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Curve Card adds 1.5% fee to credit card repayments and NS&I / Premium Bond purchases

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Curve Card made a slightly confusing announcement on Friday, emailing members to tell them that it was imposing a 1.5% fee on anyone who used their card to pay off a credit card.

The reason it was confusing is that paying credit cards using Curve Card is against its terms and conditions.  It represented financial recycling.

Because Curve Card recharges your payment to whatever Visa or Mastercard you link to it, you were effectively paying off a credit card with another credit card to earn points.  This was not allowed.

Curve Card adds 1.5% fee to credit card repayments

Curve Card had already blocked some financial institutions from its system.  American Express seemed to come and go – a lot of people found that they could pay off their American Express bills using Curve and earn points on whatever underlying credit card was linked to it.  Personally I never got this to work, but I have a ‘first generation’ Curve Card which is structured slightly differently.

Which merchants will Curve Card now charge you 1.5% to pay?

Curve Card has now categorised two types of payments which will incur a 1.5% fee.  These are known as ‘Curve Fronted’ transactions and are explained on the Curve website site.

The fees are triggered by the coding applied by the merchant.  This may lead to anomalies as some merchants are incorrectly coded, or have a code which represents a different part of their business to the part you are transacting with.

The following payments use Merchant Category Code 9399 and are now charged at 1.5%:

  • HMRC (this change was made a few months ago)
  • National Savings & Investments, including Premium Bonds
  • DVLA Vehicle Tax
  • Student Loan Payments

Until yesterday, all of the above – except for HMRC – were payable with Curve Card for free and could be recharged to a credit card which earned points.

The following payments use Merchant Category Code 6012 and are now charged at 1.5%:

  • Paying credit card bills, loans or mortgages, where your Curve Card recharges to a credit card
  • Purchasing financial services or products from banks, Credit Unions, Deposit Takers
  • Purchasing foreign or non-fiat currency such as cryptocurrency, travelers cheques or money orders
  • Purchasing store value cards such as prepaid cards

In reality, most of the above were already blocked by Curve Card on an ad-hoc basis and were against its terms and conditions in any event.

Barclaycard is known to block payments with Curve Card and this policy is unlikely to change.  Other credit card companies may move to block Curve Card payments to discourage financial recycling even if Curve itself is happy to allow it.

Can you get around this fee?

Yes. 

If you have Curve Metal (£15 per month), you are exempt from these charges.

This means you can now, openly, pay off your credit card with another (or even the same!) Visa or Mastercard credit card linked to Curve as long as you pay £15 per month for Curve Metal.

Does this makes sense?

It depends.  For a start, some underlying credit cards will – irrespective of whether Curve imposes its 1.5% fee – treat these payments as a cash advance.  This means that you wouldn’t earn points and, worse, would be hit with a 3% cash advance fee.

Barclaycard is also known to block Curve Card payments and others may follow suit (MBNA is fine, Amex is usually fine).  The only way to be sure if a payment will work is to test.

Secondly, you are limited by your Curve Card limits.  Most people start at £50,000 per year, with daily and monthly limits on top.   If you’re lucky you may get moved up to £100,000 per year.  Even if you are a high spender, you will still bump up against the cap on your total Curve Card spending.

In some scenarios it would work.  If you could recharge £50,000 of credit card repayments to your Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard, which earns 1.5 miles per £1 spent, you’d be picking up 75,000 additional Flying Club miles per year.

Curve Card adds 1.5% fee to credit card repayments

In this scenario, the £15 per month cost of Curve Metal would make sense.  However, it would depend on Virgin Money deciding not to treat your Curve Card transactions to financial services businesses as cash withdrawals, or deciding to block Curve Card payments entirely.

Is it still worth getting a Curve Card?

It has some value, yes.

For a start, you can still recharge any purchase which is ‘debit card only’ to an underlying Visa or Mastercard credit card and so earn points.

As long as the purchase doesn’t fall into the categories listed above, you’re fine.

