[The Urbanite]

FWP wrote:

BBbetter wrote:

The card is pointless for anyone not collecting emirates or Singapore Airlines miles.

I’m still learning my way around collecting an redeeming points. Would you be able to elaborate please? I see that HSBC premier now allow you to transfer your points to a lot of airlines, is there a reason that Emirates or Singapore are a better way to use HSBC points than BA or the others? Thank you

BA
Cathay Pacific
Emirates
Etihad
Eva Air
Finnair
Singapore
Qantas

I suspect most people here will be focused on Avios and Virgin Flying Club miles, because they are UK based carriers and make it easier for people in the UK to boost their points balance through means other than flying. So for this market, there are more competitive cards than Premier WE for customers – mainly the Avios Barclaycards, Amex, Virgin FC cards.

I am in full agreement with BBbetter and that is because I am in in a position to spread spend across multiple cards and therefore make good use of multiple reward schemes.

If you can generate points through card spend alone, it makes sense to diversify the schemes used. Avios is all well and good but premium seat availability isn’t always amazing, especially at short notice. Emirates is a good option because seat availability is decent if you don’t mind flying via DXB and their F offering is fantastic. Singapore Airlines’ own availability isn’t so great, but decent J/great F and you also get some access to other Star Alliance airlines redemptions through them. The point made about Cathay Pacific, I agree availability direct through them is better than what’s available through BA and other OneWorld carriers. More options is no bad thing.

This is where HSBC Premier WE comes into its own and the higher points earning rate is very welcome. But might not make sense if you’re putting closer to £10k a year through credit cards. It’s a shame Amex cut the earn rates for EK/SQ on the Marriott then later the MR cards.

[The Urbanite]

I very much welcome the changes (except the fee hike, but it is what it is).

My reason for using the Premier WE card is to get points to redeem on Emirates/Singapore Airlines. It doesn’t hurt to have more options than OneWorld when flying long haul. A higher earn rate supports this, while Amex have gone in the opposite direction with cuts to Marriott earning rates and MR conversion to said schemes.

The maths changes if you are only interested in Avios as there are comparable products that offer those on card spend.

Not bothered about lounge passes, surplus benefit if the flight ticket includes lounge access.

[The Urbanite]

Colin MacKinnon wrote:

It was great while it lasted, wasn’t it!

(Speaking as the first person on HfP to get banned by Revolut – using it to pay my mum’s care home fees and get points! And someone who redeemed their last Creation voucher for the IC Bora Bora Thalsso Spa – even though we ended up only spending a couple of hours there!)

Happy days!

It was good fun!

Can probably spill the beans on Monese now. I had it when it was brand new back when it was Contis operated, because you could top up 2x £249 a day with Amex at Paypoint for free. When it was announced it was switching to Prepay Solutions, I examined the T&Cs and my interest was piqued by reference to topping up at the Post Office for a fixed fee of £1.

On Day 1 of the PPS version being delivered, off I went to the Post Office. I was shocked to find not only did it work at the self service tills, but the Post Office had Prepay Solutions set up in an unconventional way which wasn’t restricted to cash payments only like prepaid cards top ups normally are at the counter. I immediately discovered you could top up unlimited £500s in one fell swoop with Visa or Mastercard, so I emptied out a lot of credit into it. No Amex at self service, but I also discovered on Day 1 it did work at the counter. The loads would credit to the Monese card at 06:36 the following morning and the £1 fees would only be debited at 07:36. So if you emptied out the card between those times, they couldn’t charge the fee.

Wasn’t long before I got banned, but I kept signing back up. Then one day, I spotted an Amex sticker on a Post Office self service machine. I then discovered that at a tiny number of flagship stores with brand new machines, you could top up with Amex at self service. Game on. In order to avoid getting money trapped by their KYC team, I was sure to top up after 7pm and empty out the card before 8am (I made sure they got their £1.) Surprise surprise, during office hours the KYC team blocked my card for the umpteenth time with a balance of £0.01 on it.

Of course, long after I made hay with Monese, people started plugging it on this site and other forums, with people publicising how easy it was to MS with it. The Post Office eventually killed the route and a changed pricing structure made it a bit of a waste of time to MS with it.

As for Revolut, that’s a whole another story, the peak with that was when they were offering the uncapped 0.1% cashback and before they started with the MCC dancing, catching people out with cash advance fees. Could top it up for free and pay the balance into Sainsbury’s Saveback instantly!

