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

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• Matt says:

  15 Jun15 June 08:16

  I travel most weeks in Europe and thought Curve would be great to drive points on Virgin Mastercard, but the Curve card keeps on declining, which is a bit embarrassing in some restaurants or long queues to get a sandwich, so I’ve stopped using it. Is this normal for Curve or should I check if it is a faulty card?

  • John says:

    15 Jun15 June 08:39

    Same. Not a faulty card, just poor software at their end, I think.

  • Mr. AC says:

    15 Jun15 June 09:10

    That is very surprising. I don’t think I’ve ever had it decline over almost 2 years of usage across the world (incl. places like Ukraine, Israel and Japan). Only example I can recall is when a friend asked me to try to pay for his French mobile phone bill online – it went through on Curve, but the website said it didn’t. Tx refunded in a couple of days.
    Try wiring to customer service and draw their attention to the declined transactions.

  • socceric says:

    15 Jun15 June 11:19

    Upon enquiring a decline, customer service said:
    – “someone in the payment chain didn’t reply in time. It could be us, your bank or our issuer or payment processor.”
    – “it’s not very common but it will occasionally happen”
    Asking for more clarity they said, “we received an ‘Insufficient funds’ message from your bank”.
    Note that I paid with the underline card which clearly means there were insufficient funds so their attempt to shift the blame to the bank failed.
    Finally, after raising a complaint their resolution was like, since you managed to make the payment with another card there is no issue here and for your reference Curve declines are normal to happen.

  • the_real_a says:

    15 Jun15 June 14:43

    Some CC have “soft limits” – you need to speak to the fraud department so the failed transactions can be seen. For example creation has a “same retailer” limit which it sees as curve, so the transactions need to be marked as “genuine” then the system learns to allow them in the future. It gets more complicated now curve is sending the MCC, as some MCC`s are considered high risk and have their own limits/checks. Again, it seems only the fraud department can see when a transaction hit these blacklists/rules as the transaction has not been “declined” just not approved. Front line agents simply say they cannot see any transaction attempt.

    All of my failed Curve transactions have been the fault of the CC but a bit of work and these restrictions were lifted.

    • the_real_a says:

      15 Jun15 June 14:54

      In my case with Creation, Curve seems to be reporting hitting these soft limits as “Insufficient funds” as i`ve followed up in every example with the fraud department and they confirmed it hit some rule. Some rules can be overridden and some cannot.

      • Ben says:

        15 Jun15 June 20:01

        Currently in Finland with a Curve card linked to Creation’s IHG card.

        I have not encountered any issue with it, from restaurants to stalls in markets …

• Bill says:

  15 Jun15 June 08:35

  After two years of trouble free usage I contacted them with an enquiry. They inlgnored my question and closed my account due to my address being in Isle Of Man. I have messaged the support team and their CEO and neither answered my question – When will it be available to iom, jersey, Guernsey residents. I don’t have this problem with revolut….however i haven’t fully tried Revolut yet at all of my usual retailers.

  • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

    15 Jun15 June 12:28

    IoM as I suspect you already know isn’t within the FCA’s jurisdiction nor is it within the EU/EEA for license passporting. I don’t believe Curve have the permissions to operate there and I think the same applies to Revolut. The fact that you were able to open accounts has more to do with weak internal controls than anything else. I would suggest you try to stay under the radar if you want to keep your Revolut account!

• Shoestring says:

  15 Jun15 June 08:39

  I’ve not been a fan of Curve – until now I have considered it great if you need to pay HMRC but otherwise largely useless (I don’t like the idea of paying a credit card bill on another credit card) – and I have Clarity for foreign spend, plus a foreign bank account & card out at our place in the sun. But I do now think 1% on my supermarket spend, on top of the benefits of the underlying card, could make me now give it a try.

  Only 90 days for the free card, though…is it worth the hassle to get 3 months’ worth of 1% on supermarket spend?