You can also make free ATM withdrawals and have them recharged to your credit card, treated as a miles-earning purchase.  There is a monthly cap which varies depending on which Curve Card you have.

Curve Card will pay you £10 to try it ….

…. so there is no risk.

To sign up to Curve, simply go to this page of their website.  The easiest thing to do is order the free Blue card and then upgrade to Black or Metal once you have got familiar with it, although you can start immediately on Black or Metal if you want.

Curve will pay you £10 for trying it out if you use our link.

Our introductory guide to Curve Card is here if you are a new HfP reader.

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Comments (256)

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

  • Aiman says:
    26 Apr26 April 15:27

    Hey
    My Barclaycard doesnt charge for nsandi and it hasnt for amex spend. I do have curve metal.
    I wont be hit with ‘charges and fee’ at the end of the year right?
    Specially as there is nothing on my credit card statement. Have used to genuinely top up nsandi 50k + : as in intend to keep there and not doing it ‘just for points’.

  • FloriGuy says:
    26 Apr26 April 15:34

    I wonder, does the Legacy Black card get you any benefits?

  • Jens Fallesen says:
    26 Apr26 April 15:41

    I have found that ATM withdrawals or Transferwise transactions both end up as cash withdrawals on both my IHG and Nationwide credit cards when done through Curve so that benefit is gone with those cards…

    • Andrew L says:
      26 Apr26 April 18:35

      Have no idea about Nationwide but IHG credit card ATM withdrawals are not charged as such when using Curve….unless that has changed in the last few days.

      • Youllnever says:
        26 Apr26 April 19:50

        I’ve always wondered why it works for IHG since the MCC is passed through.

  • Andrew Henshaw says:
    26 Apr26 April 17:52

    Curve works well with my Garmin watch as well, it lets me use any underlying card with my contactless watch, there are very few providers that do work with Garmin, yet as a watch it is actually very good.

  • BJ says:
    26 Apr26 April 19:04

    @Harry T, Secret Squirrel, Doug re. NSI discussion, 5 digit turnover in DS every month without problems. However, I have a very long history holding bonds with them which might have helped.

    • super secret squirrel says:
      26 Apr26 April 19:46

      +1

      • Secret Squirrel says:
        26 Apr26 April 20:17

        Come on, you can’t steal my name after all my hard work Super SS! 😄

        • Secret Squirrel says:
          26 Apr26 April 20:24

          I will always be the original Secret 🐹

          • super secret squirrel says:
            26 Apr26 April 20:31

            u are original x and I am only a fan…its only a homage to you x
            May I use ‘not secret squirrel’?
            If its a problem : I wont x

          • BJ says:
            26 Apr26 April 20:33

            Cannot figure out if you’re of the red or grey variety though 🙂

          • Secret Squirrel says:
            26 Apr26 April 20:37

            I will agree on this below and only this below:
            “I pay homage to the one and only Secret Squirrel” x 🐹🐀
            Is that you Joe? If so, you still come out with FAKE NEWS! 😃

          • Secret Squirrel says:
            26 Apr26 April 20:42

            @BJ:
            You see me on the TV recently?
            Think Marmite & Peanut Butter ad, I had to practice for days to get those moves spot on! 😂

          • BJ says:
            26 Apr26 April 21:05

            You’ve lost me, I’ll need to look out for you.

          • I pay homage to the one and only Secret Squirrel says:
            26 Apr26 April 22:10

            done 😛

    • Harry T says:
      26 Apr26 April 20:13

      Thanks!

      My dilemma is the Virgin card earns a lot of points but VS are probably going bust, so hard to see the benefits of spending on it. The only other visa/MasterCard I have is the free IHG card, which will take some serious spend to achieve a meaningful balance (1 point per pound). Wish I’d been in the game when the Hilton Barclaycard was available!