[The Urbanite]

Simon de Scoob wrote:

Has anyone else, who has been using Monese as a means of CC top-ups, recently found it’s recoded these top-ups (e.g. for MBNA and Barclaycard) so that any such top-up incurs fees now where, previously and for years, they did not?

If so, are there any workarounds, either within Monese or using a similar company, which allows fee-free credit card top-ups?

Many thanks in advance.

Simon

It sounds like the old merchant category code was 6012, which pretty much only Lloyds and Barclaycard play ball with nowadays. It would be useful to know what the new MCC is.

With respect to free credit card topups, what you’re asking for is for two things. An easy route for manufacturing spend/free cash advances to be posted in the public domain, as well as technical knowledge on which MCCs still work for this activity with your cards. Asides from the fact the the credit card industry collectively moved to stop rewarding this kind of spend a few years back now, if the information is considered to be worth nothing then few people are likely to be open with it in public these days.

[The Urbanite]

The MS game has evolved since the early 20s, Curve was the catalyst that killed the old methods. It is still very much alive, just need to transact at merchants that aren’t categorised as financial.

[The Urbanite]

Aston100 wrote:

Is it time to revive the Che Sandy Bendy Bondies talk again?
I do hope not…

That era of MS, the prepaid cards, savings accounts and Curve is definitely done now. I think the cashback card people have learned the hard way and talk to each other. With the right knowledge, individuals could draw tens, if not hundreds of thousands of pounds in cashback without limits. Curve’s debit card made it so easy to do MS that it caused upset with various financial institutions who have capped rewards earnings and increased the excluded transactions.

MS still very much exists, but in my opinion the game has evolved and moved away from topping up cards and savings accounts and withdrawing, apart from a few legacy routes which probably aren’t so attractive to everyone.

Routes like this T212 card, I can see clear ways to pocket that £20 despite the restrictions but it’s barely worth it!

[The Urbanite]

Creation was a bizarre tool in the arsenal of the points collector. It was a golden goose for years.

I can’t blame them for shutting my accounts with no notice. The entire credit limit on both cards was cycled every 2-3 days. All paid off with rewards credit cards and used as an “out” for various experimental prepaid cards and gift cards that weren’t that easy to liquidate through the usual means. After the interchange fee cap came in, and even before for that matter, I dread to think what it was costing Creation to run these cards and accept payments for them.

Creation were wisely paying out rewards on transactions with money transfer merchants, but were pioneering in heavily restricting transactions with financial services merchants to £700 a week. Nowadays most rewards credit card providers have no time for these transactions and won’t pay any rewards on them. Comedic moment when Wirecard went down resulting in Curve disabling MCC passthrough, therefore allowing Creation’s financial services merchant limit to be bypassed entirely.

Then there was the IT. It was crazy. To shut an account immediately they had to set the account balance to 0 by doing a “goodwill” credit payment. In other words wiping the account balance, so they paid thousands to be able to close the account with no notice. Smart move. The double points for overseas transactions was amusing too. The obvious intention was to trigger the 3% forex charge to pay for those extra points. Only they also paid double on GBP merchants that were domiciled outside of the UK. Whoops. My favourite one was topping up the Swipe cashback card which was free and Lithuania based. Anyone remember Vodafone Smartpass?

It seemed for a long time Creation had little in the way of AML in place, several calls from the Solihull office were just to check I was the one performing the transactions. It took a lot to elicit contact from BNP Paribas’ compliance team in Belfast, that was one call no points collector would want to get!

Things got more interesting after account closure, which I complained about because of the improper nature of the closure. Customer services don’t really understand the complaint and awarded £150 compo for late issue of a reward night that I did receive. I later received another certificate I wasn’t expecting. I escalated the complaint to the FOS and it seemed Creation tried it on by trying to lie their way out of being accountable for anything. I had evidence to prove they were lying and the FOS found in my favour, meaning I was to get further compensation and the points they withheld from the month of account closure. Creation then tried to appeal the outcome and had the FOS questioning the merchants I was transacting with by providing them with statements. But I managed to challenge their appeal successfully and they had to pay out the award.

Even after account closure it was still possible to generate rewards from the Creation accounts which is something I haven’t seen elsewhere.

It was mildly amusing when they got someone in who clearly was there to stem the losses from the credit card operation – withdrawing the black card, adding restrictions to which merchants earned rewards, identifying Curve customers as undesirable value seekers (read unprofitable) and nuking accounts en masse then binning off the lot. Too little too late I guess, the only surprise being how long it took them to do all of that.

My only regret was ignoring all the offers to get the Mariott credit card back in 2015! I was also disappointed when my Asda card got turned into a generic card with no rewards when others got a 2% cashback card!

