Curve questions – is it worth it?

[sturgeon]

Trying to find new ways to earn Avios to boost my balance and I’ve heard Curve works with the Barclays Avios card. The suggested use was to pay off my BA Amex each month. However, this incurs a 1.5% fee so it only seems to make sense if spending over £1k a month, or I’m simply just buying points for 1p (which isn’t terrible?)

Here’s how it appears to work out, either paying the 1.5% fee on the free card or otherwise paying £14.99 for Curve Metal to avoid the 1.5% fee.

The ‘spend’ would be my Amex spend, which I’d then pay off in full each month using my Barclaycard linked to Curve, so in effect earning double the points.

Fee Structure Spend Fee Points pence per point
1.5% fee £1,000 £15.00 1,500 £0.010
£14.99 fee £1,000 £14.99 1,500 £0.010
£14.99 fee £1,500 £14.99 2,250 £0.007
£14.99 fee £2,000 £14.99 3,000 £0.005
£14.99 fee £2,500 £14.99 3,750 £0.004

So for anything up to £1k spend, as mentioned it’s costing me 1p per point. You can’t buy points this cheaply bar the Avios subscription (as low as .87p per point and I have this subscription). So somewhat worth it to top up my balance monthly. It then becomes efficient over £1k when then switching to the £14.99 Curve Metal, so for £1,500 Amex spend I’d then earn 2,250 points paying that balance off with Barclaycard, so the points would effectively be costing me 0.7p, then 0.5p for £2k spend, 0.4p for £2.5k spend.

All the other benefits to Curve Metal are a bit pointless to me. The worldwide travel cover seems good but the £750 baggage limit is oddly low vs everything else and insufficient to me if my baggage went missing. The cheap lounge passes I wouldn’t use as I have 4 already a year from Barclays Premier and Barclaycard. Mobile phone cover on my home contents insurance outside the home.

Does anyone do this for the above purposes, is my maths correct and hence there is some value? I’d only be using my Amex for £10k of spend a year to unlock the companion voucher, so would also want to cancel the curve metal which you can do after 6 months. I’d then be moving on to spend £10k on my Barclaycard and £10k on Virgin CC respectively to earn their vouchers, and you can’t attach Curve to the Virgin or Amex card to do the same ‘trick’ as above unless I’m incorrect. So assuming it takes me 6 months to spend £10k on Amex, incurring £90 of curve metal subscription charges, then the 15k additional avios accrued are costing me 0.6p-which seems good?

Fee Structure Spend Fee Points pence per point
£14.99 fee £10,000 £90.00 15,000 £0.006

[Blair Waldorf Salad]

There’s scant appetite for discussing Curve here

[can]

what’s the point here honestly? Double-checking a Year 4 maths?

[Carlos]

can wrote:

then the 15k additional avios accrued are costing me 0.6p-which seems good?

or get 12k for referring on amex gold pref. for nil
put the same effort as the above into becoming an amex advocate and convince someone (friend or foe) to get a card with 103.2& APR variable.

[Harrier25]

Personally I wouldn’t pay Curve anything and would just enjoy the limited benefits you get for free with Curve Blue. But that’s just my view and others do think differently to me on here.

[Alex G]

Curve Blue (free) works well with Barclaycard Avios.

1) allows you to use Google Wallet on Android

2) allows you to earn Avios on overseas spend with no fee and a decent exchange rate.

Don’t expect answers on manufactured spend though

[masaccio]

Apparently fronting the Avios Barclaycard is some kind of big secret that means people won’t talk about it in this forum even though Barclaycard can observe every transaction you make. I think that’s how it works; I never uncovered the secret handshake.

Personally, fronting HMRC has been worth the Metal card for just that. But I’ve also used the insurance for car rental and travel insurance which has paid the Metal fees a couple of times over. I made a travel claim last week whilst away and Axa were excellent.

The car rental limits are a problem if you like renting flash cars. For lost baggage, I’d just use my home insurance.

[Carlos]

masaccio wrote:

For lost baggage, I’d just use my home insurance.

That will bump up your renewal though right?

[masaccio]

Carlos wrote:

masaccio wrote:

For lost baggage, I’d just use my home insurance.

That will bump up your renewal though right?

It will but if you have cover then when making a claim on baggage insurance, you will need to tell them about your home insurance anyway. But regardless, the risk of needing to claim for lost bags is in reality very low.

[Aston100]

Carlos wrote:

masaccio wrote:

For lost baggage, I’d just use my home insurance.

That will bump up your renewal though right?

And this is why I take travel insurance from my employer as a benefit in kind.

[JDB]

Aston100 wrote:

Carlos wrote:

masaccio wrote:

For lost baggage, I’d just use my home insurance.

That will bump up your renewal though right?

And this is why I take travel insurance from my employer as a benefit in kind.

But how much lost baggage cover do you get? Most travel insurance has very low levels that don’t cover any reasonable level of clothes let alone anything else.

[The Urbanite]

Not being funny but you may have missed the boat with Curve as a points generator.

It was useful from 2019-2021 when they issued a decent debit card you could push £18k a day / £3.2m per annum through without them batting an eyelid. This could be paying off credit cards, paying into savings accounts and so on.

Then the credit card issuers got upset at what Curve was enabling people to do and all that ended. Plus someone decided to make the business viable by charging fees which are now known as Curve Fronted.

A good effort with the analysis you’ve done but you won’t get away with much more than normal spend with Curve, so you might as well use your Barclaycard directly. I also wouldn’t be paying that much for points.

[sturgeon]

Can Curve still be used for NS&I premium bonds? Their website suggests they accept debit card payments over the phone so can I then allocate that to Barclaycard? That would be worthwhile if paying in what a credit limit allowed over time.

[Rui N.]

Yes, but it’s Fronted.

[sturgeon]

So limited to £10k a month on the metal card? That could be worthwhile if depositing £10k monthly and also withdrawing/redepositing, right? Effectively £120k a year so 180k avios for 12 x £14.99 or am I missing something?

[duke]

Why didn’t you just ask that at the start rather than all of the smoke and mirrors ?

[rahaney]

sturgeon wrote:

So limited to £10k a month on the metal card? That could be worthwhile if depositing £10k monthly and also withdrawing/redepositing, right? Effectively £120k a year so 180k avios for 12 x £14.99 or am I missing something?

You’ll trigger a KYC check, have your account and your money frozen and likely be banned/have accounts closed on you with this as this was the method mostly everyone used years ago with curve and they are wise to credit recycling. Not sure you’ll find it on the forum as it was pre the change in the website. As The Urbanite says you’re late to that party…

[can]

That made me giggle

[Harrier25]

So retro.

[FearlessTraveller]

The only reason I’m using curve is to keep my cardholder light. In 5 years of having the card, I’ve never used the paid subscriptions

[Rui N.]

Delete 🙂

[sturgeon]

This is a points forum. If you’d prefer private discreet conversation take it to a Discord. Clearly people newer to points collecting will face the same questions you did when you started so this thread will not be deleted.

Maybe I didn’t realise I was effectively achieving what now isn’t possible on Curve but I recycled £100,000’s via etoro on my Virgin Mastercard. Maybe this still gets through, who knows.

anyway, sounds like Curve is a little pointless other than effectively ‘buying’ some Avios cheaply.

[Rui N.]

It was to delete my post (I had written something in mistake) not the thread!

[Mick S]

I value Curve metal as i can pay my hmrc expenses (vat, corp tax) and it helps me keep hotel elite status.
I’d be struggling to justify the fee if I didnt have a ltd company though.

[Ash]

How does it help keep elite hotel status?