Unless you already have assets in HKD, you're at some point going to need to convert your USD to HKD, whether that be at the point you write the check from a USD checking account to pay the bill, or the point you deposit your USD into a HKD checking account. Someone at some point is going to want to charge you for this service.

Cost aside, I think the most direct way to handle this the way you want to would be to open a Hong Kong-based checking and credit card account and specify a US mailing address, rather than trying to set up anything here. US banks are notorious for not handling international issues very well or at a reasonable price, as they are very specialized services that don't get used very often by the general public (unlike in other countries, where dealing with foreign currency is almost an every-day task sometimes).

But I think that chalf's suggestion of just getting a low-cost US-based MasterCard/Visa is the best solution for this problem. If you can get one where the bank adds no exchange fee, you'll end up paying only the 1% fee that's built into the Visa/MasterCard exchange system. That, and having local numbers to call, fee-free payments, and 37-cent postage that gets to the payment center in at most 3 days will I think provide you with the lowest-cost solution to this problem.

Also, since the Hong Kong dollar is pegged to the US dollar at a virtually fixed exchange rate that hasn't changed in over 20 years, you're in the unique situation of not really having any exchange rate fluctuation risk that you'd have with any other two currencies.

You get a gold star for thinking creatively about this situation, though!

[This message has been edited by Steve M (edited Mar 20, 2004).]