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Curious to know if this will trigger on a call centre reward redemption booking (using credit card voucher).

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I also have received the new £250 off £1500+ this morning. The Ts&Cs do not explicitly state phone bookings do not qualify so I’m wondering if I could use this on a reward voucher redemption.

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1st March – 8th March. LHR-JFK. Upper Class.
58,000 points. £669 “taxes & fees”.

5th March – 11th March. LHR-MCO. Upper Class.
76,500 points. £844 “taxes & fees”.

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There appears to be some substantial improvements on points/pounds cost of redemptions if you’re flexible with dates. From what I’m seeing so far, I’m happy!

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Ian wrote:

laughingplace wrote:

Curve 3k fronted a month. Virgin works for no-fee points on HMRC spend. CoT 1.5k a month (counted within the 3k fronted allowance) is also an option.

Unfortunately I have a lot of HMRC spend (over 3k a month) that is currently not generating any points.

Tesco card works I think but earning rate is terrible, I haven’t been bothered to do it

Thank you.

So is this Curve Black or Metal? I have Black version.

Are you then linking the company COT card to that?

3k is better than nothing I guess. I also believe we can prepay corporation tax and we get interest from hmrc.

Curve Metal. Yep, CoT linked to Curve. Beware that over £1.5k a month through Curve -> CoT attracts high fees from Curve due to it being classed as commercial card.

So I tend to do £1.5k CoT, £1.5k Virgin a month.

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Curve 3k fronted a month. Virgin works for no-fee points on HMRC spend. CoT 1.5k a month (counted within the 3k fronted allowance) is also an option.

Unfortunately I have a lot of HMRC spend (over 3k a month) that is currently not generating any points.

Tesco card works I think but earning rate is terrible, I haven’t been bothered to do it

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It does seem likely.

On a similar note, can anyone confirm 100% that this offer triggers for bookings made over the phone? I expect they will trigger but want to be sure before going ahead!

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Never been charged a cash advance fee from Virgin for paying HMRC via Curve. From my experience most cards don’t treat HMRC payments as cash advance, which makes sense.

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Yes I noticed this the other day, finally! Very helpful and saves having to message chat.

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I can confirm it’s now working for me too! Thanks for the heads up Sara. It seems Curve have fixed it just in time for July’s fronted allowance!

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Hi all. Thanks for the various comments. Seems to be a widespread issue relating to the newly issued Virgin cards & Curve’s handling of them.

I have a support ticket currently open with Curve which was ‘escalated’ to a specific team a few days ago but nothing further back from them so far. I have sent them a chaser this morning.

Virgin also confirmed with me it’s got nothing to do with them and they are happy and not blocking transactions to HMRC.

Judge – thanks for your comment! Unfortunately I have removed the older one from Curve! I too want to stick the 3k through before end of today..

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Talking of Morrisons, the 10% cashback offers at Morrisons instore when spending ~£30+ are back on numerous cards. e.g. Virgin Atlantic CC, Curve (limited to max £10 rebate) and others.

As of now I believe that to be the most lucrative way of buying gcs at a discount. Unfortunately the hay days of quite easily getting 20-25%+ back from buying gcs seems to be over.

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Damn, that’s a real pain. I put quite a lot through sainsbury’s to buy other gcs.

I don’t think you can buy gcs with a gc at Tesco either right?

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bumping this as also keen to know if anyone has had cashback come through for a rewards booking. I know it says not over phone but suspect there’s a good chance of this tracking

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do you get the 0.5% cashback for paying HMRC? Since Curve limited fronted to £3k per month, I’ve been looking for an alternative card to funnel the excess through

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Just need to transfer in/out £40k then you’re good for the year.

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Thanks Greg. I think you’re right and there is a lot of flexibility there depending on the agent. I’m pretty sure they just manually adjust fares etc rather than some automated process on their side which would prevent them doing this. A win for their crap IT systems 🙂

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Thanks all. I have also been impacted by this. Issued 6th October 2023, expiry 1st August 2025. I guess for now I’ll wait too.

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Swipii dropped their discount, now around 7.5%. Any other options for 10%+ bonus when buying gift cards?

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Yes, I’ve done this. All in all, Virgin are very loose with these vouchers, unlike BA. There’s quite a bit of flexibility in them, e.g. they don’t tend to enforce travel by the expiry date – you can often get away with book by.

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Rui N. wrote:

Swiipi and you’ll get 10%

How do you get 10%?

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Whilst the Clubhouse is brilliant, the Centurion is good too.

Imo, wouldn’t ‘waste’ them on Clubhouse access if you can get into Centurion AND you’d use the vouchers for a 241.

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There is a way to avoid any fee on the BA Prepaid when paying any merchant that would usually attract a fee. E.g. it can be used to pay off other CC free. I will leave that for you to find out.

It’s fairly pointless though given only £2600 monthly limit and a 0.5 avios per £ earning. If the monthly limit was increased it would be quite attractive – but then it would get shut down quickly!

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Brilliant lounge. Well worth a visit. Far far superior to the standard priority pass lounges (i.e. No 1 / Aspire / etc).

Food & drink is great. Only downside is lack of natural light. Hopefully it remains quiet in there as the months go on.

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I got an email with the code in within a couple of days of the switch completing (and other requirements met). All in all, easier than I was expecting!