The HfP chat thread – Tuesday 9th March

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• FFoxSake says:

  9 Mar9 March 07:12

  Data point: 4k declined at Ernie on Saturday, still charged at Bendy and underlying Solihull. Credit now showing at Solihull but still shows as spend in Bendy.
  Looking at list of transactions in Bendy I notice the declined item has “Ns I” at start of description whereas earlier accepted deposits all have “Nsi” at start. Maybe some bad programming in the new processing flow at Bendy is not handling embedded ampersand in the name correctly. Could affect other special characters too.

  • Anna says:

    9 Mar9 March 07:40

    Do we know for definite which end is doing the declining?

    • Jimbob says:

      9 Mar9 March 08:11

      Curve have claimed it’s the merchant for the 2 declines I’ve enquired about, but nearly everything online is being declined atm, so I suspect it’s a Curve problem.
      This is for a personal Metal card

    • Track says:

      9 Mar9 March 10:53

      The merchant did declining, but probably because details were not passed to them in the expected data format.

      HMRC declined Curve Metal yesterday. But with Barclaycard processing HMRC transactions — they are not favouring Bendy. They know exactly the bin and rejecting Bendy for payments into Barclaycard itself.

      • Roy says:

        9 Mar9 March 16:48

        Yup, seems that the merchant is issuing an “authorise” transaction, which succeeds (resulting in a pending transaction on the card) but then doesn’t like the response and aborts the transaction.

        Typically a merchant would automatically abort the transaction due to fraud risk if the issuer (Curve in this case) sent a response to the authorise saying that the CVV or postcode didn’t match. Could also happen due to some other proprietary fraud risk scoring, I guess.

  • James. says:

    9 Mar9 March 08:12

    First time this morning Curve transactions to Ernie was declined. Free Commercial Blue card. Email received states speak to card issuer. Transaction appears in Bendy. Not yet on IHG as takes 3 days to show anything in the app.

    • mark2 says:

      9 Mar9 March 08:38

      If it is pending it will have changed the amount available to spend.

  • Paul465 says:

    9 Mar9 March 09:15

    Just had my Curve card decline in B&q, definitely not an issue with the underlying card as I had to pay with that. There is something happening at Curve for all these declines but their CS aren’t being any help at all.

    • Allan says:

      9 Mar9 March 09:25

      Adds weight to the theory that the ampersand could be an issue

    • Ghosty says:

      9 Mar9 March 12:33

      I had my Curve (IHG) accepted in B&Q this morning,
      Seems very random

      Tried to use my one4all gift card but said they don’t take them anymore, despite saying it does on one4all website.

  • fivebobbill says:

    9 Mar9 March 09:25

    Curve Metal personal card, made an Amex payment last night but received a “payment cannot be taken at this time, please try again later” message. However whilst payment wasn’t taken at Amex, it WAS debited at Curve end. Amex CS have no record of any payment and suggest I leave it a few days to see how it all settles…

    • C says:

      9 Mar9 March 09:51

      Had three of these yesterday for a standard online purchase. Showing as 3x pending in the underlying card account, 3x accepted on Curve app, but merchant declined all three.

  • kitten says:

    9 Mar9 March 14:19

    That shows they’ve created a new payee record with different coding

• Ant says:

  9 Mar9 March 07:28

  Morning has anyone successfully switched their Starling account to Barclays Avios rewards acc?

  • Harry T says:

    9 Mar9 March 07:47

    I have not but I’ve switched Starling to another bank account without issues, in the past. They do take part in the switching service (?CAS).

  • Red Flyer says:

    9 Mar9 March 13:35

    Barclays declined mine – I joined Barclays and Starling on same day 2 weeks ago but strangely Barclays say I can try again if I want to?!

• Anna says:

  9 Mar9 March 08:05

  A caller put the question of whether children will be able to travel without being vaccinated to Boris during the briefing yesterday. He didn’t provide any kind of proper answer, just repeated that vaccine passports are being looked at. Very unhelpful given that obviously you can only have a vaccine passport if you’ve actually been vaccinated!

