Originally Posted by
NewbieUtah
It is extremely rare for major banks to give card holders cash back over 0.5% in any circumstances, even there is, there's a cap as well as time and regional limit. Actually there's tons of transactions of Chinese credit card give people no cash back or "points" at all, including payment to schools, agriculture related transaction, boats related transaction, hospitals, cables, cigarettes, cars. I'm not sure about the reason. So it does not really affect using this card.
As for Hong Kong, because there are so many tourists from mainland China these days, so most big merchants there nowadays support China Unionpay channels as well. So Discover card can be used through China Unionpay network.
1: You're right in that many transactions don't earn points for Chinese cards. So I don't use them. My school tuition for next year is ideally going on my Citi AA card to take advantage of the retention bonus they handed me. However, as I've said, from what I've seen, discounts seem to take the place of cashback. With my ICBC card in China, I can get 10%-20% off at various restaurants and shops (even jewelers) around Shanghai, which is far more valuable to me than 2% cashback. I've yet to see a similar offer for my Citi card.
2: Discover cards
will not work outside of mainland China. UnionPay has blocked off its non-mainland network to Discover cardholders. I know, I've tried.