[kt74]

MH is nice/solid, but it’s not worth an extra 1k over QR. In terms of hard product, KUL-SYD is all new suites (similar to BA CLub Suite), but the ex-LHR/CDG A350 seats are poor (similar to Aer Lingus or old Austrian/Swiss seats)

Worth checking MH fares ex-CDG though, as there have been some serious bargains from there

[kt74]

Ummm, it may be KYC, but it’s not routine. I’ve never had to provide a payslip for any other credit card or bank account application – and Curve isn’t even a credit card. It is excessive information to hold on an individual and therefore skirts close to GDPR

Also, I’m like, you had 6? 7? years to ask me for all this information. Why now, why so sudden, why so urgent, why don’t you already know given you’re oh-so-intelligent, why phrase in such a way I first thought it was a phishing scam…

[kt74]

Alex G wrote:

Boots and Argos continue to track just fine for me. Argos is particularly lucrative. A £200 Argos Gift Card gets me £7 curve cash back, and £4 Airtime Rewards. I use the Gift Card to shop in Sainsbury’s, and there is A Sainsbury’s Petrol Station nearby that let’s me pay with a gift card.

The 3.5% comes with the £9.99 monthly plan, where a chosen 1% at Argos combines with the ongoing 2.5% curve reward that you also get with the free card.

So I mostly use Boots and Argos too. Boots has stopped tracking automatically, and I was constantly having to make missing transaction claims, so I have just given up on Curve (forgoing my chosen retailer extra 1% for 4% at Airtime)

Argos 3.5% at Curve is too good to pass up vs 2% at Argos, but I have had missing transactions explicitly denied because I used Curve (with Ts & Cs attached to the reply). Do your Curve transactions track automatically at Argos, or do you you need to claim after the event?

Looking at the Ts & Cs for all the retailers now explicitly exclude Curve… Any idea why?

[kt74]

*BUMP* OK, I’ve had my first outright refusal from Airtime for a transaction paid by Curve… Another nail in the Curve coffin…

[kt74]

GHA is *OK* with honouring benefits. As a Titanium, I’ve had decent upgrades and excellent service in various parts of Asia – e.g. from entry level rooms to pool suites. The ubiquitous NH and even some of the better brands in Europe are pretty uniformly terrible at honouring anything – see if you can spot how your room has been upgraded. 4pm late check out? I never knew her. Free breakfast? Only for the *really obscure* brands.

I would only bother status matching if you know you have some premium Asian hotel stays already in the diary.

[kt74]

JDB wrote:

The Curve credit card is only a credit card in name, but not in reality – they aren’t actually offering to lend you any money/offer a credit line. The original Curve (debit) is similarly a debit card in name only! Thus no legal issue.

Oh great, so you can confirm that for transactions where there is an additional charge to use UK credit cards, that any new replacement Curve credit card will be fee-free like a UK debit card? That’s specified in the Ts & Cs, is it?

[kt74]

executiveclubber wrote:

I just called them based on this thread. It launches to everyone Friday. I look forward to moving some savings over then!

Hmmm, not in my app, and not on my web portal…

Would be handy to know if/when it’s coming…

[kt74]

Curve has been an *official exclusion* according to the Ts & Cs on Airtime Rewards for a while now… but I’ve had everything track on Curve, subject a few delays, most recently a week ago

You may need to de-link/re-link your card and/or request retro credit, but should work

[kt74]

OK thanks all… I guess I’ll book myself a nicer room, then! 😆

[kt74]

Update…

…none of my Curve transactions have tracked in the last month, and it looks like the exclusions on virtually all of its retailers now include Curve

Anyone else had any Curve transactions track in the last few weeks?

[kt74]

JDB wrote:

In your case, for a cash ticket, 30% is the correct statutory reimbursement % for a flight under 1500km so I’m not sure what the issue is with BA correctly applying the law. People are usually complaining when they don’t!

It’s an excellent money-spinning ruse for BA:
– Sell Club for £300
– Sell Economy for £120

Downgrade everyone from Club, and give them £90 compo. Make £90 profit. GENIUS!

[kt74]

JDB wrote:

@kt74 – are you sure you are entitled to cancellation compensation when you were rerouted two hours later?

Re the number of flight cancellations affecting BA, it’s hardly surprising when BA’s hub is congested and has compulsorily limited opening hours.

1. No, I wasn’t expecting cancellation compensation. I only want the fare difference for the involuntary downgrade between Club and Basic Economy, which is more than 30% of the fare difference

2. A plane going tech leading to the 2am cancellation when the outbound flight was departing LHR at 7am, where there are, presumably, a lot of BA planes sitting around at night, has (a) got nothing to do with congestion or limited opening hours, and (b) sounds like they picked a flight to cancel which would involve the smallest amount of compensation

[kt74]

JDB wrote:

You should ask for whichever is the greater of the 30/50% reimbursement or the difference between the classes that you paid; BA won’t balk at that choice.