  • George1976 says:

    9 Mar9 March 08:14

    I’m not sure how he can know what other countries will have as entry requirements?

    • George1976 says:

      9 Mar9 March 08:23

      Cyprus, for example have said they’ll let vaccinated tourists in from May. However, they’ve also said the non vaccinated will be allowed in with negative test results.

      • Anna says:

        9 Mar9 March 09:12

        So does that mean – vaccinated adults – don’t need a test
        unvaccinated children travelling with vaccinated adults – neg test will suffice and no need for anyone to quarantine?

        • Callum says:

          9 Mar9 March 09:38

          Vaccinated adults don’t need a test but may be spot tested on arrival. They won’t need to quarantine (unless the test is positive presumably).

          They haven’t said what unvaccinated children have to do. They had exceptions from the testing regime for under 12s last year I believe, I imagine they’ll allow in children accompanying vaccinated adults (possibly with a test) but you’ll need to wait and see.

        • Sandra says:

          9 Mar9 March 12:15

          Unless someone takes overall charge of co-ordinating worldwide requirements (WHO perhaps?) I don’t think there’s much point in getting concerned about any of it at the moment because the answer is no one knows what an individual country will demand. I suspect the EU will try to impose a EU wide policy, maybe with reciprocal agreements made, but unless there is some sort of co-ordination individual countries will make up their own policy in which case the onus will be on travellers to check requirements before they fly – a bit like checking if you need a visa to enter a country. Until the pandemic subsides and vast numbers of their own population are vaccinated I don’t think it will be a priority for anyone as many countries won’t want you to travel there anyway regardless of how well vaccination in the UUK has gone.

  • Harry T says:

    9 Mar9 March 09:02

    I’m grateful when Boris doesn’t voice an opinion, as he is usually wrong or misleading.

    But anyway, it will be up to other countries whether they accept unvaccinated kids, so Bozza is rightly clueless regarding this.

    • Anna says:

      9 Mar9 March 09:05

      I wasn’t really expecting him to know but he usually refers these things on to someone who does.

      • George1976 says:

        9 Mar9 March 13:13

        Who would he refer it to though? No one else knows either.

  • marcw says:

    9 Mar9 March 09:11

    Considering that no vaccine has been approved for <18 y/o, I'd rather think that a vaccine passport for <18 is pointless – coz there's no vaccine. This should change at some point in the future though.
    All these vaccine passport entry requirements is a bit mess, and it will change from country to country. Cyprus happy to take you in as long as you have had both shots. Thailand, on the other hand, is happy to reduce your quarantine to only 7 days if you've had your vaccine dosis based on the manufacturer schedule.

    • Anna says:

      9 Mar9 March 09:13

      Exactly – the question wasn’t even about vaccine passports!

    • TGLoyalty says:

      9 Mar9 March 09:32

      In the past 3 months otherwise its 10 days both require a negative pre departure test

      Talk about a pointless relaxation

      • Callum says:

        9 Mar9 March 09:43

        Given a large proportion of the UK population would have received the full vaccine course by May, it’s hardly pointless. The Thailand version won’t attract many, but I’m sure the tourism industry would be happy for any additional business they can get.

        I don’t know about Thailand, but Cyprus will not require a pre departure test.

        • TGLoyalty says:

          9 Mar9 March 10:29

          A large % of the population won’t have received 2 doses + 7 days by May 1st. It’ll be about 10-15m out of 67m citizens.

          But a test (I don’t know which test) isn’t a big deal.

    • Roy says:

      9 Mar9 March 16:50

      Approved for 16+ I believe, although currently only being offered to 16- and 17-year-olds if they have underlying health conditions.

      • Roy says:

        9 Mar9 March 20:45

        Ah, actually appears that only Pfizer is currently approved for 16+ (Oxford only for 18+).

        Point stands that 16-17 only currently getting it if they have health conditions, but presumably (subject to having enough Pfizer) they could roll it out to all 16+ once the current vaccine programme is done.