      • BJ says:
        26 Apr26 April 21:01

        I think Virgin, as we know it, and the miles too are more likely than not to be toast. Don’t really get the discussion and the angst that has raged for a month now. In my view the smart money was on moving ALL miles to Hilton from the outset, no ifs or buts. I get your problem, I personally wouldn’t even contemplate shifting £30k through NSI for a mediocre IHG room. Hilton works for me because of the way I use those points such as Metropole for Brighton Pride (£350 for 50k) this year although it is now cancelled. Some being used in Tokyo next year with luck, and I have my eye on 5 nights DT Penang for 40k. To reach a decision for yourself I think you have to consider if there is anything like this you would like to, and can do at an IHG hotel. If there isn’t then don’t bother, it’s not worth the hassle or risk.

        • Harry T says:
          26 Apr26 April 21:32

          Thanks!

          Have you stayed at the Conrad Tokyo? It’s 380k for five nights when I’m staying in november. Only have 75k Hilton though…

          • I pay homage to the one and only Secret Squirrel says:
            26 Apr26 April 22:47

            get Curve, link Hilton, save in nsandi 😉 375 pounds it is

          • BJ says:
            27 Apr27 April 07:06

            No, used to stay IC but abandoned that after price doubled. More recently I have done paid stays at Shinjuku Prince but don’t really recommend it. Only thing it has going for it is location. I’m surevtgere are similar standards available at half the price.

          • Peter says:
            27 Apr27 April 15:55

            How did you get to £375? You get 2 points per £, so you’d have to put 190k through?

        • Harry T says:
          26 Apr26 April 21:34

          Even though you think Virgin miles will survive, you don’t reckon it’s worth using them on Virgin or partner flights?

          My renewal is up soon for the Virgin card, do you think it’s worth a second year?

          • BJ says:
            27 Apr27 April 07:26

            I think Virgin miles will not survive, at least not with the same scheme rules and value as we currently know them. I think Virgin had value for those living within reach of LHR and LGW , who were interested in flying to the USA. Apart from them, it had very limited value. Even for them, I think the value was poor most of the time given recent availability of cheap cash fares to the USA and for many I think there was always greater value in transferring Virgin miles to Hilton. However, there were always the usual exceptions when miles made more sense such as Xmas flights, last minute bookings etc. I cancelled my Virgin credit card earlier this year in hope of a new sign up bonus later this year…who knows. I’d like to think if you pay for the premium card you will get your fee back from Virgin Money when/if Virgin goes bust. Decision all depends on what else you could be earning with the money you might spend on that card. A referral bonus and £3000 spend on the amex everyday card might be a good option at the moment. You could set aside the fee plus the monies back from amex on the card anniversary to buy Virgin miles or whatever was most appropriate at a later date.

          • Harry T says:
            27 Apr27 April 09:23

            Sorry, completely misread your first comment and thought you’d said you reckoned Virgin miles would survive!

            Good point RE opportunity cost. Do you reckon I would be eligible for a bonus on the Amex c@shyback card, then? I currently hold Green, Gold and Bonvoy, so I had thought not.

            Will you be a buyer of Curve metal if they stop free deposits to the government bank on the free card?

          • BJ says:
            27 Apr27 April 10:52

            @Harry T, I don’t know if the boosted % return on the amex everyday card during the first three months is considered in the same way as bonus sign up points or avios. I’ve always been curious about that. You could try your luck getting a commitment to it in writing via amex chat before applying. If you do apply member that you have to spend £3000+ in the first year to get the statement credit on your card anniversary. I think I am going to contact Curve requesting an increase for upgrading to metal. If it isn’t provided then I’ll probably cancel within 14 days. Haven’t made a final decision yet.

          • Harry T says:
            27 Apr27 April 13:10

            @BJ I’ll have a look into the Amex Everyday, thanks. Currently spending on the Bonvoy whilst it’s still 3 points per pound. Will theatre to quit when it changes in June and see if I can get a retention offer. Just about finished spending the 15k on my PRGC too. Everyday could make sense after June.

            So you’ve upgraded to Metal but will cancel if no increase in limits? I’ve heard they charge a £50 cancellation if you cancel within the first six months.

