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I’ve been using talkatone for many years now and it’s been flawless. I don’t even pay for it, they will send a reminder when it’s about to expire and all it takes is a text or call (eg to an 800 number) to reset the time. Only thing it can’t do is receive/send texts to short numbers, which is a pain for US banking. But hey, it’s free.

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Maples wrote:

Tracey wrote:

Also have the black reward card and haven’t heard anything, other than an increase in the monthly charge.

What is this monthly charge?

The annual fee still shows as £84 on the website, though I just skimmed through.

You mean the credit card, the OP meant the packaged account (going from £31 to £38 a month from June).

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“As the changes outlined above are all either clearly in your favour or clarificatory in nature, they will apply with immediate effect”

IANAL but this looks written by a student. If history teaches us something is that nothing is clear with Curve..

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pbcold wrote:

I applied to downgrade from metal to standard in the app on Wednesday, was asked for my year of birth and postal address yesterday and received notification of my downgrade and refund for the remaining amount of this billing period today. I am impressed.

Went through exactly the same steps but it took them 6 days to acknowledge and another 5 to do the actual downgrade, on what they claim to be premium support. When asked why I was downgrading because “it may be something we can help with” (!) I explained it was the drop in value coupled with the price gauge – they never followed back. Utterly not impressed but very happy to be a standard user again.

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OT, Boingo used to be a perk with the free HSBC MC, but my account got disabled and I can’t find any reference about this benefit on their website. Has it been silently pulled?

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Got the email for myself (metal) and OH (free) just now. Came just to say I found the email very sneaky – bullet points are pointing out to making the terms clearer, adding recommendations, introducing new products and refreshing the privacy policy – but never calling out price changes as a thing. There’s only a passing mentioning of an update to the schedule to reflect new pricing, but it’s nowhere near a major point when we’d all argue here that is the only thing that mattered.

I’ve been making excellent use of Curve so far but the way they do business and treat their customer is just appalling – reason enough for parting ways.

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Actually it might be them, not Amex.

Given the interchange fee delta between Visa/MC and Amex (0.3% vs 2.5% IIRC?), they’d lose a lot if everyone maxed out their £10k on Amex. Maybe they/their investors worked out £3k as an acceptable loss leader. And the new 2.5% fee for fronted on £3k+ would leave them with a small profit.

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I wonder if/how this is related to the announcement hinted in the latest iOS app

Curve 2.0
It’s in flight… but there’s only a few passengers on board. We’re rolling this one out slowly to make sure it’s in good shape before we go live to everyone.

Major new integration
We’re taking “all your cards in one” to a whole new level. Sorry for the cryptic clue – we’ve been sworn to secrecy, but the gag order will be lifted next week. Hopefully.

Could this be about Amex and could it be that they are behind the major cut to Fronted in order to allow Curve back on board?

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rams wrote:

Does anyone know how the credit card plays with curve?

Be more specific? You can use it with curve, it depends on what you mean by playing..

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In a matter of days after the transaction (but backdated to the transaction date). Probably after the original transaction had cleared.

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+1, but I seem to be stuck in a loop. Backoffice team rejected refund for closed card and asked for statement showing debit card payment. As I can only speak to customer support, I explained that there is no bank account showing the payment, they said it’s ok if I sent another bank statement as long as it had my details. Backoffice team rejected it and asked again to see the statement showing the debit card payment. Two more rounds with customer support where they can’t find the statement then they find it again, and now I’m waiting again for a decision from the backoffice team.

They said they can’t send a cheque as amount is too high (2k, really?). They can’t refund to the original debit card. I can’t even message them or upload documents as they won’t let me log in to my (now empty) account. Debating to file a complaint as it’s been 2 months now.

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FWIW the upgrades to Premier for NWG (incl. RBS and Ulster) are automated (you apply by filling in a form and then an algo validates you a few days later – if declined you’re referred to CS for follow up). But if they see a legit BACS net salary confirming gross income of 100k+ you’re upgraded automatically no question asked. Only later will the assigned PRM reach out to you for cross-selling…

I tried upgrading an account before proof of income and was told computer says no try again later, although that was Ulster so maybe they’re less willing to allow manual reviews, even if the decline email said so.

NatWest and RBG (having received salary already) went through in about a week just fine. I agree NWG are quite good.

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duggie1982 wrote:

Can you buy amazon, etc gift cards at Sainsbury’s using Nectar for payment?

Not with Nectar, only with Sainsbury’s gift cards.