No, you’re right, BA don’t balk, they just totally ignore you and give you the lower number

Recently was cancelled and downgraded on a 1450km route, from 1A to the very back of a full flight 2 hours later, and BA spent most of the response email explaining in minute detail why I wouldn’t get any compensation for the cancellation, which I wasn’t expecting, and completely ignored the downgrade question

Instead I got a paltry 30% of the fare, which was less than half the fare difference between basic economy and club, with no replies to my complaints. If I had KNOWN I would be downgraded, I would have booked economy in the first place… My travelling companion on a separate ticket still hasn’t got her compensation – from 3 months ago

Also had to fight for the Tier Points, as the Gold Line keep saying “but you were ticketed in Economy” – 3 phone calls to fix that – so, to the OP, keep chasing to ensure you get exactly the TPs you paid for

Given that BA is cancelling double the average number of flights this year (see https://www.ft.com/content/877851e3-1f12-4d85-8e54-7a5488541600), the whole cancel / downgrade compo thing needs to be automated, as Secretary Pete is proposing in the US: “Passengers deserve to get their money back when an airline owes them – without headaches or haggling”

[kt74]

2. How do you avoid telephone booking fee?

3. The old BA web interface used to show dozens of flights, why does the current one only show 6? I was booking complex multi stop, multi carrier flights to Australia on ba.com 10 years ago – you could even choose whether to book the same flight under BA/CX/QF flight numbers to optimise miles earning – what happened?

[kt74]

WillVH52 wrote:

I believe Airtime Rewards track the purchases on the underlying card and not the Curve card.

Not so. I have funded various correctly-tracked Curve / Airtime transactions with Paypal

FWIW, removing and adding my Curve card has helped with tracking, and I haven’t had any missed transactions in the month since I did this

Just bear in mind if you remove and add a card, that you can’t retrospectively claim for missed transactions from before you removed the card, even though it’s exactly the same card number (and you also need a 14 day cooling off period before you can claim for a missed transaction). So effectively you lose 14 days of tracking

[kt74]

Uhhh, the first one is jewellery and watch retailers. The largest jewellery and watch retailer in the UK is Argos. Does that mean Argos is high risk? As usual with Curve, it’s as clear as mud…

[kt74]

Tracey wrote:

Lots of people report problems with AR tracking at the moment, not just curve. In the last month I’ve had Boots and O2 fail to track.

Ah ok, my Boots transactions tracking ok with Capital on Tap, but not with Curve. No problem getting retro credit, just a bit of a faff…

[kt74]

BUMP

Really struggling with Airtime Rewards. Works fine with all my other cards, but none of my Curve transactions track. To be fair to Airtime Rewards, whenever I’ve made a retrospective claim, they’ve always been paid out after a few days

Any other recent experiences?

[kt74]

redethernet1 wrote:

im surprised people use the full allowance in one day, curve must be getting good analytics out of this gig

That doesn’t even come remotely close to covering my HMRC bill… someone’s gotta pay for yesterday’s performative NI cuts

It narks me when either Curve or HMRC’s payment systems are down at the *precise minute* the clock ticks past 30 days…

[kt74]

Reney wrote:

Does anyone if this works – if i choose Morrisons. Pay at morrisons with my curve card backed with Virgin and get Virgin cashback?

Yes, it’s a double dip – 1% on top of whatever Avios or cashback benefits you get from your underlying card

You’re unlikely to make back your annual fee (unlike with Fronted, if you max out every month), but it can be material, and was part of my justification for keeping Metal when they started screwing around with the benefits

[kt74]

Well, it’s not *completely* text-based, as I don’t have a problem getting cashback at any of the Pret franchisees, none of which come up on any of my statement as Pret – e.g. Carebrook in Camden/Finchley/Belfast, although I’ve not tried their Dublin outlet

Also I get TfL cashback when I make online transactions, which are called Oyster on your statement

The Aldi logo on their website is explicitly Aldi Sud (UK, Ireland, Australia, China, etc) – so does that include Aldi Nord (France, Spain, etc), Aldi Hofer (Austria, Switzerland etc) and subsidiaries like Trader Joe’s? Same for Co-op and Coop – is it only the main UK and Italian Co-ops (why are they listed separately?) – what about Scotmid Co-op, Midcounties Co-op, and Coop in Switzerland or Sweden or…?

As usual with everything to do with Curve, it is… Clear. As. Mud.

[kt74]

TGLoyalty wrote:

Monthly reset for me today

Anyone have experience with HMRC / NS&I / 9999 Transactions and Barclaycard? In the last couple months?

Dunno about NS&I, but I regularly use Bcard for HMRC, no problems – as recently as this week

In general Bcard is the most widely accepted of the funding sources – it’s also one of the few that I’ve never had any problems doing cash withdrawal (albeit the only thing I use cash for is to pay my cleaner, so not a lot)

[kt74]

chris@onlineedinburgh.co.uk wrote:

Where did I miss the notification for increased fees from Curve / COT for HMRC payments?

Nothing to do with COT, everything to do with Curve. You would have received an email in mid-September, where the additional fees were buried in the small print on a linked page

There’s a lively debate on the “other payment cards” board, where Curve discussions reside: https://hfp2026mar.kinsta.cloud/forums/topic/curve-changes-from-november-10th/

[kt74]

dshunter wrote:

confirmed – fairly sure it is 30 days and time of day does matter.

Well, I spent my 3k at 29 days and 22 hours and wasn’t charged extra for various HMRC and similar payments, so time of day doesn’t seem to affect charges

[kt74]

JDB wrote:

I wonder how many people rely exclusively on Curve for their travel insurance? I doubt it’s very many. I also doubt the removal of the benefit and/or the timing are for reasons as “cunning” as you suggest. I seriously doubt it was planned or known about in September when they made the other changes. I would think there has been some disagreement with the underwriters, probably about price.

I do. I exclusively use Curve Travel Insurance and turned down other insurances because I assumed I’d have it when I renewed in September. This is a material downgrade. Cashback doesn’t even come close to covering that cost (unless it’s extended to something useful like BA)