Curve questions – is it worth it?

[Mick S]

Ash wrote:

How does it help keep elite hotel status?

keep the points rolling, which clocks up the reward night. Thats all really, nothing magical.

[NPWharf]

Depends how much you put through Curve fronted each month. If you put more than about £833 a month through and pay the annual fee of £150 for metal then you’re paying about 1p a point. Any more per month and you’re price per point goes down. As previous poster said with a Ltd company you can put VAT, Corp tax and PAYE tax through it so you can easily get your money back. For me it’s a no brainer, but depends on your circumstances

[Peter K]

sturgeon wrote:

Clearly people newer to points collecting will face the same questions you did when you started so this thread will not be deleted.

I don’t think that’s your decision to make 🙂

[Ash]

Curve as it is, it’s basically 120,000 of curve fronted a year. That can be 180,000 avios or Virgin miles, (if you have the premium BC or Virgin cards) for £180 annual fee. So 180,000 miles for £180.

Anything above 10,000 month incurs 1.5%. so every 1500 points would cost £15.

Jump in if I’ve missed anything.

[Ash]

sturgeon wrote:

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.

What happened in the end, did etoro clamp down on it?

[Rui N.]

Curve annual fee is £150 not £180 (quite stupid to be paying monthly).
There’s also other stuff that requires debit card and are not fronted, so you can get more than £120k through per year.

[duggie1982]

@sturgeon. What are your curve card limits?

@everyonneelse. Do you get different card limits based on how long you have held an account or if you have metal etc?

Mines are:
ATM: £1000 daily, £15000 monthly & £180000 yearly
Purchase: £15000, £150000 & £1600000

[lambshank13]

Rui N. wrote:

(quite stupid to be paying monthly).

Not necessarily if you’re paying the monthly Curve fee using a Plutus card to get the £10 perk every month.

[Ash]

lambshank13 wrote:

Rui N. wrote:

(quite stupid to be paying monthly).

Not necessarily if you’re paying the monthly Curve fee using a Plutus card to get the £10 perk every month.

Forgive me I’m complete newbie to crypto…how do you utilise Plutus in general and in particular for points collecting….and of course the £10 a month off Curve fee.

[Ash]

duggie1982 wrote:

@sturgeon. What are your curve card limits?

@everyonneelse. Do you get different card limits based on how long you have held an account or if you have metal etc?

Mines are:
ATM: £1000 daily, £15000 monthly & £180000 yearly
Purchase: £15000, £150000 & £1600000

Above are for Metal?

Mine, a Metal, are same as your bar 20k for daily purchases.

[Ash]

Rui N. wrote:

Curve annual fee is £150 not £180 (quite stupid to be paying monthly).
There’s also other stuff that requires debit card and are not fronted, so you can get more than £120k through per year.

Council tax, some utilities, one off mortgage payments, that kinda stuff? Where should I be looking to maximise it’s non-fronted usage? HMRC is the big one but it triggers fronted.

[phantomchickenz]

Probably a simpleton question – what is meant by “fronted”? Have read up on the Curve site and it’s not particularly clear. Does it just mean using Curve as a middleman to pay for something on your usual credit card?

[Ash]

phantomchickenz wrote:

Probably a simpleton question – what is meant by “fronted”?

From the curve app…..Curve Fronted empowers you to pay with your Curve debit card by using an underlying credit card in situations where the merchant wouldn’t normally accept credit cards.

The 1.5% service fee helps us cover the costs of those transactions so you can take advantage of this feature and keep your spending records in one place. The fee is charged instantly – the total sum along with the fee will be displayed in the ‘Wallet’ tab under the same transaction.

Curve Metal customers aren’t charged a fee for the first £10,000.00 they spend via these types of transactions (but from 1 December 2021 we charge a 1.5% service fee on the total transaction value in excess of the limit).

Also, you won’t be able to earn Curve Cash with Curve Fronted transactions.

[phantomchickenz]

Yeah, that’s doesn’t hugely help. So curve fronted is just using the curve card? Or is it only when credit cards aren’t normally accepted?

[Ash]

The latter.

[Aston100]

Sounds like Ash the Annihilator wants to carry on the good work previously carried out by Paul the Destroyer.

[Harrier25]

Ash, the question mark poster.