• Alex says:

  9 Mar9 March 08:08

  A £200 MCC6012 transaction was successful just now but an attempt to top up Ernie via our favourite card discussed everywhere here failed.

  • FloriGuy says:

    9 Mar9 March 08:16

    COT an alternative?

• Roberto says:

  9 Mar9 March 08:30

  You can never really judge how many people are doing MS through the same method until it goes wrong, at that point you find out as they all come out of the woodwork looking for why its been stopped etc.
  Curve must be losing shed loads of cash through this type of behaviour.

  • Sandgrounder says:

    9 Mar9 March 08:38

    I think Curve will actually be loving the volumes and securing funding because of it. They could have shut down most routes quickly if they had wanted to. It’s the underlying card issuers who are most likely to be cross.

    • Super Secret Stuff says:

      9 Mar9 March 08:44

      Curve gets paid regardless of the “retailer” or in this case, Banks or tax man. Underlying cards however loose a fair chunk of money if too many people do it

      • The real John says:

        9 Mar9 March 10:13

        I would have thought the underlying card gets paid by Curve.

        It would be Ernie et al who are having to shell out for Curve’s fees while paying you back the full amount later.

        • Super Secret Stuff says:

          9 Mar9 March 11:44

          I believe Curve pays out less than they receive, so are happy for as much money to go through as possible.

          Ernie et al probably do care a bit, but at least it boosts there cash on hand, albeit temporarily. Credit cards loose by paying the points or bonuses and not receiving any other fees.

    • Alex H says:

      9 Mar9 March 08:46

      Yes it seems that Lloyds Credit Card has had enough of me spending through Curve. They have given me 66 days notice that they are closing my account. They say they are not happy with the way the account is being used. I telephoned them for a reason but they can’t tell me over the phone and I have to go into a branch or write to them. I will write as no branches in Scotland.

      • Harrier25 says:

        9 Mar9 March 09:02

        What volumes have you been pumping through via Curve. Surely they are not closing you down just for regular day to day spending?

        • Alex H says:

          9 Mar9 March 09:53

          Totally day to day spending on anywhere that didn’t take Amex. I’ve got the Metal card so did pay Amex bill off monthly and the odd cash withdrawal but nothing overboard

        • Track says:

          9 Mar9 March 11:09

          But for Lloyds all that day-to-day spending comes in as CRV* — one merchant.

          They will have to adjust in the world of payment aggregators but for now exercise their old approach.

      • Jonathan says:

        9 Mar9 March 13:17

        Paying off your Amex will be the red flag. It’s credit cycling & no financial institutions like it. With MCC pass through you can’t hide what you’re doing with Amex.

• Dannyrado says:

  9 Mar9 March 08:46

  Hi, if I cancel my Amex business gold will the points pool to a personal ARCC?

  • Rob says:

    9 Mar9 March 08:53

    Do you already have both cards? If so, ring Amex and merge the MR accounts before cancelling Gold. If you haven’t got ARCC yet, try to register it on the same online Amex account (doesn’t always work) which should send it into the same one from Day 1.

• ZW says:

  9 Mar9 March 09:03

  Sorry for posting this question again. I asked too late on yesterday’s chat. Anyone knows how often does HSBC do transfer bonus to Avios or other miles?

  • Craig says:

    9 Mar9 March 09:10

    Once or twice a year but there hasn’t been anything for about 18 months I think?

• General Mayhem says:

  9 Mar9 March 09:34

  A question about the Avios / Nectar liaison that was launched in a bit of a fanfare a few weeks ago. Just trying to convert some avios to nectar – but it semis can only be done by phone and the number 0344 493 3303 does not actually answer. Do I assume the whole idea is a now a ‘dead parrot’? A shame if it is.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    9 Mar9 March 09:40

    They are introducing 2FA due to a high level of fraud.

  • Rhys says:

    9 Mar9 March 09:41

    They are implementing 2 factor authentication – until then it is telephone only. https://hfp2022.headforpoints.blog/2021/02/01/avios-account-hacked/

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.