Thanks Roger! I have been learning a lot over the past months on FT, time to add some value to this great forum from my side.

In my understanding you're allowed to have the HHonors CC when you have a German bank account. Residency and nationality doesn't count. For non-Germans it's possible to have a German bank account (konto). I did some research on that and found out that Deutsche Kreditbank AG (dkb.de) is a good option. It's free (!) and the process to enroll is easy (when your German is poor, there is Google translate...). You need to identify yourself at a postal office in Germany or do that at a notary public in your home country (DKB will pay the costs up to 20 euro). This could be a hurdle of course, let me know when you need more details on that. The best news is that DKB is the issuer of the HHonors branded creditcard. That means that you only have to identify yourself once, with a separate bank you have to do that twice.

So I suggest to not start with the application process at the www.hhonorscard.de website, but at the www.dkb.de website. (Unfortunately with that route I'm missing the chance to refer you and get some HHonors points out of that :-). But currently there is a nice action with DKB, where on a referral you and I get 25.000 DKB club points. You can use those in a shop for a anything from exchanging those for 2500 Miles & More points to getting a 1-year license for security software, or supporting a social cause. So please PM or e-mail me for the referral link if you wish)

With this Hhonors Visa CC indeed no euro currency surcharges and free ATM cash withdrawal worldwide!

Last mention is that DKB also issues the Miles & More Maestro CC, so via this route as a customer you can also easily purchase that cards (classic, gold, classic business, gold business).

Long post... And or course willing to share more details on the application process etc.!