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Hi,
The good lady and I have various trips in the next 12 months to Italy, Chile, New Zealand, Turkey and a city type break to Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Iguazu, Sao Paulo and Rio.
I’ve read numerous postings on Curve and its website and have a few questions concerning payments whilst abroad-which I’m sure the HfP audience will satisfy. Clearly during our time away we will have hotels, internal flights, car hire, tours etc to pay for along with F&B requirements. I’m not fussed about Italy/Turkey as I will use Virgin Reward+.
My other cards are BAPP and Barclaycard Avios Plus and Monzo debit.
A rough calculation of likely spend for accommodation etc on these trips is around £25k before F&B- and in local currencies although some may request US$. I understand my cards will attract fx 2.99% indicating c£750 in fees. [The Curve list of supported currencies only includes the Brazilian Real and NZ dollar from my destinations – and US$].
On the face of it, it seems a no-brainer to sign up for one of the unlimited Fx cards as I’ll save money over the year. However, I have no experience of Curve and having read some of the posts on here am a little nervous of inadvertently having my Barclaycard account closed for whatever reason. I don’t use my cards for paying HMRC or any of the other ‘sporting’ settlements. Equally, I appreciate I can’t use the BAPP on Curve.
The offered insurance will only be of use for the 1st 12 mths as a birthday in a couple of months is one reason for the travels. Thereafter, any future birthday cakes can only be lit if the fire services are attending!
In essence, it seems to make sense but what suggestions/guidance would you offer and which card?
As ever, thank you for your input.Ps- I’ll raise a separate post for suggestions re Buenos Aires etc
If it’s purely to cover fx risk on travel, why not consider Halifax Clarity?
You get S75 protection, which you don’t on Curve.
Get a stand-alone travel insurance policy that covers your specific needs. Packaged ones can come with a lot of restrictions.+1 it’s not the best product for overseas spend – that would be a credit card with zero fx fees for the reasons given. Section 75 has real value. In general, credit cards behave far better for things like hotel pre-authorised holds too.
How much real value is s75 on overseas day to day spend? s75 has never come into play for me on overseas day to day spend.
Nothing wrong with Halifax Clarity, but I prefer linking the Hilton Barclaycard to my Curve card so I get something in return for my spend.
I totally agree about the travel insurance, get a standalone product rather than paying Curve a monthly £14.99 fee for a minimum of 6 months for a restrictive policy.
Why not sign up to a Chase account and use their debit card? Fee-free overseas and 1% cash back on spending for the first year, which will add up to a decent sum based on your proposed spending.
In what ways is Curve travel insurance restrictive?
How much real value is s75 on overseas day to day spend? s75 has never come into play for me on overseas day to day spend.
“A rough calculation of likely spend for accommodation etc on these trips is around £25k“
I’ve only used S75 once in my entire life. By the same token I’ve never claimed on my home insurance. Doesn’t mean they’re not very much worth having; You tend to not need these things right up until the point you do need them; and the sums mentioned by the OP here are not day-to-day peanuts. I’ll admit it’s easy for me as the MBNA Horizon is the best of all worlds for foreign spend. Another closed-to-newbies card that I’m hoping keeps staggering along for a while yet…
In what ways is Curve travel insurance restrictive?
These package accounts are great unless you’ve ever been diagnosed with anything, such as type 2 diabetes, then they’re not so great because they are far too mainstream.
s75 is very valuable if you are paying large hotel deposits or paying at the start of your stay in case anything goes wrong so paying with Amex PRG that gives you 2MR/£ and maybe bonus for foreign spend goes a long way towards the FX fee. HSBC WE also gives you double for foreign spend.
In Argentina you want to be using cash, no cards. Today cash exchange rate c. 345 pesos/£1 cash vs 170 for cards.
Book as much as you can in the UK with s75 protection.
If you’ve received the goods pay as much as you can locally with cash/cards — I’d be using Chase, or Curve + B’clays HH.
Curve will stomach a surprising amount of cash withdrawal abroad.
As @jdb states, in some countries it still pays to turn up and pay with actual cash, research if locals want local currency, USD or GBP before you leave.
You mentioned car hire – Curve appears as a debit card so the car companies put massive holds for debit cards, smaller for CC. Hotels – hit and miss whether curve actually works for a similar reason. Automated machines such as bus tickets, fuel pumps etc reject it.
If you want to get one do, but don’t rely on it. Halifax Clarity (but they can be mean on limits), and if you’re happy to do a debit card as well then the Virgin Money current account has global fee free forex transactions inc cash withdrawls (£1.50 per transaction outside the UK) which isn’t often mentioned here. That one got me out of a lot of scrapes over the last couple of years.
Ideally you want both MC and Visa to cover yourself . I found places that only take one not the other.
Thank you one and all for your feedback.
I should have added that we already have annual worldwide travel cover-I was just commenting re the travel cover on Curve.
Clearly there are benefits/drawbacks whichever way I choose to go.
Not really keen on carrying too much cash around in certain places, although I’m aware some of the hotels would like US$. Hadn’t thought of Chase and I think my Monzo will provide fx fee free but without the Chase atm/cashback benefits.
To date I’ve never needed to call upon S75 either.
What price ‘peace’ of mind v cashback/points etc?
More to consider along with rescheduling latest cancelled overseas domestic flights-overall, nice problems to have!!I haven’t had any more problems with Curve being rejected abroad than other UK cards. Absolute lottery in the USA – but then so are my UK credit cards. In Europe it works fine for road tolls, vending machines, automated petrol pumps, etc.
The metal Curve card is a pain because it’s very intermittent with contactless (due to being made of metal…) – but this is not a curve-specific problem, the metal Revolut card is garbage too.
I’m in the final night of a 25 night US road trip. I’ve used my Curve Metal as hotel check in, petrol pump pre-auth and hire car pre-auth. Not had 1 issue and I’ve used it for every transaction except the Amex Plat dining abroad transaction and a few HSBC Premier CC small transactions to enter into a travel competition they are running based on usage.
I also used it to pre book trips and tours before we travelled, using Curve as they were US companies and I didn’t want to be hit with foreign spend fees.
Not sure if I’ve been lucky, but every time I’ve used Curve it’s been fine – for several years. BC Avios Plus is the card linked to it right now and I can see some long pending transactions in the app for some petrol stations still but that’s it.
I haven’t used it for cash withdrawal this time, but have on other trips without issue.
Most interesting recent experience was in the Netherlands. Curve failed – along with Mastercard and Visa too on a couple of occasions – including one shop that appeared to be part of a national chain. The most annoying was being trapped in an unmanned carpark – Curve, Revolut, MC, Visa, MC debit, Visa debit, Amex (for a laugh at that point). All tried and declined. No cash option available. The guy on the end of the payment machine help button was unable to help (and said he couldn’t raise the barrier) and told us that only some form of local debit card are accepted. Was planning a bit of dodgy barrier tailgating to escape until a kind local took pity on us and paid the mighty 1 Euro charge.
So when somewhere has gone cash free, no matter what you do, payment cards can still fail on you 😀
Never had a problem with a metal contactless card.
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