JackDaniels

I too am thinking about the global transfer for a couple year stint in Singapore coming up in 2011. The requirements are rather lax (local #, Foreign Identification Number, local address) but for the Platinum the perks seem quite nice. The lady I spoke with on the phone about it said I will be able to keep my US charge card and if there is any additional fee for the SG card then it will be prorated on my statement. I'll post here once the transition has occurred.

Vasco

Didn't work so well for me going the other way. I just moved from Canada to Argentina, and Amex in Argentina pretty much laughed at me at the suggestion of a Global Transfer.

optcsa

Call this local Argentine #: 0810 555 2639. 9AM – 5PM, Monday to Friday. That's the office that handles Global Transfers to Argentina. Hope it works out for you.

SteveT

Someone mention that each country is different and they may have additional requirements for transferring a card, including surrendering your card for the new card.

MoreMiles!

I've had accounts with AMEX in the US since '91. I used global transfer twice in Europe and a few years ago in Canada. In all cases I got a local card within 2-3 weeks with very few questions asked.

BTW, in Canada I was also asked to mail in a $1 check (they claimed it was required to link my local bank account to the Canadian card) - but was credited the $1 on the first statement. The whole process took less than 2 weeks.

Vasco

Oh, I did. I went through the whole process back when I arrived months ago. I am fluent in Spanish, so there was no problems in communication. They would not do it because I am not paid locally. I have legal residence, a CUIT, and my employer has opened up local bank accounts for me in my name in both pesos and US dollars, but Amex Argentina said no.

No matter. I applied for an IDC Platinum card from the UK instead, and my Argentine bank issued me an Amex-network platinum credit card to use locally.

Kate_Canuck

I had a lot of difficulty getting the credit cards I wanted when I first moved to the U.S. That was a novel experience for me. I'd never had trouble in Canada (home country - 15 years), the UK (one year sabbatical) or France (easily got a Gold Amex within a month of arrival). In the US, all it seemed I could get was a credit card from my bank with an ok limit - nothing else, EXCEPT an Amex via the Global Transfer program.

My memory of the Global Transfer process is a bit hazy, but I think there was an initial call of about 10 minutes, they did some follow-up queries, and I got the card in about 10 days.

NickW

Good luck getting a Centurion account opened that way; or an account at all in countries like the US or Japan if you have no credit history.

ZortNarf

(I presume this is intended as a "post-your-experience-here" thread; if not, my apologies for necro-posting.)

I've recently moved from Canada to the US. In Canada I have an Aeroplan Platinum card, and I wanted a Gold Premier Rewards in the US. Since I have some US credit history and a 730 score, I applied for the Gold card directly. To my surprise, I was turned down (probably because my US credit has been dormant while I lived in Canada over the past five years).

I then called the Global Transfer services and applied through them. It went pretty smoothly, with one exception: they needed my bank to verify my address, and Bank of America doesn't do that over the phone, so they thought they'd have to wait a couple of weeks for a mail confirmation. But then the agent remembered that there may be another way (didn't explain how exactly) and by the end of the day I was approved. They overnighted the card to me and I had it in my hands the next business day.

When I went to register it online, though, I encountered some weirdness. Apparently, American and Canadian cards cannot be linked to the same online ID. After calling their customer service, I had to create a second online ID for the Gold card, even though the AmEx sites in both countries accept both of my IDs (and show the associated card for each).

My Gold card says "member since 2008," which is when I got the Aeroplan Platinum one. But the website actually says "member since 1993" when I log in. That's probably because I had a green card back then for a couple of years.

I don't think I'm going to get the advertised incentives (I think it was 25K reward points for signing up plus another 15K for spending a certain amount in the first three months, but I could be misremembering the application pamphlet). So far my rewards-points balance is zero.

NickW

Tell me about it -- at one point I had three separate Amex logins -- one for my UK personal cards, one for my UK corporate card and one for my Japanese card.

mtkeller

Favorite "feature" I've come across when logging in to the UK site with my US credentials. My DL SkyMiles Gold AmEx limit goes from $x,xxx to £x,xxx. It'd be nice if that would happen in the real world (without the balance's currency also changing!).

stimpy

I still have 3 logins for 4 cards. One in America, two in Europe. It would be nice to have them all grouped. It would be even nicer to have an iPhone app for all of them. Or even just an iphone app that worked for my US cards.

tcl

Back in late-2009, my SO had an imminent job transfer to China so as he finalized the details over here, I went over to Hong Kong to start the ball rolling for myself for when we would actually move to the Mainland. I got a HK-based job that had the option of part-time travel to China where my SO would be, a HK ID, a HK bank account, a HK apartment and all I had to do was fill out a 1-page form and attach a letter of employment, proof of HK-based account and proof of address.

However, Amex in HK didn't like that I chose to keep my US card and kept on calling me and telling me that I checked/didn't check the "Cancel US-card" box. After several phone calls over a period of a few weeks, the application apparently timed-out and I had to fill out a new form and get a new letter issued by my employer and a new proof of address & proof of account issued by the bank. This repeated itself again

The main problem with HK-Amex is that they do not allow you to call and check on the status of your application for transfer. The rep takes your file# and tells you that the "appropriate person" will call you back, which is always when you are either 1) in a very important meeting 2) getting on a flight 3) actually in transit. So after playing phone tag for another few weeks, the application timed-out again and I was told to reapply.

At that point, my SO's company wasn't sure how long the transfer would be for or for that matter where exactly they wanted him. He had to travel a lot in the SE Asia region as well as in Mainland China and so we decided that I would look for work in HK and get the HK-Amex which also had a Chinese Yuan Amex feature.

It is now over a year later and still no HK Amex because they just can't get their heads wrapped around the fact that we still want to keep our US Amex and the need to for them to be the ones to call us at their convenience. We have successfully applied for and received platinum visa cards from the Bank of China in both HK and the Mainland which are much more widely accepted and have better perks anyways.

Just in case anyone wants to go through this ordeal, HK-Amex will only allow same level transfers or below. i.e. US-Gold to HK-Gold or US-Gold to HK-Green. If you'd like a platinum in HK, then it's better to accept the platinum invite in the US, do the transfer and then down grade the US-card while keeping platinum in HK, rather than applying directly for HK Amex-Platinum.

diesellife

My Global Transfer experience with the HK Amex office was effortless and everything was finalized within 2 weeks of application.

Catching their phone call is never easy, especially with the time-zone difference. The trick is to call them & ask for the CSR's email address and use email as the primary contact method.

PS: I retained my original card as well.

ajnz

I've just done my third Global Card Transfer. NZ->AU, AU->SG, AU/SG->US.

It has been painless but has taken much longer than I had expected.

Basic process:

1. Call the US GCT number. Give them my Australian Platinum card account number (I had kept it open while living in SG). They were able to verify a bunch of things on the spot, but apparently my SSN was too new and they needed a letter from the SSA Office saying it really was mine. I was given a choice of any of the US card products (except Centurion).
2. Letter arrives with their request for SSN validation.
3. I go to SSA Office, get a printout, mail it to them.
4. Two weeks later, I get a call saying it's all done and the card will arrive in 48 hours.
5. Card arrives 48 hours later.

Total time from application to receiving card was about 21 days.