            If I had the IHG premium or Hilton Barclaycard, I think I’d get Curve Metal. More marginal for free IHG and Virgin card (if it disappears when VS do).

          • BJ says:
            27 Apr27 April 15:38

            I continue to be very fortunate with amex sign up bonuses. However, I have just taken a new card which is my first since amex updated the application process in their systems so it’ll be interesting to see what happens this time. My partner came out of his fallow strategy early hoping he would be equally fortunate but wasn’t. Not a problem though as we are now focussed on referral as opposed to sign up bonuses and I had already exhausted mine. I have not signed up for Curve metal yet, I believe I can cancel for free within 14 days so will do that if they don’t raise my limits. If I had your options in current climate I am certain I wouldn’t be bothering but everybody needs to make up their own mind. I have not yet reached a final decision myself as it is not jyst Curve to consider but Barclaycard and NSI too.

          • Harry T says:
            28 Apr28 April 13:08

            @BJ sorry for slow response.

            I wasn’t lucky with getting a Bonvoy bonus after six months between applications. Girlfriend didn’t manage a bonus either and hadn’t held that card before. We were both ineligible under new bonus rules. I’m jealous that you are still being favoured by the IT gods. Shame your partner isn’t.

            Looks like I wouldn’t be eligible for the c@shyb@ack bonus.

            How are you managing referral bonuses? I’ve referred the girlfriend a few times but I’m nervous they could clamp down on people churning referrals to their other half.

            I hope Curve is generous! What I wouldn’t give to be able to sign up for the Hilton Barclaycard…

    • Ian says:
      26 Apr26 April 20:40

      Whilst the window is still open, what’s the daily limit with creation? Previous comments indicate £300 or £2k. Don’t want to get caught with a cash advance fee

      • Secret Squirrel says:
        26 Apr26 April 21:08

        £300

        • Ian says:
          26 Apr26 April 21:52

          I’ve just done £1k using creation as the underlying card which went through fine. Will I get a cash advance fee? If so would ‘going back in time’ and changing the underlying card avoid this?

      • TGLoyalty says:
        26 Apr26 April 21:31

        Limit depends on how IHG treats the transaction.

        Cash like are £300, £500 a rolling 3 days and £700 a rolling 7 day period.

        Others no limit as far as I can tell.

        • FloriGuy says:
          27 Apr27 April 00:01

          Hopefully you will excuse my ignorance? Are we talking about a limit to use Creation as the underlying card for ATM withdrawals or using Curve to pay off a Creation card or something else?

          • The Urbanite says:
            27 Apr27 April 00:07

            Creation apply those limits to transactions you do with merchants with MCC 6012.

          • FloriGuy says:
            27 Apr27 April 01:37

            But NS&I doesnt use that MCC so presumably you could do Creation to NS&I just as well?

  • Nigel says:
    26 Apr26 April 19:18

    Gah at that news. I use my Curve Card (HSBC World Premier CC) to fund my HL Shares account.

  • Derek Broughton says:
    26 Apr26 April 19:34

    “It has some value, yes.”

    Aren’t you missing the single reason that most people have a Curve card? FX?

    I got Curve because I travel and can charge purchases in Europe against my UK card without FX fees, and at a far better rate than my bank would give me. It turned out to be worth using my Curve full-time, just for simplicity, but the FX is the only reason I got it.

    • Andrew L says:
      26 Apr26 April 19:56

      The most important feature of Curve for me is ‘Go Back in Time’.

    • TGLoyalty says:
      26 Apr26 April 22:13

      It is a great feature and like you my number one card abroad and for most day to day use in UK too.

  • Don says:
    26 Apr26 April 19:35

    Forgive the newbie question. I see all the Curve cards irrespective of fee allow max £200pcm fee-free funded off a credit card. Is that right? On Metal what could I get away with?

    I’m looking for any way to offset the £12.50 fee. NS&I I’ve done for a while plus the CC pay-off. I noticed you cannot use the same card on another NS&I- say your wife. It seems to decline.

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