Joke was none of that was against T&Cs, all they care about and have flags set for is late payments and exceeding credit limit (distinct from cycling but keeping balance below limit).

Creation are missed and their return to the UK rewards card market would be very welcome, but in the event that doesn’t happen, thanks must be given for the opportunities they provided!

[The Urbanite]

I have an account but I think use is for niche purposes outside of the promo periods.

Doing a bank transfer is free and instant. They’re competing with a service that takes a couple of working days to make the transfer and costs 2.5% for points that are worth 1%, maybe a little more in some cases.

There might be a use if you need to hit a sign up bonus target, or if somebody else is paying the fee. But I can’t see a case for ongoing use unless the fee is reduced.

The MCC they use is excluded from the rewards programmes on some cards. No credit cards I know of but definitely some of the crypto rewards cards.

[The Urbanite]

RTS wrote:

Ah wasn’t there a £2.95 charge on those to load them?

There was no charge for those 3V / Pay.com cards, they were popular on here until the plug was finally pulled on them!

[The Urbanite]

RTS wrote:

The Urbanite wrote:

@Metty

Sorry to hear this. I hope there will be a resolution or at least some closure in due course.

I can’t remember the number of times I have been banned or had cards cancelled by Amex. Bottom line is I still have a account with them despite this.

In my case I can’t really blame them – I didn’t do anything that broke the T&Cs as such (and I did examine them) but I did loads to up the points I was earning. It was child’s play to empty out the (exceptionally generous) credit limit in one fell swoop and reload, playing the referrals game, loading offers to each card via the URL, Curve, paying off the balance with gift cards and points earning credit cards and so on. I triggered multiple manual credit / financial reviews which meant the cards got suspended but I kept passing them. They would ask what I was spending so much on in supermarkets a month and I just said shopping, which wasn’t untrue.

It is standard for them to give the 60 days notice and suspend the cards immediately. It doesn’t stop use of the other services that come from being a cardholder like insurance, lounge cards etc but if they don’t like anything about the way the cards are used, they can do that.

The reason they couldn’t uphold the closures was for doing it improperly. There is a way to escalate complaints. Appealing on the basis of being a good, loyal customer won’t work because they already decided you’re an undesirable customer and want to terminate the relationship. Appealing on the basis of them doing something that breaches the terms or principles of fair treatment is more likely to get you somewhere, but you need to be read up on the rules and have a compelling argument.

Loyalty doesn’t mean anything if they don’t want the custom, in a lot of areas you’re rewarded for the opposite if a company thinks it’s best to make a marginal amount out of you than nothing at all. If the product is bringing a benefit to you, as Amex tends to then the customer service can be overlooked. No point in cutting of your nose to spite your face.

Good luck with it.

Tf you could pay off amex with a GC ?!

There was a window when they accepted those grubby Pay.com £25 gift cards. Probably others too but normally the gift card providers block you from doing financial transactions as I suspect their business models rely on the cards not being completely emptied out.

[The Urbanite]

Metty wrote:

The Urbanite wrote:

Sorry to hear this. I hope there will be a resolution or at least some closure in due course.

🙂 That made me chuckle; I did game Tesco back in the £1 meals days but never have with credit cards.

Someone’s just called saying that the CEO and the other Exec person I contacted have tasked them with the investigation, but I may not hear for 15 days.

If I were still working full time then night shifts would be the ideal time for formulating appropriate challenges to Amex once I have it, thanks for sharing your story though, as I can think of one thing they’ve done so far which must be a privacy breach.

A step in the right direction with the escalation. If nothing is untoward there might be a positive outcome.

NorthernLass wrote:

@The Urbanite – have you by any chance been with us longer than your 115 posts would suggest?!

I’m barely a spring chicken in the points game, only started in 2013!

[The Urbanite]

@Metty

Sorry to hear this. I hope there will be a resolution or at least some closure in due course.

I can’t remember the number of times I have been banned or had cards cancelled by Amex. Bottom line is I still have a account with them despite this.

In my case I can’t really blame them – I didn’t do anything that broke the T&Cs as such (and I did examine them) but I did loads to up the points I was earning. It was child’s play to empty out the (exceptionally generous) credit limit in one fell swoop and reload, playing the referrals game, loading offers to each card via the URL, Curve, paying off the balance with gift cards and points earning credit cards and so on. I triggered multiple manual credit / financial reviews which meant the cards got suspended but I kept passing them. They would ask what I was spending so much on in supermarkets a month and I just said shopping, which wasn’t untrue.