  • Freddy says:

    15 Jun15 June 08:46

    Free fiver with robs referral code aswell

  • BJ says:

    15 Jun15 June 08:48

    If you are a regular saver with the government bank it is a fine product, points grow on trees 🙂 But I cannot get excited about shoving stuff through Curve for 1%, to be worthwhile it is big spend to benefit and I would not want to miss out on section 75 for this.

    • Freddy says:

      15 Jun15 June 08:53

      Any reports of curve having a tantrum over saving transactions like they do when paying amex?

    • Dimitri says:

      15 Jun15 June 09:23

      Regular saver with the government bank 🤣 LoL

      Points can grow on trees indeed but I have always been scared to do that as you never know what happens.. and there is a delay to get your ‘interest’ back.

  • Worzel says:

    15 Jun15 June 08:57

    Squills 08:39:

    No.

  • Rooster says:

    15 Jun15 June 12:25

    Seeing as you can get discounts at Morrisons/Sainsburys/Asda/Tesco through discount schemes its not that good, but for Aldi/Lidl its something extra if you are already going there.

• Nick M says:

  15 Jun15 June 08:44

  I’m on the Legacy Black plan… if we switch from Curve Rewards to Curve Cash, do we then need to start paying the monthly fee?

  1% back at 3 of the new retailers will be better for me than 3% on the existing selection – but don’t really want to pay £10/month for this at the moment

  I also imagine that if they are paying 1% back that they might monitor transactions a bit more? – eg if I suddenly starting spending £1k/month in supermarkets…

• Soul says:

  15 Jun15 June 09:12

  Can you swap between retailers or is it fixed?

  If you can swap how long does it take to change between retailer/frequency?

  • Rob says:

    15 Jun15 June 09:58

    That I do not know … I am on the old legacy scheme so I can’t see it in the app. In early discussions there was mention of switching every 6 months or so.

  • PaulC says:

    16 Jun16 June 07:49

    Blue (FREE) is fixed unfortunately so choose wisely.

• Michael C says:

  15 Jun15 June 10:04

  OT (Skyscanner): For a Singapore Airlines flight that costs 680 GBP on the airline page, Skyscanner is giving me 560 via Opodo: should I be suspicious? Or when I add in all the details on Opodo, will it wack on some bizarre “extra” at the end to make the price the same?

  Cheers!

  • MarkH says:

    15 Jun15 June 10:07

    Why not search the flight on opodo and see…

    • Michael C says:

      15 Jun15 June 10:13

      Sorry, you’re right – I have, but haven’t put in all the credit card details etc., and have never bought a flight off them, so just wondered if there was anything to watch out for. I didn’t realise these sites could be cheaper than the airlines themselves.

      • Shoestring says:

        15 Jun15 June 10:19

        not always a good idea to go indirect (OTA) if the saving isn’t significant, in fact it can be a very bad idea

        • Jonah says:

          15 Jun15 June 10:59

          I would say £120 here is significant. Over 20%. I’ve often bought flights from OTAs and never had any issues. Yes I know about consequences of not booking direct if the flight is cancelled etc. Never had an issue.

      • Jonathan says:

        15 Jun15 June 10:23

        Contact Singapore Airlines, asking them if offer a price promise.

        BA do (but ONLY on flights they themselves operate), Virgin Atlantic don’t, when I was going to buy a flight with them and saw the same flight being sold cheaper, (same baggage conditions etc.) they said by all means get the cheaper ticket, this was before their three different types of Economy tickets were launched.

