‘Fronting’ with Curve – does it really work for earning Avios?

[Whatsthepoint]

I have looked at several options to ‘front’ charges not normally accept by credit cards by using Curve, for example to harvest Avios. Often there are extra fees that make it unviable, sometimes it’s just too much hassle. I have had most success with fronting foreign spend via Curve, this seems to be ok. With Barclaycard now seemingly starting cancelling accounts, which may have something to do with this practice (not 100% clear yet), how have other people achieved this successfully? I was planning on fronting some HMRC payments through Curve Metal to Barclaycard but not sure now, if there is a risk of losing it.

• This topic was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[Gosia44]

I used Curve last year to front an HSBC Premier credit card to pay off an annual service charge of about 3k. It worked well. No extra fees on the HSBC side and I got the avios.

[mark.z]

Works well with HSBC premier credit card and Virgin Atlantic plus card. Used both to pay off HMRC and Amex statements without problem and counted towards bonus spending/extra points.

Anyone can comment on whether it works for Barclays Avios card? Planning to sign one up. Thanks

[LST]

I used curve with HSBC Premier, it worked well until they decided not to give points for HMRC payments. I used to use it to pay off my Amex as well, but then lost my bottle when the creation cancellation fiasco occurred – value my relationship with HSBC too much to lose it over a few points!

[iamlost]

I hadn’t realised fronting works to pay off Amex bills… Has anyone done it using the new Barclaycard Avios?

[Olly]

Doesn’t work. Barclaycard doesn’t recognise Curve cards as thinks it’s a non-UK debit card

[Rui N.]

Hum? It’s Amex that needs to recognise it…

[rogerj]

Gosia44 wrote:

I used Curve last year to front an HSBC Premier credit card to pay off an annual service charge of about 3k. It worked well. No extra fees on the HSBC side and I got the avios.

I have Curve in front of Barclaycard Avios to pay my 3k building service charge. Seemed to work.

[QwertyKnowsBest]

rogerj wrote:

Gosia44 wrote:

I used Curve last year to front an HSBC Premier credit card to pay off an annual service charge of about 3k. It worked well. No extra fees on the HSBC side and I got the avios.

I have Curve in front of Barclaycard Avios to pay my 3k building service charge. Seemed to work.

Same for me with Council tax.

[Rui N.]

Why would you need Curve to pay council tax?

[Carlos]

Curve are looking to block people for fronting and non-fronting. it happened to me and I wasnt even doing it.
They ask for ID and then never get back to you, whilst charging you for metal.
I contacted customer services over 1 week and heard nothing

[Rui N.]

If you weren’t even “doing it”, how can they have blocked you for doing it?

[Gosia44]

Rui N. wrote:

Why would you need Curve to pay council tax?

Paying Council tax with Curve lets you generate the avios linked to the credit card you are fronting. Paying by direct debit or a debit card simply gets no avios.

[Rui N.]

That’s why you pay directly with a credit card. No one was talking about not using the credit card.

[Gosia44]

Rui N. wrote:

That’s why you pay directly with a credit card. No one was talking about not using the credit card.

Most UK councils do not accept credit cards.

[Rui N.]

Source for that? Outside of financial institutions (and HMRC), it’s very rare in the UK nowadays to accept debit cards online and not credit cards. There have been dozens of people here (including the main website) saying that their councils can be paid with credit cards, some even accept Paypal, and Brighton accepts Amex directly.

[Gosia44]

Rui N. wrote:

Source for that? Outside of financial institutions (and HMRC), it’s very rare in the UK nowadays to accept debit cards online and not credit cards. There have been dozens of people here (including the main website) saying that their councils can be paid with credit cards, some even accept Paypal, and Brighton accepts Amex directly.

I personally phoned Waltham Forrest council to pay my council tax and HSBC Premier Credit Card was rejected by their automated payment system. No problem with the same card fronted by Curve. What they say on their website and what you can do in reality are two different things it seems.

[NorthernLass]

@Gosia44, don’t assume from that that you can’t pay your council tax by cc. Some automated payment systems reject cc’s beginning with certain numbers (as I’ve discovered with paying car finance). Also, my council doesn’t accept Amex directly, but will via PayPal.

[Aaron C]

On this topic has anyone had any experience of paying the council tax via pay point at the co-op? I heard that this does sometimes work but how does it work in practice. Does it work for other utilities?

[SteveJ]

Aaron C wrote:

On this topic has anyone had any experience of paying the council tax via pay point at the co-op? I heard that this does sometimes work but how does it work in practice. Does it work for other utilities?

You need to contact your council and ask for a paypoint card. Then you take that card and your amex to the Coop and pay. There is a per transaction limit, not a clue if that is a COOP, Paypoint or Council limitation. Mine is £150. I will often ask them to ring through 2 or 3 multiples of the £150, which my local COOP is happy to do, yours may vary.

Not all COOPs have a Paypoint or accept Amex, so you’ll need to check that too. Once you have the system understood it’s pretty seemless to pop in once a month/ once every couple of months and pay (or multiple times over a few days if you have a sign up to hit).

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[Aaron C]

Right that makes a lot of sense, thank you. I’ll request the card. I know my local coop takes Amex.

[PJJ]

My Council, East Suffolk, have taken my MasterCard for the past few years.
Before I received this years bill, I took last years to out local Post Office and they would even accept payment for the bill using Amex as they could scan the QR/Barcode
Worth a check at a few local Post Offices, especially if they are more than a Post Office

[can]

This has been mentioned here numerous times. Pay your council tax using PayPoint. Coop supermarkets mostly works with them and accept Amex.

I did it like that for a long time.

[Ant68]

I paid my 2022-2023 council tax using my Barclaycard Avios Plus. So it does work with some councils. Ours takes Visa and Mastercard, and the website allows you to choose how much you want to pay. I’d originally chosen to pay by direct debit (12 monthly instalments). After I made a one-off payment with Barclaycard for part of the year they adjusted the bill to show how much was left to pay by DD.

[Rob]

Some places accept credit cards under the radar so always worth trying. Kensington & Chelsea used to be ‘debit card only’ but always accepted my old BMI Mastercard. Now that are openly taking credit cards.