Using Curve card with Mastercard creditcards - what gets counted as a cash advance?

I've got a Curve card linked to my IHG mastercard. From what I gather, some transactions might get flagged as a cash advance so IHG will charge me a fee. I've been thinking about using the Curve to pay off a chunk of my student loan or to pay off the balance on another credit card. Would either of these be likely to count as a cash advance?

 

I can't say for sure about student loan, but imagine it would be ok (maybe worth doing a small test first?).

Re paying off another credit card, I've been using it (linked to my Hilton Barclaycard) to pay off my Amex and IHG MasterCard (Creation) cards for ages without any issues. Other card issuers might process things differently though, so again I'd recommend a small test first just to make sure.

Getting double points on everything is great!

 

Joe you are braver than I am. This bit made me nervous so I have not tried. For your Amex how does it work ? Assume you make a manual payment via Curve; does that just reduce the amount they take by DD, if any ?

Paying off your Credit Card with Curve
Curve does not allow you to pay off your credit card bills with an underlying credit card selected in the Curve app. However, you will be able to use the Curve card, with an underlying debit card selected, to pay off your credit card bills. You need to always be in compliance with the terms of service of the credit card whose bill you are paying off as well as the terms of service of the underlying card used to make the payment. Curve retains the right to disallow you from the use of your Curve card and services, and such behaviour may result in your Curve account being blocked or cancelled.

 

Just found my own answer on the amex site
You are enrolled in Direct Debit to collect the total balance each month. The amount collected will be adjusted to reflect any payments received up to 4 days before your collection day.

Just made a test payment of £50 to Amex, via Curve linked to my IHG Premium card.

 

Yeah, the terms were introduced at a later date I think, but it's still continued to work fine in practice. If Curve cancelled my account, it really wouldn't be the end of the world.

I always pay my balance in full manually a week or so before the due date (with direct debit from my normal bank account set up as a back up in case I forget!).

 

Thanks for the replies!

 

Looks like the Creation IHG Premium card will not allow me to pay my Amex BA Premium bill via Curve. Just tried and it was declined; a quick check with the excellent Curve support by email confirms it's down to the MCC codes used.
Strange as I managed a small test manual payment to my Amex Gold card 2 weeks ago.

 

Cheers for the data point. Paying Amex with Barclaycard (Hilton) still works - or it did a few days ago anyway. Not sure if that helps you at all though!

 

Follow up info, having just tried to pay the full balance on my Amex gold, which is just over £400. Got a decline from Curve saying I had exceeded my limits. But then made a payment of £50 and it went through.

 

Does anyone have any experience using the Curve linked Virgin Atlantic Mastercard? I have always been a bit wary, I have used it multiple times to get cash out (only from cash machines linked to supermarkets and have had no extra fees).

 

This is interesting. I regularly use my Curve linked to IHG to pay off my BA Premium Plus card (in fact, just did this yesterday!). The trick is to do it in bits, less than or just a bit higher than £200 each time (I vary the amounts) and I also leave 24 hours in between payments because for some odd reason, it would fail otherwise.

 

Thanks for the info. I've not tried my BA Amex since, but will now do so.
I have been doing the £200 payment for my Amex Gold card, and most times that works, but some days it doesn't. I've tried each day, but not actually checked to see if I have left it a full 24 hours.

 

I think any MCC starting with 6XXX will be a cash advance but there's no easy way to check. I'm testing a few 6XXX MCCs to see what I can find out. Anyone willing to share info/work on this task please let me know.

I've also seen people paying off Amex with Curve>Virgin Atlantic Credit even though this is banned. Anyone had issues trying this?

 

Virgin have told me some 6XXX payment won't be cash advances and they aren't showing as so on my statement. Can anyone else verify that this is correct? If so, it could be massive...

 

Hi Cinerus,

Sorry - what are 6XXX MCCs ? Certainly sounds interesting!

 

MCCs starting with 6. e.g. 6012.

 

Have any others had experience paying of CCs with another CC via Curve? I've read about people paying off Amex but don't really see the point (I guess you can get double points but that's about it).

It does seem that you could technically pay off a CC with the same CC itself if you wanted.

 

Cheers - why does that matter though? Apologies for being a bit slow on this one!

 

I'm not sure about paying a card with the same card (I doubt it would work), but I do know people who have successfully shuffled payments in a triangle, meaning they are never charged interest and earn points on all 3 cards.

 

Just because they are the ones typically flagged as cash advance.