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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.  This is the full UK list:

Aldi
Amazon
American Golf
Apple
Arcadia Group
Argos
Asda
Ask Italian
ASOS
B&Q
Belgo
Bella Italia
Booking.com
Boots
BP
Burger King
Burton
Byron
Café Rouge
Caffè Nero
Carpetright
Clarks
Costa Coffee
Cowshed
Debenhams
Deliveroo
Dorothy Perkins
easyJet
EAT
Electric Cinema
Ernest Jones
Everyman
Feelunique
Foodora
Four Seasons Hotels
Gap
Gett
Goldsmiths
H.Samuel
H&M
Halfords
Honest Burgers
House of Fraser
IKEA
Intermarche
itsu
John Lewis
Just Eat
La Poste
Laithwaites Wine
Leon
Leslie Davis
Lidl
Marks & Spencer
Marriott International
McDonald’s
Miss Selfridge
Moss Bros.
Mothercare
Nando’s
National Express
Nero Express
Netflix
New Look
Ocado
Outfit
Papa John’s Pizza
Pizza Express
Planet Organic
Pret a Manger
River Island
Sainsbury’s
Selfridges
Shell
Spafinder
Spotify
Starbucks
T.G.I. Friday’s
Tate
Tesco
TFL
The White Company
The Works
Thorntons
Topman
Topshop
Trainline
Uber
Virgin Experience
Virgin Trains
Wahaca
Waitrose
Wallis
Waterstones
Whole Foods
Wilko
Wyevale Garden Centres
Yo! Sushi
Zara
Zizzi

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.

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Comments (111)

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

  • BJ says:
    15 Jun15 June 05:00

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

    • Mr(s) Entitled says:
      15 Jun15 June 07:15

      How would one quadruple dip?

      • BJ says:
        15 Jun15 June 08:31

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

      • Andrew says:
        15 Jun15 June 08:35

        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:
          15 Jun15 June 10:54

          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:
            15 Jun15 June 13:56

            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:
            15 Jun15 June 16:46

            Thanks for clearing that up Andrew.

  • John says:
    15 Jun15 June 05:42

    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:
      15 Jun15 June 06:06

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

      • Richard says:
        15 Jun15 June 06:18

        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:
        15 Jun15 June 08:33

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

    • Bazza says:
      15 Jun15 June 08:02

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

    • Rooster says:
      15 Jun15 June 09:37

      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:
    15 Jun15 June 06:40

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

    • Hmm says:
      15 Jun15 June 06:54

      Well I found it informative Dickford!

    • BJ says:
      15 Jun15 June 08:36

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

    • Jonb says:
      15 Jun15 June 10:54

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

      • Russ says:
        15 Jun15 June 10:58

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

      • Rooster says:
        15 Jun15 June 12:23

        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:
          15 Jun15 June 13:31

          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:
      15 Jun15 June 11:36

      +1

  • Davidc says:
    15 Jun15 June 07:22

    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:
      15 Jun15 June 08:03

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

    • Ben says:
      15 Jun15 June 08:04

      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:
      15 Jun15 June 09:39

      Just pay it over several days

  • Roger says:
    15 Jun15 June 07:55

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

    • John says:
      15 Jun15 June 08:02

      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:
        15 Jun15 June 08:18

        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:
          15 Jun15 June 08:58

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

        • Stuart says:
          15 Jun15 June 09:15

          MBNA horizon

        • TGLoyalty says:
          15 Jun15 June 09:41

          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:
          15 Jun15 June 09:55

          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:
          15 Jun15 June 09:58

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

        • pauldb says:
          15 Jun15 June 10:54

          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:
            15 Jun15 June 12:33

            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:
          15 Jun15 June 17:26

          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:
    15 Jun15 June 08:10

    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:
      15 Jun15 June 08:18

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

      • Crafty says:
        15 Jun15 June 08:27

        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:
          15 Jun15 June 08:39

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

          • MarkH says:
            15 Jun15 June 10:04

            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:
      15 Jun15 June 08:44

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

    • axel says:
      15 Jun15 June 11:24

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

  • Sharon says:
    15 Jun15 June 08:11

    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:
    15 Jun15 June 08:13

    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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