Your Curve Card now works with Apple Pay
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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.
Want to earn more points from credit cards? – March 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 Mastercard
Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review
Barclaycard Avios Mastercard
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.
British Airways American Express Premium Plus
25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review
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
The Platinum Card from American Express
40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review
Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard
15,000 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:
SPECIAL OFFER: You receive a huge 120,000 Membership Rewards points if you apply for American Express Business Platinum by 9th April 2024. You receive 80,000 points for spending £12,000 within 90 days and a further 40,000 points if you retain the card for 14 months. Click here to apply.
SPECIAL OFFER: You receive 60,000 Membership Rewards points if you apply for American Express Business Gold by 9th April 2024. Remember that the card is FREE for the first year. You receive 40,000 points for spending £6,000 within 90 days and a further 20,000 points if you retain the card for 14 months. Click here to apply.
British Airways Accelerating Business American Express
30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review
American Express Business Platinum
Crazy 120,000 points bonus (to 9th April) and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review
American Express Business Gold
Huge 60,000 points sign-up bonus (until 9th April) and free for a year Read our full review
Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa
Get a 10,000 points bonus plus an extra 500 points for our readers 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 on your spending.
Barclaycard Select Cashback credit card
2% cashback on all your business spend for 3 months (1% thereafter) and no annual fee Read our full review
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