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andiron wrote:

Makes me wonder if they did 3 rounds in December to improve their internal money numbers for 2022.
The codes were always related to a big day, NYE400, XMAS400 etc. There was nothing in Jan, but Valentine’s day is coming shortly.. if they don’t release any by end of Feb, I assume party is gone.

Shall we run a poll on what the next code will be? My bet is on LOVE400 (as FEB would just be dull).

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comeocome wrote:

pbcold wrote:

You just need to ensure at least £3,300 hits the account each month as far as I can tell. I`ve had the account for a while, no questions have ever been asked and my actual monthly income varies significantly.

So you just have to transfer 3300 a month to that account, from say another account? And then presumably you can transfer that amount away each month if necessary?

No, the £3,300 has to come from the employer, not a personal account. It has to be genuine income.

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Pointofview wrote:

If I told you what my “genuine” use was you’d get loads of numpties on here trying to replicate my business

Others already pointed the obvious, but you come across as self-entitled.

So you’re bashing Curve users here while lamenting on the HSBC thread that your (presumably non-Curve) “not so naughty” transactions are now charged fees. How is your business fundamentally different if the end result is still milking the points? How can you complain here with a straight face?

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edwitten wrote:

the CS was brilliant even with free version some years ago, now they won’t even reply you within a month.

OT, but Chase got there so much faster.

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Have you actually tried to add your new card? It should just tell you your wallet is maxed out. You’d need to trim it down to 1 card.

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Google “your personalised promo codes” and you’ll find the offer there

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A giant step for mankind.. will take a day off to celebrate.

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SteveJ wrote:

Are you self employed? Barclaycard are ridiculous in their credit acceptance. You can’t earn too little or have too much existing credit (fair enough), but you also can’t earn too much.

Unless you hit a sweet spot of normal employment earning approx 60k a year (and defo not over 100k) and not too many existing cards you might as well forget about the Barclaycard.

That is not correct. Source: employed earning well over 100k, 6 credit cards with limits between 3-20k, Barclaycard approved with 20k limit after the dreaded “we will get back to you”.

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Nepweno wrote:

Thanks Rui and JDB. Only worried in terms of wasting a credit check maybe I am too pedantic but with a possible mortgage application on horizon I try stick to 1 check every 6 months which makes juggling cards harder than ever.

No credit checks (source: 2 players)

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h1jfg wrote:

Tried to complete the current account switch using the Current Account Switch Service only to have it fail and say that Chase Bank do not support this capability (…) Every day their seems to be a new problem with Barclays Premier account and Barclaycard Avios Plus credit cards. Shambolic.

And there was no way that I could know that Chase Bank doesn’t support the current account switching service until I had already signed up for the Premier Account.

https://www.chase.co.uk/gb/en/support/switching-to-chase/

Chase is not currently part of the Current Account Switching Service (CASS), but we can offer a manual switch process

https://www.barclays.co.uk/current-accounts/switch-bank-account/

The Current Account Switch Service is a free service that lets you switch a current account from one participating bank or building society

Looks pretty clear to me. The manual process is not CASS and you didn’t do your research. Not Barclays fault (or poor Chase for that matter – what did they do wrong?)

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h1jfg wrote:

Tried to complete the current account switch using the Current Account Switch Service only to have it fail and say that Chase Bank do not support this capability and that I need to complete the process manually, i.e. download forms and post them to Barclays. I have done this but I have no idea if they will be actioned or whether doing this switch manually will invalidate the 25000 Avios joining bonus. If it does invalidate the bonus then that will be 50,000 points I’ve lost as my wife has same issue. Every day their seems to be a new problem with Barclays Premier account and Barclaycard Avios Plus credit cards. Shambolic.

Chase Bank are not a member of the current account switching service. Barclays/BCard are at fault with many things (incl. including a leaflet on how to use Apple Pay with a card that doesn’t support Apple Pay in the first place) but to be fair with them this is nothing of their fault but rather an issue of PEBCAK.

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ed_fly wrote:

putting aside views on reasonableness of ‘downgrading’ promptly after hitting bonus. The HFP faqs approved by barclaycard, the barclaycard Avios card product page and also a general barclaycard faq page on switching between their card portfolio, all indicate that switching between cards is possible. The barclaycard page on ‘can I change to a different card?’ Provides a clear yes answer. I’ve not seen a reference to a six month window on their pages, but might be there somewhere. Reports on this thread of six months. If so, I’d expect a lot of cancellations in the next couple of months.

Rather odd that in spite of this being raised multiple times in comments & on the forums there’s complete silence from Rob/HfP when they’ve been quite active on so many other related topics. Even a “will ask & will report back” like in other cases would have been better than the current radio silence on a very clear statement made in their promos.