[The Urbanite]

phantomchickenz wrote:

Yeah, that’s doesn’t hugely help. So curve fronted is just using the curve card? Or is it only when credit cards aren’t normally accepted?

Curve Fronted is essentially a charge for transacting with MCC 6012 and 9399 merchants – which included several which oodles of points could be generated through once upon a time. For example, paying off credit card or depositing to NS&I. Some of these merchants did take credit cards – NS&I accepted the Hilton and IHG credit cards directly so you could deposit as much as you wanted to get your points. You could use credit cards to top up Finangel and Pay.Com which were 6012 merchants.

There’s no point planning to even do £10k a month through these merchants with Curve unless you can prove the spend is genuine and not manufactured spend.

[phantomchickenz]

The Urbanite wrote:

phantomchickenz wrote:

Yeah, that’s doesn’t hugely help. So curve fronted is just using the curve card? Or is it only when credit cards aren’t normally accepted?

Curve Fronted is essentially a charge for transacting with MCC 6012 and 9399 merchants – which included several which oodles of points could be generated through once upon a time. For example, paying off credit card or depositing to NS&I. Some of these merchants did take credit cards – NS&I accepted the Hilton and IHG credit cards directly so you could deposit as much as you wanted to get your points. You could use credit cards to top up Finangel and Pay.Com which were 6012 merchants.

There’s no point planning to even do £10k a month through these merchants with Curve unless you can prove the spend is genuine and not manufactured spend.

Thanks. I’m getting the vibes that those ships have sailed now. Are the doors firmly closed? I did find the HfP piece but it’s a couple of years old now.

[HughR]

I have the Curve free card but haven’t used it since getting the Avios Barclaycard. Am I right that I can use this for Foreign Spend, up to £1000 a month, avoid Barclaycard foreign transaction fees and earn a few Avios. I know I would lose Section 75 protection but for day to day foreign spend I can only see upsides for using it, or am I missing something fundamental?

[The Urbanite]

phantomchickenz wrote:

The Urbanite wrote:

phantomchickenz wrote:

Yeah, that’s doesn’t hugely help. So curve fronted is just using the curve card? Or is it only when credit cards aren’t normally accepted?

Curve Fronted is essentially a charge for transacting with MCC 6012 and 9399 merchants – which included several which oodles of points could be generated through once upon a time. For example, paying off credit card or depositing to NS&I. Some of these merchants did take credit cards – NS&I accepted the Hilton and IHG credit cards directly so you could deposit as much as you wanted to get your points. You could use credit cards to top up Finangel and Pay.Com which were 6012 merchants.

There’s no point planning to even do £10k a month through these merchants with Curve unless you can prove the spend is genuine and not manufactured spend.

Thanks. I’m getting the vibes that those ships have sailed now. Are the doors firmly closed? I did find the HfP piece but it’s a couple of years old now.

Finangel didn’t survive for long. They decided it was a good idea to give people a sign up incentive of £50 in real money and allowed free credit card topups.

The Pay.Com prepaid card went some years ago as well.

Just given as examples of merchants which would’ve attracted Curve Fronted charges despite accepting credit cards directly.

[phantomchickenz]

Found this hidden away in the fair use page of the Curve site.

————-
Curve has functionality which enables you to:

– occasionally pay off your credit card bills with a different underlying credit card selected in the Curve app
————-

I wonder if their definition of “occasionally” is the same as mine!

[phantomchickenz]

HughR wrote:

I have the Curve free card but haven’t used it since getting the Avios Barclaycard. Am I right that I can use this for Foreign Spend, up to £1000 a month, avoid Barclaycard foreign transaction fees and earn a few Avios. I know I would lose Section 75 protection but for day to day foreign spend I can only see upsides for using it, or am I missing something fundamental?

I think so, but the Curve website is so crap it’s hard to be sure. You also pay a fee at weekends (0.5% on GBP, USD, €, 1.5% on everything else).

[Gosia44]

I have the free, blue Curve and recently used it to top up my pension – obviously just debit cards accepted. Worked fine and Barclaycard applied all avios.

[Greygoose]

You are correct HughR. I use both my Barclays Avios and Virgin Reward+, through Curve free card, for most of my holiday spending abroad. You do need to be careful with weekend transactions though as they can still incur fees.