Topping up Revolut with a Curve Card

[George K]

Hey folks – It’s been a while since I did this but I used to be able to add funds to Revolut via my Curve (debit) card without the former charging any fees. Now there appears to be a charge to the tune of 1.3%. Revolut FAQ does not seem to help as it states fees are only due for credit cards. Any way around this?

[Mick S]

i was always charged fees from the underlying card provider when doing this, regardless of fronted on/off.

only way I could avoid was top up Rev from a bank debit card directly.

[George K]

Mick S wrote:

i was always charged fees from the underlying card provider when doing this, regardless of fronted on/off.

only way I could avoid was top up Rev from a bank debit card directly.

I think this is more a Revolut issue than Curve, in the sense that the fee is charged by the former, not the latter. I can tell you for example that I paid the local boiler engineer just a year ago with Revolut, having put the funds through via Curve which incurred zero fees (very welcome for what was a £2k job).

Clearly what’s happened in the meantime is that Revolut now considers Curve a credit card (as opposed to a debit card) and I’m seeing a prompt for a fee. But as Curve is still technically a debit card, I’d like to avoid this if possible. Happy to hear other options!

[SteveJ]

Curve passes through the merchant code to the underlying card, no value in using Curve. Either your card does or does not charge an interest fee / cash advance fee on Rev top ups or it does not, Curve won’t help that in anyway.

Best bet, trial and error all your CCs to see if any of them can top up Rev without incurring a charge. You might need to wait til statement date with some cards to find out if charged interest.

[George K]

SteveJ wrote:

Best bet, trial and error all your CCs to see if any of them can top up Rev without incurring a charge. You might need to wait til statement date with some cards to find out if charged interest.

I should have clarified: This has little to do with the MCC, as it appears as a Revolut fee *before* I top up my balance.

[Mick S]

someone said here a while ago that Revolut seem to flip between a couple of codes. One means the underlying card gets slammed with a fee.
Bit hit and miss/random

[SteveJ]

George K wrote:

SteveJ wrote:

Best bet, trial and error all your CCs to see if any of them can top up Rev without incurring a charge. You might need to wait til statement date with some cards to find out if charged interest.

I should have clarified: This has little to do with the MCC, as it appears as a Revolut fee *before* I top up my balance.

Interesting, never seen that before!

[Harrier25]

George, are you topping up with a Curve Business/Corporate card?

Topping up your Revolut account with a Business/Corporate debit/credit card incurs a fee from Revolut, whereby topping up with a personal debit/credit card doesn’t.

[George K]

Harrier25 wrote:

George, are you topping up with a Curve Business/Corporate card?

Topping up your Revolut account with a Business/Corporate debit/credit card incurs a fee from Revolut, whereby topping up with a personal debit/credit card doesn’t.

Bingo! That’s it. Although like I mentioned in my original post, this certainly wasn’t the case a year ago, but this has clearly changed.

I am happy to request a personal Curve card and swap the corporate one, but I seem to recall there was a downside to it elsewhere. Was it HMRC payments? (If so, not a big deal)

Many thanks for troubleshooting!

[Harrier25]

No, HMRC payments are an upside with the Personal card, with fronted switched on of course, while HMRC will charge a fee, like Revolut, for using the Business/Corporate card.

The disadvantage of the Personal card with Curve is that the daily card limit is capped at £4,500, whereas it’s £9,000 with the Business/Corporate card.

Swings and roundabouts…6 of one and half a dozen of another etc…

[John]

SteveJ wrote:

Curve passes through the merchant code to the underlying card, no value in using Curve. Either your card does or does not charge an interest fee / cash advance fee on Rev top ups or it does not, Curve won’t help that in anyway.

Best bet, trial and error all your CCs to see if any of them can top up Rev without incurring a charge. You might need to wait til statement date with some cards to find out if charged interest.

Revolut seems to now charge a fee on non-UK debit cards. Previously I could add euros to Revolut with my euro card, but now Revolut adds a fee. Going through Curve removes the fee, and some places accept Revolut where they don’t accept Curve, although I haven’t really found a use for this

[Youllnever]

John wrote:

SteveJ wrote:

Curve passes through the merchant code to the underlying card, no value in using Curve. Either your card does or does not charge an interest fee / cash advance fee on Rev top ups or it does not, Curve won’t help that in anyway.

Best bet, trial and error all your CCs to see if any of them can top up Rev without incurring a charge. You might need to wait til statement date with some cards to find out if charged interest.

Revolut seems to now charge a fee on non-UK debit cards. Previously I could add euros to Revolut with my euro card, but now Revolut adds a fee. Going through Curve removes the fee, and some places accept Revolut where they don’t accept Curve, although I haven’t really found a use for this

Revolut says you’d get charged a fee if the card is “not issued in your home country”. Is your Revolut account UK?

