I have written before about which credit cards I use in different circumstances. It is no surprise that those who collect miles and points are also pretty up to date with various financial products, as they tend to be a very lucrative way of earning points.

As I have said, www.headforpoints.com is a great resource for information on this front, and today’s post on the new Curve card is no exception.

As I understand it, it works in a very similar way to the Supercard, which I am a big fan of. The evening, I used my Supercard to pay for dinner. The local cost was €210.50 which xe.com tells me is £163.10; I was charged just £2.04 more to my linked IHG Black Barclaycard. Had I just paid with the credit card, I would have paid a 2.99% foreign exchange fee which, in this case would have been an additional £4.88 on the xe.com rate. I have therefore saved £2.84. Obviously this is not ground-breaking, but if I had been paying a large hotel bill, or buying something abroad then the savings will add up.

There are two main differences for me with the Curve card that will dictate how I use it. It is not fee-free for foreign exchange, so I will stick with my Supercard linked to the IHG Black Barclaycard when abroad. It does, unlike Supercard, accept American Express and does not charge for cash withdrawals. Therefore, I will be able to use it where AmEx is not accepted and when I need to take money out of an ATM. In both cases, it should appear on my AmEx statement as a purchase, regardless of what I have used the Curve card for. These will attract 1.5 Avios / £ spent. It costs £35 for the basic and £75 for the premium card which is a one-off fee.

I have signed up and will report back when I have used the card and can comment on the relative merits of it and whether it is worth applying. If you are interested in signing up, I would recommend reading the in-depth analysis Raffles at Headforpoints has done, and using his sign-up link too!