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Creation cancelling credit cards which have been used with a Curve Card

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Creation Financial Services, issuers of the IHG Rewards and (closed to new customers) Marriott Visa credit cards, made a very aggressive move on Friday in its dispute with Curve Card.

It appears that the majority of credit cards which had been used with a Curve Card are being closed.

One call centre agent said that 1,800 cardholders were impacted. We cannot confirm this number.

Creation closing IHG and Marriott credit cards used by Curve Card holders

The closure letter states that cards are being closed on 3rd December.

Based on reader discussions with the call centre, but not confirmed in writing by Creation:

  • annual free night vouchers on the IHG Rewards Premium credit card will still be desposited if the cardholder spends £10,000 before their card is closed
  • there will NOT be a pro-rata refund of the £99 annual fee on the IHG Rewards Premium credit card – although you would be free to dispute this with the Ombudsman

If you cannot trigger your free night voucher by 3rd December but would otherwise, you arguably have a case for a full refund of your IHG Rewards Premium £99 fee for the current year.

Why is Creation banning Curve Card holders?

It isn’t entirely clear what is driving this, although I was told by an independent industry consultant that it was being pushed by National Savings.

Curve Card, for those who don’t have one, is a debit card which allows you to recharge transactions to a linked credit card. You can learn more about Curve Card in this article.

This meant – most specifically – you could deposit money into National Savings and have it charged to a miles or points earning credit card as a purchase. Most Curve Card holders had a £9,000 daily limit albeit capped at £1.8 million per year.

Whilst Curve Card had always had blocks in place for payments to banks, there were certain grey areas such as National Savings, HMRC and various investment firms such as Hargreaves Lansdown.

Creation had initially sent out text message to cardholders a few weeks ago saying that its cards could no longer be used with Curve Card. I was told at that time that mass account closures would follow, and here we are.

One problem is that the ban is catching many people who used Curve Card purely for Apple Pay functionality. It was the only way to add your Creation card to Apple Pay.

For clarity …. the free IHG Rewards credit card is still open to new applicants. Creation is not pulling out of the UK and is only closing these 1,800 (TBC) accounts.

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Comments (863)

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

  • Anna says:
    1 Oct1 October 13:10

    So I guess we can stop hoping that Amex is going to get back with Curve …

    • KBuffett says:
      1 Oct1 October 13:15

      Oh, but, Curve we going to sue AmEx for breaching the contract. But, wait, nothing happened. Curve just keep coming out with ballocks

      This is far worse for Curve’s reputation than Creations. Potentially, other underlying cards might follow……

      • Anna says:
        1 Oct1 October 13:17

        I can see it being the end for Curve. Nobody is going to want to know them if they think they are going to lose their underlying cards.

        • Optimus Prime says:
          1 Oct1 October 13:27

          Light a candle for those who invested £1k via CrowdCube a couple of years ago…

          • CarpalTravel says:
            1 Oct1 October 13:35

            Didn’t curve recently (May?) run another investment round?!

          • Super Secret Stuff says:
            1 Oct1 October 14:19

            Yeah they did, the wise ones avoided it…

          • CarpalTravel says:
            1 Oct1 October 15:28

            @SSS

            I certainly avoided it. I still absolutely fail to see what their business model is. No Amex, no Creation, if Virgin pull the plug then they are utterly DOA.

          • Alex Sm says:
            2 Oct2 October 08:02

            I invested less but lighting a candle anyway

      • BuildBackBetter says:
        1 Oct1 October 13:44

        Worse for Curve? Any publicity is…

  • Jim says:
    1 Oct1 October 13:12

    I’ve had my IHG black card cancelled and have just been successfully approved for a IHG white card. Credit limit was £10,500 on the black and now £3,000 on the white.

  • Gareth says:
    1 Oct1 October 13:13

    So my fee due 21st November- surely they can’t not refund a fee in exchange to have the card for the following 12days!!

    • Anna says:
      1 Oct1 October 13:16

      Mine is due at the end of this month – I will definitely be pursuing it it it’s not refunded.

      • Michael Jennings says:
        1 Oct1 October 20:43

        I paid mine about six weeks ago. Again, not thrilled about this.

    • Nick_M says:
      1 Oct1 October 13:19

      Unless you will be able to spend the £10k in that time I probably wouldn’t put any spend through it…

      • EwanG says:
        1 Oct1 October 14:05

        Even if you can put £10k through in 12 days (and I will give it a good shot) they are charging you for another 353 days where you can’t use the service. I will be ensuring there is a pro-rata refund!

  • John says:
    1 Oct1 October 13:14

    I’ve checked my Creation app and everything seems normal for my IHG Card. How are people finding out if their card is being cancelled?

    • FFoxSake says:
      1 Oct1 October 13:16

      You’ll get a letter if affected (maybe).

    • Alan says:
      1 Oct1 October 13:17

      Snail mail letter this time (vs the SMS for Curve being banned last month)

    • Robert Woodward says:
      1 Oct1 October 13:20

      Letter from Creation

    • BlueHorizonUK says:
      1 Oct1 October 13:25

      Also they haven’t closed any accounts yet, closure is in December so your card and app will continue to work.

  • Robert Woodward says:
    1 Oct1 October 13:15

    Are there any other hotel credit cards available ?

  • The Savage Squirrel says:
    1 Oct1 October 13:15

    Smells of a company leaving the market anyway that just don’t care.
    The maximum response with any level of proportion would be to cancel cards of NS&I via Curve users.
    Is their IT too bad to even detect this? Surely not?

    Other than that… was I the only one surprised by the tiny number of accounts involved that had ever linked to Curve? Thought there would be more just off here. Shows just how small Curve’s reach is beyond this site…

    • NC says:
      1 Oct1 October 13:17

      I wonder how many Creation CCs there in general. There can’t be that many?

    • Jonathan says:
      1 Oct1 October 13:40

      The 1,800 is BS. As is the Curve link mentioned as there are reports here from people who have never used it with Curve. They’re well known to be on the exit route from U.K. credit card market so this is probably step 1 of that. I’d imagine the only people who will survive in medium term are those running a balance & therefore making Creation some profit.

    • Bagoly says:
      1 Oct1 October 13:51

      I too was thinking that the if there really are only 1,800 Creation cards linked to Curve then HFP readers must be nearly all of them.
      1,800 doing MS would sound more likely.

      Other than cancelling cards with suspicious activity, could they not have just blocked Curve, or are there anti-discrimination rules which prevent that?

    • JDB says:
      1 Oct1 October 14:49

      Actually, if anything, it looks more like cleaning house before a sale or transfer, or just sensible housekeeping.

  • Alan says:
    1 Oct1 October 13:16

    What a weird decision! They never offered Google or Apply pay so lots of folks used Curve as a way to be able to use their Creation card with those services. Fair enough they then decided to block Curve but to then go back and close all the accounts after having put the block in place just seems nuts!

  • Neil Spellings says:
    1 Oct1 October 13:17

    I’m only 4k points away from Spire Elite too!

    • Alex says:
      1 Oct1 October 13:27

      Yeah I’m only 2K so I’ll do that and then just bin it. As others said – they want out the market anyway so this is clearly a good way to dump some weight

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