.90.
          —> You are buying points at (£29.90/ 2677) = 1.1p/ point

        • Shoestring says:

          self correct
          —> You are buying points at (£29.90/ 2667) = 1.1p/ point

        • pauldb says:

          Hi Rob. Despite the wording of the T&Cs (per month), my £500 limit is assessed on a rolling 30 day basis. I got fees charged on June 1st, despite the app saying I saved the usual/full £x.xx. Email to Curve to confirmed this and they haven’t responded to my follow up. Do you have clarity on this or a channel to discuss it?

          • Rob says:

            It is rolling 30 days, we are being sloppy when we say month. App clearly shows it as rolling 30 days in the tracker. Apologies for any confusion.

        • Waddle says:

          Revolut. Top up with your rewards Visa or MasterCard, spend normally during the week and Revolut will do the exchange at no fee during the week. You can also exchange to another currency during the week to lock that money in to spend at the weekend.

  • DaveP says:

    How many times in a month can you withdraw £200 from an ATM in the UK using Curve without charge? I know it’s once a month abroad.

    • Froggitt says:

      One. You can see it in your limits on the app

      • Crafty says:

        Has anyone ever been charged for exceeding this? I’ve stopped keeping track of withdrawals as I’ve never had any notification of a charge.

        • BJ says:

          Don’t think so, but I think some have been suspended where Curve considers use abusive.

          • MarkH says:

            Just need to make sure the ATM withdrawals don’t make up too large a proportion of the total spending on the card.

    • Rob says:

      Once if linked to a credit card in theory – in reality they do not seem to be charging.

    • axel says:

      Up to 10 linked cards per 30 days as per T&C

  • Sharon says:

    The email i received from Curve yesterday said that i will be able to sign up to Curve Cash in the app when it is updated next week. I presume that is the same information everyone else has received?

  • M Corrêa says:

    What is not clear is whether I can change my top 3 list at any point.

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

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