[John]

Youllnever wrote:

Revolut says you’d get charged a fee if the card is “not issued in your home country”. Is your Revolut account UK?

Right, ok, yes my Revolut is UK-based, but I added euros with a foreign card in November 2021 and wasn’t charged. Tried again around new years and it wanted to charge.

I guess one workaround is to use IHG to top up revolut and pay it off with the euro card, but I don’t want to risk the IHG being closed yet. For reasons too complex to go into, the only way I can get money out of the euro account is to spend on the associated card, but it’s not that urgent that I’d pay the revolut fee.

[whuaremassive]

Try topping up revolut via apple pay

[George K]

whuaremassive wrote:

Try topping up revolut via apple pay

…and another heartfelt thank you for a great tip. It works! Not sure why.. but it solves all my issues!

I’ve ordered a personal Curve card anyway though.

[Graham-Walsh]

Out of interest, what use is the Revolut card? Never found a need for it over Curve

[SteveJ]

Graham-Walsh wrote:

Out of interest, what use is the Revolut card? Never found a need for it over Curve

It’s more of a sudo bank account than curve. So you can do bank transfers from there, currency conversions and it genuinely is a debit card so works nearly everywhere were curve doesn’t.

[toddy]

They have a nice feature with creates a ‘virtual’ card number for an online purchase.

It’s a ‘one use only’ number, which means that none of your ‘proper’ card details are stored somewhere.

[XmaX]

Is topping up Revolut with Curve still possible? I recently got Revolut and tried topping up with Curve, but after putting in the card number Revolut straight up refused – said this card is not supported. It is a regular, personal Curve – both Curve and Revolut UK-based.

I don’t particularly need this feature, but I’m just wondering if something changed lately or is it that my Curve card is somehow deficient. A few years ago I actually ran into a problem with Curve which might be related – I was booking a flight from some German OTA, who charged for a credit card, but not for Mastercard debit. However, when I put my Curve number, it was recognised as a corporate Mastercard instead. Is that normal?

[Mick S]

XmaX wrote:

Is topping up Revolut with Curve still possible? I recently got Revolut and tried topping up with Curve, but after putting in the card number Revolut straight up refused – said this card is not supported. It is a regular, personal Curve – both Curve and Revolut UK-based.

I don’t particularly need this feature, but I’m just wondering if something changed lately or is it that my Curve card is somehow deficient. A few years ago I actually ran into a problem with Curve which might be related – I was booking a flight from some German OTA, who charged for a credit card, but not for Mastercard debit. However, when I put my Curve number, it was recognised as a corporate Mastercard instead. Is that normal?[/quote

its still possible with curve but the underlying credit card provider will slap you with a fee if using curve.

[XmaX]

Mick S wrote:

its still possible with curve but the underlying credit card provider will slap you with a fee if using curve.?

Actually I tried again, and now I can add Curve to my Revolut account – but Revolut wants to charge me extra for using it to top up. As mentioned earlier in this thread, this happens when Curve is not personal but a business card, but mine is definitely personal. Not quite sure what is happening.

[whuaremassive]

XmaX wrote:

Mick S wrote:

its still possible with curve but the underlying credit card provider will slap you with a fee if using curve.?

Actually I tried again, and now I can add Curve to my Revolut account – but Revolut wants to charge me extra for using it to top up. As mentioned earlier in this thread, this happens when Curve is not personal but a business card, but mine is definitely personal. Not quite sure what is happening.

Probably something to do with Revolut no longer accepting credit cards too, I think the game is over for Revolut now, unless you want to use the overseas account options

[XmaX]

whuaremassive wrote:

XmaX wrote:

Mick S wrote:

its still possible with curve but the underlying credit card provider will slap you with a fee if using curve.?

Actually I tried again, and now I can add Curve to my Revolut account – but Revolut wants to charge me extra for using it to top up. As mentioned earlier in this thread, this happens when Curve is not personal but a business card, but mine is definitely personal. Not quite sure what is happening.

Probably something to do with Revolut no longer accepting credit cards too, I think the game is over for Revolut now, unless you want to use the overseas account options

Maybe, but it doesn’t make too much sense either – the whole USP of Curve is that it’s (supposedly) a debit card. I of course understand that the underlying credit card might charge for topping up Revolut, but this seems to be a different problem altogether – that my Curve is not actually detected as a personal debit card, but something else.

[sturgeon]

Just seen this thread. For any underlying credit cards not charging a fee for this, I assume topping up Revolut with apple pay (using the curve card) is a way to eat into the £10k a month fee free fronted amount? I’ve seen a few savings accounts offering top ups via Apple Pay and this was working nicely but good to know of other routes.

[sturgeon]

To answer my own question Barclaycard charged a £2.99 cash transaction fee on my £10 Revolut payment via Apple Pay. So that didn’t work.