Let’s say my current funds have run dry or I wish to use a credit card to make a one off purchase. Later on, I can switch to a cashback card and effectively pay off the credit card balance via a refund. This method only really works on a paid for plan (used to on the free plan!), but even on a free one I have moved the odd one off purchase. It can stop you digging money out of savings whilst still getting the cashback.
Soon Plutus is to get a lot less generous too, so it looks like GBIT will be fairly redundant to me.
As for general use, I have used it to give Plutus and Triodos payment functionality. It’s also good for topping up Revolut where it doesn’t work with the underlying card directly for whatever reason.
Thanks @anon22494410 that makes sense, I can see how I might make a few quid moving stuff, although I wouldn’t benefit enough personally for it to be worth taking a paid tier.
In earlier times, for me, it was to provide instant notification of a transaction, and for mobile phone payments when not supported by the bank / credit card (and I liked the security features of the card being non-embossed, and with the details on the back). However, in pretty much all cases now, these are available natively, so it’s now generally limited to transactions whilst abroad.
Whilst they aren’t for me (I don’t believe), I’m aware that changes are going on, and will definitely review my strategy before going abroad. I’ve got a few other options for fee-free foreign transactions, so should be fine.
Not if you tell Curve the card is in EUR or whatever so Curve doesn’t convert the currency. I’ve been doing this for a while to avoid their 0.5% weekend charge.
For me the use was to have only to carry one card but with Gpay that’s not that relevant these days. Gbit is something that I use, usually, a few times a month. The cashback was something that made everything else, notably the insurance, effectively free.
I am one of those who go the curve card when there was just one plan. It used to be called black legacy I think. I never changed, upgraded or downgraded. I checked a few days ago and now it shows the black legacy is not the original plan it is something else and I have no idea what I get from Curve. Still shows I am on Black plan though.
Anyone else on original Curve plan from the time when they launched?
I haven’t used it in )more) months - all of the good bits are chargeable now and I have no intention of paying for them. I guess I will just let the card expire and that will be that.
I was reading (and weeping) more recent reviews of working there from staff who posted on Glassdoor (see message 86 above), and the whole thing sounds like working according to the ravings of a madman - makes Bunq’s Ali Niknam seem positively stable. The CEO at Curve has the attention span of a flea, apparently, and junks things on a whim.
As stated above, one of the workers there stated “Product is a complete failure, there has been no successful innovation in years. - All projects being worked on in the past years have completely failed due to poor management. - The existing product unreliable and is scattered with thousands of bugs”
I got one of the Curve wearables - watch strap and really like it as I don’t need my phone or whatever I can just pay with my watch strap. The problem is that my payments started to get declined and when I contacted Curve they told me that it is some kind of protection (Strong Customer Authentication (SCA)) and I need to use pin&chip for contactless transactions over £100 or for any transaction after I reach £300 spend with contactless. That is such a stupid rule which means that I need to have my card with me all the time - makes my wearable completely pointless…Does anyone know if there is any way to bypass that restriction? I have used Google Pay on my phone for years and it has never asked me to use my physical card to pay…I just want the same thing to happen with the watch strap…
When you use Google Pay, your device actively secures your account by locking itself, or insisting that you provide biometrics in order to complete the payment.
A watch strap or other ‘wearable’ cannot do the same, and so it needs a limit like a normal contactless card will have.
I was wondering about that. So the rings, bracelets etc. are just a card in a different shape but with the disadvantage that you can’t reset the ‘no PIN’ limit.
You could think of them like that, yep. Bit gimmicky.
10 years ago Barclaycard let you order a little contactless sticker so you could pretend the NFC functionality in your Blackberry did something useful. They were similarly limited.
Then there was bPay which I think worked a little like Curve.
Yeah, I think a few banks put out stickers like that for a while.
What you need is a ring/bracelet with a fingerprint scanner to cover the SCA aspect. Can’t be that far off given that some fingerprint scanners would fit on a ring, though I suppose you might need a small battery to power it too.
There was no such restriction with bPay but it didn’t use card as Curve does now. It was kind of prepayment card that you had to top up. There was an auto top-up which was really convenient as it would top-up when you reach certain amount. I think that might be reason it was not covered by these rules. So sad Barclays got rid of bPay. But still Curve is the best alternative I’ve found for quite a few years