What a bodge job, topping up then spending, plus a 0.65% fee.
Why would I bother?
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Hi,
I’m a Curve Black user on the Amex Beta. If anyone has any questions on how things work/look/behave, I’ll do my best to explain.
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More interested in your opinion! 
Is this worth waiting for?
For my use case, I’m happy with the ‘Top-up’ method.
Basically, I have the Curve Black card, which I got for free as a promotion (usually £50, and it’s 100% not worth that price right now). I’m an Amex Cashback everyday card user, which I got just before the beta (I was holding off because I mainly used my curve card).
The top up is limited to £1000 a month (30 day rolling, not calendar month), and I’ve just hit it. If I were to top up anymore I’d be charged the 0.65%, so I’m not going to do that as I’ll just use the AMEX card itself if I need to.
The biggest annoyance for me is that it doesn’t pass through transaction details like it does for every other card. So there is a promotion starting 1st December, which gives you £5 back on a £10+ spend at select places. In this case, I will just have to use the Amex card. Little annoying but I’m okay with that.
The main thing people are complaining about is the Curve Blue users always having to pay 0.65%, which if I was a Curve Blue user would put me off 100%. And also not being able to withdraw cash from the Amex Wallet in curve, but again for me that’s fine due to having a Tandem card which through Curve is no fees cash withdrawal.
TLDR; For my use case I’m happy despite the many issues/downfalls etc. Don’t join Curve for it, don’t pay for Curve Black, don’t use it on Curve Blue. But if, like me, you’re happy with the shortcomings then it’s really nice having all your cards in one physical card (which might soon support Apple Pay).
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Not passing through the transaction details sounds like the biggest annoyance to me.
I thought the whole point of Curve passing through the MCC was so that you could get points/rewards/offers on your underlying cards, which would be very convenient with Amex.
Given recent history, I’m not too surprised cash is off limits.
Are you getting cashback on the topups?
I know Amex is accepted more and more, but it’s still sooo annoying the number of times it gets rejected (online, in shops, even at railway stations…). I can see myself topping up small amounts as a very convenient way to get around the limited acceptance.
In hindsight, very glad I blagged a Black card though!
I am getting cash back on the total of the top-ups (£100 at a time), still 5% as it’s my first 3 months!
I really like how I don’t have to worry about Amex acceptance, that and the convince of carry only the one card make this worth it to me.
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Curve’s growth remains impressive. Bialick says the company has been growing its user base by around 40% each month with a group of 100,000 cardholders now spending £1,500 per month on average.
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I’m just waiting on my curve card coming in the post. Can I check, they don’t charge any fees for transactions using cards that aren’t Amex do they?
What’s there to whatch out for? They use the interbank rate with no fees except for weekends
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Is the top up just because its currently in testing though? Or will I constantly have to top up to curve?
They’re getting around Amex’s policies through a top-up system. There are auto-top up features available to ensure you don’t have to manually maintain a balance. But there is no plan to remove the wallet top ups.
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Ah right okay, thanks for the reply. I have just read lots about it and have seen that there is a fee for Blue Card members… I have been using curve since the beta but have just had to request a new card… I noticed that the card on the app 
is black does this mean that I have maybe automatically been upgraded to black or is it just an error?
Ah okay thanks… got a little bit excited there for a second! Not sure if its worth the £50 to upgrade so I can use Amex without fees up to £1000 hmmm…
I have Curve Black, and will say it’s definitely not worth £50. The majority of it pays for the wallet they send with, which I’m not using either.
Wait for them to release the Metal subscription setup. Mainly because they’re adding benefits to the Black card along with all the benefits of Metal. So worth waiting and seeing. Use the blue card to test Curve itself and see how it works etc.
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Thanks for your help 
I have had curve for about a year now but never really used it. Only if I get caught short when I’m out I will put a payment on there to go to my credit card.
The introduction of Amex really excited me until I found out there is going to be fees.
I feel like they may make metal like revolut and have it on a subscription basis which I don’t want. Will have to see.
I can confirm 100% the metal card will be a subscription. I’m hearing both monthly and yearly, but there are a long list of benefits that come with it which might be more helpful for some. For me personally, the metal doesn’t seem worth it as to pay for something like this monthly it has to be something I will use often. The current list is:
- 1% cashback (currently even the black card runs out after 3 months) - no current word on number of retailers etc.
- Unlimited fee-free Amex popups (Blue is 0.65% for every top-up and Black is free up to £1000 a month)
- ‘Unlimited access to the intra-bank rate’ (this hasn’t been clarified, and worries me as I thought this was a standard feature of Curve regardless of level)
- Gadget insurance (no details yet)
- Worldwide travel insurance (no details yet)
- Collision damage waiver insurance (no clue what this means)
- And of course the metal card in a variety of colours (I’m hoping they add a Black metal one):
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Oh wow thanks a lot for all the info you’ve been a great help! Lastly, don’t suppose you know the aimed date of these cards do you?
Nothing specific other than ‘We will kick-off 2019 by releasing Curve Metal’. To me that means January, otherwise they would have said early 2019?
Might be wishful thinking though!
This is what their roadmap shows. Amex is currently in closed beta, so making progress…
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Thanks so much you’ve been a really good help!
No problem, happy to help for any Curve questions
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