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Why the Curve Card is essential for all UK reward points collectors

Curve card travel features

The Curve Card is one of the most useful cards you can take with you on holiday. This nifty debit card featured in our 2019 update of the best cards to use abroad, but it’s worth giving this specific card the spotlight because it entails so many benefits for UK reward points collectors. Let’s take a look at the key benefits of the Curve card and how it can help you to maximise your miles and points.

What is Curve and how does it work? 

First, it’s important to note that Curve is not a bank account like Monzo or Revolut. If you get a Curve card, you won’t be getting a current account. A Curve card also isn’t a prepaid currency card like a FairFX card. Essentially, a Curve card is an intermediary card, a Mastercard, which can be linked to all of your current Visa and Mastercard cards (both debit and credit). You get a physical smart card linked to the Curve app (which together combine all your bank cards in one). Using the app, you simply select which of your cards you’d like to be the underlying card when making your purchases.

Both the card and the app with the standard ‘blue’ account are free and the company even provides you with £5 to get you started. The premium Black Card Mastercard involves a one-off fee of £50 – and with this card, you’ll also get limited edition Curve TUMI wallet (worth £60).

For purchases abroad, there is a 1% fee, and for ATM withdrawals abroad, there is a flat £2 fee per withdrawal.

The benefits of the Curve card

There’s a whole host of benefits you can enjoy when using the Curve card:

What are the disadvantages? 

There aren’t many disadvantages associated with the Curve card but a couple are worth highlighting. For example, depending on your card, you might not get the same level of purchase protection between the card issuer and the vendor when using your Curve card. This is because you lose the useful Section 75 protection you’d normally get when paying with your credit card. As a Mastercard debit card, purchases made using the Curve card are covered by the chargeback scheme, which offers some recourse in the case of situations like fraud and faulty goods but the protection is not as strong as that provided by Section 75. For this reason, you might want to use your credit card directly when making larger purchases.

There are also low spending limits (at least to begin with). These are initially:

In time, this can be increased to:

In spite of these slight disadvantages, the number and uniqueness of the benefits certainly make the Curve card a highly attractive choice. You can visit the Curve website to download the app and then use the code SPACX (our referral code) when signing up to receive a free £5 credit after making your first purchase.

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