Your Curve Card now works with Apple Pay

Curve Card launched Apple Pay integration yesterday.

This means that, at last, you can add your Curve Card to your iPhone or Apple Watch.

Whilst this was a slightly odd missing feature – Google Pay has worked with Curve for some time – it is also fair to say that it isn’t necessarily a key one.

The key selling point of Curve Card is that you can consolidate all of your existing credit cards onto it, meaning that you don’t need to carry them all around.  This isn’t a problem with Apple Pay, since you can add all of your existing cards anyway and it doesn’t make your phone any heavier.

The only obvious upside is if you have a Visa or Mastercard which does not work with Apple Pay.  You can now get around this by linking it to a Curve Card.  The same goes for any card you may have which does not support contactless payment, as Curve Card is contactless.  You can also route foreign currency payments via Curve to avoid the 3% FX fee on your underlying card.

You can learn more about Curve Card in our main reference article here.  Curve Card is FREE and, indeed, Curve will pay you £10 for trying it out if you use our link.

PS. As regular readers will know, you can no longer use Curve Card to pay HMRC for free. Unless you have Curve Metal at £14.99 per month, Curve now adds a 1.5% fee to your HMRC transactions. In virtually all scenarios, this means that it makes no sense to use Curve to pay your tax, even though you will receive receive points on the underlying Visa or MasterCard you link to Curve.

There is no Mastercard or Visa where the points are worth 1.5%.  You could make a case for the Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard which earns 1.5 miles per £1, so you are ‘buying’ miles at 1p, but I still see that as a bit toppy.

Curve is now actively advertising on Google (bidding against the phrase ‘HMRC’) the ability to use it to circumvent the rules banning credit card payments.  Very odd.

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Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2025 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 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 Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 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

80,000 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

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 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