Some good news from Curve?

[AndrewT]

ross wrote:

So what is the VALUE of Curve?

At £18 a month, is it solely so that you can FRONT £3k, ie move spend onto your Barclaycard? To gain Avios? 3,000 Avios a month for £18?

If you want an upgrade voucher then it is
3,000 Avios a month for £18
plus
An upgrade voucher for £20 a month (to get the Plus Barclaycard).

Question is, is that worth it?

That is an invalid view. If you had the Avios Plus card it would be 4,500 Avios a month, but even 3K is worth a lot more than £18. Conversely if spending £3K a month then you are guaranteed an upgrade voucher on the free card so no need to spend £20 a month for Avios Plus.

You also have the opportunity to earn points on all your foreign spend, plus additional cashback. Is it worth it, despite all the justifiable complaints many still think so.

[JDB]

ross wrote:

So what is the VALUE of Curve?

At £18 a month, is it solely so that you can FRONT £3k, ie move spend onto your Barclaycard? To gain Avios? 3,000 Avios a month for £18?

If you want an upgrade voucher then it is
3,000 Avios a month for £18
plus
An upgrade voucher for £20 a month (to get the Plus Barclaycard).

Question is, is that worth it?

@ross – I think it may make more sense to look at the two products separately and each on an annual basis. Curve is more expensive on a monthly basis vs annual (£214 vs £180), Barclays makes no difference. Barclays Avios plus can also be operated with Premier Avios Rewards which changes the sums.

Curve gives you up to £36k Fronted per annum, so giving you points with merchants that don’t take credit cards, HMRC being one. That’s up to 36,000 to 54,000 Avios you wouldn’t otherwise earn. The other tangible benefit is free FX while still earning points on your underlying card, the value of which depends how much you spend in foreign currencies. The Fronted benefit on its own easily covers the £180 annual fee. The spend counts towards any targets on the underlying card but you don’t get s75. Customer service patchy, but you might never need it.

Barclays Avios Plus costs £240/year but if held together with a Barclays Premier current account with Avios Rewards which costs a further £7/month (actual cost £12, but you get £5 credit for holding both products). Without any spend that will get you 18,000 Avios/year plus ONE voucher with a floor value of 7,000 Avios, so 25,000 Avios for £324/pa. If you spend £10k on the Avios Plus that’s a second voucher, plus 15,000 Avios (for the spend at 1.5 Avios/£) on a yearly basis so 47,000 Avios for the £324 cost. If you spend more, the value increases. If you use the voucher more effectively rather than taking the cash alternative, the value increases. You do also get four free Dragonpasses and a recent addition to the package is an AppleTV+ subscription worth £6.99/month.

Your decision!

[Harrier25]

Only a small correction, but an Apple TV+ subscription is worth £8.99 a month.

[John]

Visa and Mastercard exchange rates are published in advance at

https://www.visa.co.uk/support/consumer/travel-support/exchange-rate-calculator.html and

https://www.mastercard.com/global/en/personal/get-support/convert-currency.html

The Visa rate refreshes at midnight GMT and the Mastercard rate refreshes at 3.05pm Eastern Time (US).

For transactions that are processed immediately, since September 2020 I have received the latest rate that is showing on those sites – so the Mastercard rate for Curve.

If the GBP weakens during the course of a day, and you have some forex spend to do, it is often wise to do it before the rate refreshes. Although I accept the point that particularly with regards to hotels you can’t control when they charge you, and it generally works out to a few £ either way. I did recently save £50 when booking flights priced in AUD by waiting until the Visa rate dropped to follow the AUD’s decline on the previous day

[QFFlyer]

Harrier25 wrote:

Only a small correction, but an Apple TV+ subscription is worth £8.99 a month.

It may cost £8.99, but worth £8.99 is debatable.

[Harrier25]

Maybe to you, but not to me. To me Apple TV+ is by far the best streaming service.

[Rich F]

Fx free for Curve Black in Faroe Islands? It is everywhere free now? We are going there next month. Thanks

[JDB]

Rich F wrote:

Fx free for Curve Black in Faroe Islands? It is everywhere free now? We are going there next month. Thanks

Yes, it’s specifically covered in the list of places, under Denmark.

[Rich F]

Thanks