Creation cancelling credit cards which have been used with a Curve Card

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Creation Financial Services, issuers of the IHG Rewards and (closed to new customers) Marriott Visa credit cards, made a very aggressive move on Friday in its dispute with Curve Card.

It appears that the majority of credit cards which had been used with a Curve Card are being closed.

One call centre agent said that 1,800 cardholders were impacted. We cannot confirm this number.

Creation closing IHG and Marriott credit cards used by Curve Card holders

The closure letter states that cards are being closed on 3rd December.

Based on reader discussions with the call centre, but not confirmed in writing by Creation:

annual free night vouchers on the IHG Rewards Premium credit card will still be desposited if the cardholder spends £10,000 before their card is closed

there will NOT be a pro-rata refund of the £99 annual fee on the IHG Rewards Premium credit card – although you would be free to dispute this with the Ombudsman

If you cannot trigger your free night voucher by 3rd December but would otherwise, you arguably have a case for a full refund of your IHG Rewards Premium £99 fee for the current year.

Why is Creation banning Curve Card holders?

It isn’t entirely clear what is driving this, although I was told by an independent industry consultant that it was being pushed by National Savings.

Curve Card, for those who don’t have one, is a debit card which allows you to recharge transactions to a linked credit card. You can learn more about Curve Card in this article.

This meant – most specifically – you could deposit money into National Savings and have it charged to a miles or points earning credit card as a purchase. Most Curve Card holders had a £9,000 daily limit albeit capped at £1.8 million per year.

Whilst Curve Card had always had blocks in place for payments to banks, there were certain grey areas such as National Savings, HMRC and various investment firms such as Hargreaves Lansdown.

Creation had initially sent out text message to cardholders a few weeks ago saying that its cards could no longer be used with Curve Card. I was told at that time that mass account closures would follow, and here we are.

One problem is that the ban is catching many people who used Curve Card purely for Apple Pay functionality. It was the only way to add your Creation card to Apple Pay.

For clarity …. the free IHG Rewards credit card is still open to new applicants. Creation is not pulling out of the UK and is only closing these 1,800 (TBC) accounts.

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Category

IHG Rewards

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

ed says:

1 Oct1 October 14:09

If using Curve is going to get your underlying CC cancelled, then I can’t see many using curve going forward.
- Harrier25 says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 16:47
  
  I’ve put the brakes on Curve as of today and will start using my Hilton Barclaycard directly, hoping that my past use of Curve won’t close me down. Losing an IHG earning card is slightly annoying, but I value my Hilton points card so much more!
Gulz says:

1 Oct1 October 14:10

What timing – got an email from Curve yesterday that they were going to charge 1.5% fee on amounts above £10,000 a month for using Curve Fronted on Metal from 1st Dec.
Looks like all good ways of making miles and points are going away in quick succession.
Andrew says:

1 Oct1 October 14:12

Just a little reminder that the most recent terms and conditions to be published on the Creation site for the IHG Card are dated 22/05/2019
- Andrew says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 14:14
  
  Pressed enter too soon… At the bottom of this page.
  
  https://www.creation.co.uk/credit-cards/ihg-rewards-credit-card
  
  Just in case you need the most up to date T&Cs when you are writing your complaint to the ombudsman.
Mark says:

1 Oct1 October 14:13

Can we still use the Virgin card to topup NS&I or is that also stopping now?
- Youllnever says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 17:04
  
  It’s up to you really – risk vs benefits.
Qrfan says:

1 Oct1 October 14:14

All those complaints experts out there – Do I have to contact creation for the fee refund before escalating to FOS or can I go straight to FOS please? Only paid the fee in late August and I’ve never used ns&I or any other MS. Thanks!
- Andrew says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 14:15
  
  Always start the complaint with the company.
- Ryanfozzie says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 14:15
  
  I would suggest Creation first. Let them respond and get to a final response (assuming they do not give you what you want). From there, feel free to escalate to FOS.
- ChrisD says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 14:24
  
  You can use the Resolver service (google resolver) to automatically send the complaint and escalate after the appropriate time, I used them with Creation before, and Creation didn’t respond for 2 months, so it got automatically escalated.
  - Qrfan says:
    
    1 Oct1 October 14:26
    
    Perfect, thanks all.
    - EwanG says:
      
      1 Oct1 October 15:35
      
      Yes. You *must* raise your complaint with the service provider first, and be at deadlock or have given them time to respond otherwise the ombudsman won’t even accept your case.
      Then it will take time for the case to get assigned within the ombudsman. I submitted one 2 weeks ago which is still not picked up, and that’s before they start investigating.
Gulz says:

1 Oct1 October 14:15

Also, funnily enough, I got 2 letters from Creation today – one for telling me they are cancelling my Black card (which hasn’t been used with NS&I is over a year) and the White card (which was never used ever since I made the first few transactions to trigger the bonus nearly 2 years ago)
- Crafty says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 14:22
  
  That’s what the article is about.
Jim says:

1 Oct1 October 14:15

I received my letter today cancelling black. Applied and successful getting a white, done.
- paul says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 14:18
  
  why would you want to give money to such a company after this ?
- EwanG says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 15:38
  
  On the bright side, 10k bonus points for a £200 spend on your new card!
lee says:

1 Oct1 October 14:16

Creation now saying to me if I want my free night I’m not entitled to any refund of my year fee .

I will be challenging this as the free night is an incentive the fee should be refunded if they dont honour my card for the whole 12 months .
- Harrier25 says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 14:23
  
  I’ll be happy with just the free night voucher to be honest. It’s worth a lot more than the £33 pro-rata refund I’d be owed.
- Anna says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 14:59
  
  What complete garbage, where in the Ts and Cs does it say anything about that?
  - Chrisasaurus says:
    
    1 Oct1 October 15:02
    
    Don’t you only get the free night cert after paying the fee?
    - Genghis says:
      
      1 Oct1 October 15:44
      
      The qualifying event is spending £10k in the card year having paid the card fee at the start of the year. Paying for another year is not part of the deal.
      - JDB says:
        
        1 Oct1 October 16:46
        
        @Genghis – The Ombudsman doesn’t agree with this analysis – see DRN2242979 but in any event it sounds as though they may give people the free night? Expecting a pro-rata fee refund and the free night might not work??
      - Genghis says:
        
        2 Oct2 October 13:22
        
        @JDB I can’t seem to find the case but based on what you wrote in later comments, it appears this is to do with the timing of the voucher being at the card anniversary, not that you need to pay for year 2 in order to earn the voucher earned in year 1.