Citi give you a Visa debit card on their USD account. However the Citi account offered in the UK is not a US bank account but a UK bank account denominated in USD so you can't make (or receive, as far as I know) online payments in the ACH system with it for example. If that works for you, it's fine and free as long as you keep a minimum balance in the account. However if you have HSBC Premier it's worth asking them instead as they can set up a "real" US bank account for you pretty easily which doesn't have the limitations above.


For the IDC Amex - although the statement says "Please pay by x" where x is about 5 days after it arrives, if you read the T&Cs they actually give you 30 days after the end of the billing cycle to pay. I suspect they put an earlier date on the bill because some payment methods (eg cheques drawn on banks outside the USA) can take a long time to process.