        • Michael C says:

          15 Jun15 June 12:10

          Thanks for that!
          It’s for three tickets, so it would add up…

        • Michael C says:

          15 Jun15 June 12:34

          Found this, but looks like you have to pay the higher one then claim back…

          With our Best Web Fare Guarantee, you are assured that you won’t find a better fare for travel on Singapore Airlines anywhere else on the web. If, by midnight on the calendar day of purchase (based on local UK time), you find a Singapore Airlines fare that is at least £5 less than that quoted for the exact same flight, booking class, and itinerary on the website of a Singapore Airlines UK Appointed Agent, we’ll refund you the value of the difference. The original itinerary must have been purchased through singaporeair.com, originate from London Heathrow or Manchester Airport, for travel on Singapore Airlines

  • BS says:

    15 Jun15 June 10:57

    I had a similar thing with British Airways. An online travel agent was giving me about £80 discount compared to the British Airways website itself. I went through the cheaper option, and it was all fine and I flew the flight without problem. The difference was that the online travel agent was able to book in to a lower fair bucket that was normally only given to those as part of a package holiday. How do I fiddled I probably would have been able to get it with British Airways direct by adding a one-day car or something like that on

    • Rob says:

      15 Jun15 June 12:32

      The agent broke his deal with BA however. You were lucky that BA gives Avios and TP on these tickets as many airlines do not.

  • marcw says:

    15 Jun15 June 15:10

    Flights is all fine. Usually you can find cheaper plane tickets on skyscanner. The funny bit is that you can change from country to country and find the cheaper option.
    Additionally, skyscanner usually offers connections/itineraries and fares that airline pages don´t show, especially on the JBA routes.

• luckyjim says:

  15 Jun15 June 11:42

  My card is black but I’m not paying a monthly fee. How can I tell if I’m on black Ts and Cs or not?

  • the_real_a says:

    15 Jun15 June 14:25

    Top Left menu (three lines) -> Earn Curve Rewards -> See Retailers -> If you are showing 3% on a range of retailers then you are on the legacy scheme.

• Ben says:

  15 Jun15 June 13:32

  As I see it there’s an opportunity cost to using Curve for a supermarket shop because it would mean not using Amex. Particularly as they’ve offered me 2 MR for £1 spent as retention.

  So can anyone spot a retailer on the list who doesn’t accept Amex, as that would have genuine value?

  • James says:

    15 Jun15 June 14:28

    B&Q

    • Nick_C says:

      15 Jun15 June 15:19

      But you can buy B&Q gift cards with an Amex

  • Asha says:

    15 Jun15 June 14:47

    I agree. Feel this is an odd article, as the majority of the shops listed accept Amex. And as Rob always reminds us, MR are the best value.

    • Rob says:

      15 Jun15 June 16:10

      Except when it’s not. If you shop at Waitrose with Curve linked to the free Vigin Mastercard, you’re getting 1% + 0.75 miles. Use IHG Premium and you’re getting 1% + 2 IHG points. Use the Miles & More card and you’re getting 1% + 1.25 Lufthansa miles.

      All of these combos are substantially better than anything Amex can offer you.

    • Thomas Howard says:

      15 Jun15 June 19:44

      It depends what works best for you: 1p + 0.4 Avios (Lloyds)/0.5 Avios (HSBC) or 1 Avios per £1.
      If you value an Avios at 1p then using Curve with a lower earning Visa/Mastercard is better, if you value Avios higher than 1p then Amex will be better.

      • Genghis says:

        16 Jun16 June 07:00

        You can buy avios at 1p almost constantly. Cannot value higher than you can substitute them for cash.

  • Rob says:

    15 Jun15 June 16:11

    B&Q is the only big retailer which doesn’t take Amex.

    But Curve 1% + a good reward Visa / MC will beat any Amex reward.

    • Freddy says:

      15 Jun15 June 18:08

      Though you would have to account for the £10 per month fee with curve. Pricey if you don’t need or want the insurance products

      • Yawn says:

        15 Jun15 June 23:10

        Also a particularly good deal if you have a Tesco debit card for use at Tesco’s. It would 1 Clubcard point (so 2.4 Avios) + 1% (+ another .25 Clubcard point, if you link your Curve to Pay+). It is hard not to see this a rebate of part of the monthly Curve fee though. It’s not coming out of interchange fees!

        • Genghis says:

          16 Jun16 June 07:02

          But would Tesco bank recognise the spend as Tesco (1cc/£) or as Curve – Tesco (1cc/£8)? My best guess is the latter

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