American Express Membership Rewards - HK AMEX General Details + Questions

Hi all,

Just been talking to a front line employee of AMEX HK for the last couple of days about AMEX cards in HK. Thought I would post the information up.

1. Platinum Charge Card
Currently in Hong Kong it is by invitation only and there are no set requirements. However the person on the phone basically said u are looking at approximately HKD 1 million annual income in order to qualify; or if you can prove substantial assets. Annual fee is HKD 5500.
Advised by the person on the phone that another way to get the Plat Charge Card is to first get the Plat Credit Card (income requirement of $350k a year) and then call after 6 months and see if they will upgrade for you. Not too sure about this route tho...

2. Charge and Credit cards are different LOCs.
It appears that Charge Card and Credit Cards are different lines of credit. I was advised that currently in HK you can not hold more than one charge card. You can hold one Charge and one Credit but not two Charge. Does any HK holders have this issue?
Currently have a green card and wanted to upgrade to gold card as my spending was in the region of HKD 30K a month (Sorry if it sounds a bit materialistic but I think the Gold looks better than the Green). However was told that I can not even apply for another Gold Charge Card as i could not hold both a Green and a Gold. Asked what about if I cancelled my Green and then apply for a Gold and they said thats possible but account details will probably be lost and I would lose my Charter Membership status which currently benefits are better than a standard gold.
(FYI charter membership is acquired in HK when one spends more than HKD80K in a rolling year).

If i am correct i think the above means that as I have a green charge card then my account is stuck at green level and if i wanted to upgrade to gold then i would have to reset my account. This sounds a bit backwards to me but does anyone have any ideas?

p.s. some might think why i didn't apply for a gold charge card in the first place. reason is that at the time of application there were some tax issues regarding proof of income.... ;)

called up the general hotline and asked another person and it appears that I would have to cancel my green card and then a new gold card would be sent to me. Account details as such do not get lost but I will lose my charter membership.

Is this also the case with other cardholders in other countries?

It seems like if you have a Charter Member Green Charge Card then there is no point in upgrading to Gold Card as you would loose your Charter Membership for a year (one benefit of charter is a free supplementary card).

A side question, do any members here hold amex accounts in two different countries? I was thinking of getting a UK charge card as well for my spending in UK so that I don't get raped by 2% currency charges from amex when i use my HK card in UK.

Many thanks in advance and thanks for all the information supplied by all the members here!^

If you are really spending $30k per month I'm surprised they haven't already offered to upgrade you.

A side question, do any members here hold amex accounts in two different countries? I was thinking of getting a UK charge card as well for my spending in UK so that I don't get raped by 2% currency charges from amex when i use my HK card in UK.

1- AFAIK, you don't qualify for a UK card unless your billing address is in UK.

2- unfortunatley, International Currency Cards are available in Euro or US Dollar, but not in UK Pounds .