Hong Kong and Macau - ATM issues in Hong Kong

I was recently in Hong Kong, and had several ATM issues that really surprised me. I typically charge hotel and large purchases to a credit card, and just withdraw local currency from an ATM upon arrival for spending money. This has worked fine for several years just about everywhere I go, but two things happened in Hong Kong:

1. Many of the ATMs had rather low withdrawal limits. Some enforced even lower limits on foreign cards than the limit posted on the machine. For example, several machines seemed to have a limit of HK$3000 per withdrawal, which wouldn't even let me get my account's daily limit of US$500.

2. I could not find a single machine that would accept an American Express card. I probably tried upward of 10 machines at many different banks, including Bank of China, HSBC, and Citibank. This really surprised me, as my previous experience is that my Amex card works in virtually every machine I've tried it in, with the exception of machines in Japan that don't take any foreign card. But in this case, these machines in Hong Kong all took int'l cards, just not Amex. The only place I was able to use it was in the machines on the casino floor in Macau.

My expectation would have been that Hong Kong would have among the easiest and hassle-free int'l ATM experiences, but I found the opposite to be true.

I am curious - is your AMEX a charge card from AMEX? a credit card with AMEX logo but issued by other banks ? or a debit card issued by the AMEX Bank?

Wouldn't it incur finance charge if the AMEX is a charge card, that your ATM withdrawal would be treated as Cash Advance? If so, would it be due to the transaction is declined by AMEX on the other end? I am just guessing.

Or may be HK's ATM network simply does not talk to AMEX network when it comes to banking transaction.

Nobody in his right mind would use a charge card or a credit card to withdraw money from ATM because it is a Cash Advance that incur both the one-time cash advance fee as well as interest from the minute the transaction is processed.

Using a debit card (even though it has the logo of VISA or Mastercard) would not involve any finance charge as the money is directly coming out from your bank account. The only possible charge would be the ATM fee that many banks charge when not using the bank's own network.

Personally I have not seen any bank other than the AMEX Bank itself, has a debit card with AMEX logo.

I am curious - is your AMEX a charge card from AMEX? a credit card with AMEX logo but issued by other banks ? or a debit card issued by the AMEX Bank?

An Amex charge card issued directly by Amex in the US.

Wouldn't it incur finance charge if the AMEX is a charge card, that your ATM withdrawal would be treated as Cash Advance?

No, it wouldn't.

Or may be HK's ATM network simply does not talk to AMEX network when it comes to banking transaction.

That appears to be the case, which really surprises me and is the reason for my post. I could somewhat understand this being the case for some local banks, but for HSBC and Citibank?

Nobody in his right mind would use a charge card or a credit card to withdraw money from ATM because it is a Cash Advance that incur both the one-time cash advance fee as well as interest from the minute the transaction is processed.

You are mistaken about the situation, at least for US-based charge cards. Rather than a cash advance, they participate in the Express Cash program. You link your card to your checking account (any checking account at any US bank), and cash withdrawals are turned into ACH withdrawals from your checking account. The transactions have nothing to do with the credit line that Amex extends to you as part of the charge card for purchases.

Since your checking account bank sees them as ACH and not ATM transactions, they charge no network ATM fee. Platinum and Centurion cards extend the "no foreign transaction charge" benefit to cash withdrawals and charge only the regular 1% Express Cash fee, so this is actually among the cheapest ways to get cash while overseas. And, there's an additional benefit of transactions being subject to a separate set of limits. Since your bank sees them as ACH transactions, they are outside the scope of their daily ATM limits, so you only have to worry about Amex's limit. For Centurion, the only limit is $10,000 per rolling 14-day period.

Using a debit card (even though it has the logo of VISA or Mastercard) would not involve any finance charge as the money is directly coming out from your bank account. The only possible charge would be the ATM fee that many banks charge when not using the bank's own network.

... which may include a percentage-based fee for non-USD withdrawals.

... which may include a percentage-based fee for non-USD withdrawals.

Did not know the AMEX Charge cards have the ACH feature. We hardly use the AMEX PRG which is a benefit from Fido years ago. Despite Fido no longer offers it to new account (it seems to severe its tie with AMEX and goes with FIA/BofA), Fido continues to offer the card gratis. Actually the renewal ones are lying on my desk for weeks - I have not activated them yet.

Not necessarily about the fee on debit cards. We have never paid more than 0.03% on such transaction - far less than your 1% standard.

My debit cards from both Fidelity and Schwab brokerage house do NOT incur any fee, despite they both claim a 1% Visa network fee is included. In all reality of countless withdrawals all over the world, the exchange rates used, were within 0.01 to 0.03% of the historical Intra-bank daily mean rate I found on XE or similar sites. Extremely competitive rate, no fee. In the very rare occasions that the ATM imposes a withdrawal fee, both outfits reimburse the fee - Fido is immediately after withdrawal, Schwab does it on end of month basis.

Fido uses a bunch of banks, our account is assigned Fifththird.

Schwab uses its own banking arm.

The difference is Fido has a very low daily limit, like USD500? The limit is set by the bank, regardless of your assets in Fido. One can request to change bank than the randomly assigned one, if the daily limit is not working to meet one's travel need.

However Schwab's is USD5000! It can be raised on request the rep told me.

The only time we feel we would like to have a larger withdrawal limit was we rented an apartment in Barcelona for a week and the property owner required cash payment. That was easily resolved by making 2 withdrawals on consecutive days.

Another alternative is Capital One's debit cards. Absolutely zero fee. The daily withdrawal amount correspondent to your daily external transfer amount which varies by account type. Our checking is $10K, saving is $250K (a ridiculous amount). Though they are also subject to a monthly limit - checking is $25K (not much higher than the daily limit), saving is $1,000K. (I wish I have that much money in our saving account. :D)

Typical ATM withdrawal limit in Hong Kong is HK$4,000 for each transaction. This is not enough for me as well. However, they do not charge local ATM fee like Thailand or many U.S. banks does.

In Japan, every international cards including Amex are accepted at 7-eleven or JP Bank (post office). Virtually none of the other ATMs, though.
http://www.sevenbank.co.jp/intlcard/index2.html
http://www.jp-bank.japanpost.jp/en/ias/en_ias_index.html