It is standard for them to give the 60 days notice and suspend the cards immediately. It doesn’t stop use of the other services that come from being a cardholder like insurance, lounge cards etc but if they don’t like anything about the way the cards are used, they can do that.

The reason they couldn’t uphold the closures was for doing it improperly. There is a way to escalate complaints. Appealing on the basis of being a good, loyal customer won’t work because they already decided you’re an undesirable customer and want to terminate the relationship. Appealing on the basis of them doing something that breaches the terms or principles of fair treatment is more likely to get you somewhere, but you need to be read up on the rules and have a compelling argument.

Loyalty doesn’t mean anything if they don’t want the custom, in a lot of areas you’re rewarded for the opposite if a company thinks it’s best to make a marginal amount out of you than nothing at all. If the product is bringing a benefit to you, as Amex tends to then the customer service can be overlooked. No point in cutting of your nose to spite your face.

Good luck with it.

[The Urbanite]

This thread takes me back to MSing 10 years ago. These kind of routes have all but dried up!

[The Urbanite]

When Airtime Rewards was new, it was entirely possible to generate unlimited rewards with little effort or outlay. Transferring your bounty to your network (£20 at a time!) worked well, with no monthly cap, meaning you could quite easily get your phone bill covered into the 2040s if you wanted to. At the time, getting the mobile statement credit transferred to bank account was an out, but I think a stop was put to that.

Another way was to top up gaming accounts using your mobile phone number then withdrawing to bank account, but these days it won’t be entertained unless you convert the deposit into winnings. However unless you’re comfortable with arbitrage to make this process pay, or losing a small percentage by getting all outcomes covered without arbitrage, it’s not for everyone.

Always ways to do things by thinking outside of the box.

[The Urbanite]

Here’s my story.

My account wasn’t closed as part of the mass culling of Curve wielding customers. I lost it a few months before that when Wirecard went down, leading to Curve switching off MCC passthrough and thus increasing the number of merchants Creation’s card could be used with. Creation hard coded in an unpublished limit of £700 a week spend with these merchants, but Curve was recharging to MCC 8999 so this limit was bypassed. My account was terminated with no notice as an error at Creation’s end meant my available balance wasn’t accurate, leading me to inadvertently go over limit. I raised this with them but it was never investigated.

Another bug at Creation’s end meant they could not shut an account unless the balance was 0. I had over £15k limit between the three cards and a good chunk of that had been spent at point of closure. They wiped the balances with “goodwill payment” credits.

Creation’s problem was they didn’t do things properly. The FOS and complaints system is quite formulaic and by what felt like a careless approach, they left themselves exposed. Examination of a few case studies before making a complaint greatly informs how the process works and leads to a higher chance of a complaint being upheld. Some of the things that the FOS are obliged to uphold are ridiculous in the sense they basically open up a loophole, especially some of the affordable lending cases. But the more pertinent point is the financial institutions need to do things properly – not doing so means the customer will win if their case is presented properly. Anyway, I digress.

Had Creation given being over limit as a reason for closure, I’d have had no recourse. But they didn’t, they closed the accounts all ham fisted and just pointed to the term that allowed them to close an account immediately, which made it extremely easy to contest it. Immediate closure meant the 90k odd points I’d earned in that week following the previous statement weren’t paid out and they said they wouldn’t be honouring the issue of the free night certificate for that year. So I raised a formal complaint.

Creation’s staff didn’t understand my complaint. They said they would not be issuing the points or the free night certificate, but sent me £150 for the previous certificate arriving late, which was baffling as it wasn’t only irrelevant to what I’d complained about, but I did receive it. I escalated the complaint to the FOS.

It took a long time, but the FOS found in my favour and required Creation to award £100 compensation, the points and issue a pro-rata refund of the card fee. The free night certificate did turn up months late despite Creation saying it wouldn’t, so I withdrew that element of the complaint. Then another free night turned up out of the blue.

Creation contested this conclusion and told the FOS something that was not true. They tried to say I hadn’t earned any points during the billing period the account was closed. This was very easily disproved as Creation had issued statements for that period clearly showing the points that had been earned and that 0 had been transferred. I didn’t make a big thing of Creation’s “error” there – I just sent the statements through and left the FOS to draw their own conclusions.

A second time, the FOS found in my favour but Creation tried it again. I don’t know what they said exactly but the FOS asked me to explain the transactions on my account. These showed iCard topups, a card account that could be topped up with frequent free load promos and earned 4 points per £1 on account of being based outside of the UK. Leopay topups, which was the same but based in the UK and another source of cheap/free points. Sainsbury’s Saveback, Skrill loads and Revolut topups, before they went crazy with the MCC dancing. I just said it was personal spend, as opposed to business spend and nothing that was forbidden in the card T&Cs.

And that was the truth. In all the years I had the cards, there were genuinely no clauses in Creation’s card terms that forbade that type of spend. On occasion these sort of transactions triggered calls from Solihull, but they just wanted to make sure it was me making the transactions and not somebody who had stolen the card. They were happy for me to carry on every time and even whitelisted some of the merchants. Not long before the closure, I got another call. This time it was from someone working BNP Paribas in Ireland and it was someone from that department who signed the account closure letter.

Anyway, back to the FOS, Creation gave up at this point and agreed to pay up – the points, or some of them at least arrived after a few days and the money after a few weeks. I dread to think how much it cost them to reject the complaints then repeatedly contest the FOS’ findings vs giving two closure notice and just blocking spend. But that’s their preferred way of running their business and far be it for me to cast judgement on that.

I hate to think how much running these cards was costing Creation. Clearly at some point a couple of years ago, somebody was appointed to stem the losses hence the customer cull, the addition of categories to the cash advance list and the increase in categories being charged immediate interest. But despite this their credit card portfolio still crashed and burned. It was known since at least 2017 about the interchange fee cap so that was the time to tighten things up. Though I guess it was only when Curve introduced their debit cards around 2019, it eventually increased the volume of spend and gaming and it just took a bit of time for them, along with most of the rewards card issuers to catch up.

Ah well. I didn’t end up out of pocket so to me it’s just one of many crazy episodes in the rewards game. Some of the stuff that happens, you really couldn’t make up. Hope everybody else gets the points and nights they earned.

[The Urbanite]

If you’re doing it because you need to borrow money from the Virgin Credit Card, you should be aware you will be charged a cash advance fee and immediate interest and won’t get any points. You might want to find a cheaper way to borrow the money.

[The Urbanite]

The way to get around it is to top up a payment account with your rewards card, then use that payment account to make a transfer to HSBC. People used to do this with the likes of Revolut and Monese.

[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.

[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.

[The Urbanite]

Not being funny but you may have missed the boat with Curve as a points generator.

It was useful from 2019-2021 when they issued a decent debit card you could push £18k a day / £3.2m per annum through without them batting an eyelid. This could be paying off credit cards, paying into savings accounts and so on.

Then the credit card issuers got upset at what Curve was enabling people to do and all that ended. Plus someone decided to make the business viable by charging fees which are now known as Curve Fronted.

A good effort with the analysis you’ve done but you won’t get away with much more than normal spend with Curve, so you might as well use your Barclaycard directly. I also wouldn’t be paying that much for points.

[The Urbanite]

Aston100 wrote:

Unbelievable.
Clearly some people are unaware or unaffected by Creationgate.

I wouldn’t worry about it. Most of the issuers have upped the number of merchants that generate cash advance fees / immediate interest and excluded from their rewards schemes, all but killing card spend as a way of gaming the system at a significant level. And if that hasn’t stopped most people, the KYC departments will nudge most of the remaining gamers. Still, must give thanks that the BA Prepaid Avios card is still about!

[The Urbanite]

Ash wrote:

should’ve read what I was quoting : )……can I play …it could’ve been the HSBC MasterCard defense?…worth a shot. Thankfully I’m no one’s criminal defence KC.

Don’t get the gob shutting, it’s a forum here, not a secretive nefarious cult.

You are a points generating legend sir!

[The Urbanite]

DonLee wrote:

The Urbanite wrote:

Some good information in this thread but definitely some waffle too.

If you can’t pay off directly, why not top up a bank account that earns points for doing so, then bank transfer those funds to make the payment? An example that a lot of people were doing is Revolut, which used to accept credit cards without fees. You’ll have to find one that works for you.

Those time were long gone

Yes, for Revolut perhaps as it was the golden goose that got killed. The opportunities exist but it’s a case of looking for what’s on the market and finding one that works with the cards you have and your personal circumstances.

[The Urbanite]

Some good information in this thread but definitely some waffle too.

If you can’t pay off directly, why not top up a bank account that earns points for doing so, then bank transfer those funds to make the payment? An example that a lot of people were doing is Revolut, which used to accept credit cards without fees. You’ll have to find one that works for you.

[The Urbanite]

Ash wrote:

@urabnite is there bank account that takes credit card deposits? None that I know

Revolut was an example of one, maybe look for similar that suits your needs.