Originally Posted by
tmiw
I believe we discussed this before, hence my wondering about Jamester's use of the card in the US. Especially since I also remember that their fraud prevention people call after you do enough fallback transactions, too, which would make using the card pretty inconvenient if it gets locked often.
As
Jamester said, unless you have trips to Mainland China, this card is of limited utility. I haven't had the opportunity to try the card in Macau yet -
I was there unexpectedly on Friday but didn't make any purchases - but I will have the opportunity next month. The card works fine in HK, but
percysmith and I couldn't get QuickPass to work in early 2017 at the couple of merchants we tried. My previous trip to Macau predated having this card.
Originally Posted by
tmiw
Yeah, UnionPay cards (at least when swiped) can be run as debit in the US, which would make this card a viable option for Costco and Arco. I didn't see anything specific at first glance on ICBC's site as to whether debit purchases with cash back would count as a cash advance, however (or would even be approved in the first place).
The card worked (with a fallback transaction) as debit plus PIN at Costco. I imagine it would work the same at Arco. However, as you said, I received an inbound call asking if I had the card after about 5 or 6 test purchases.
The cash back is a convenience feature of using a Discover card, which allows cash back
without fees at supermarkets. One doesn't earn rewards on this when using a Discover card, however. Without saying it directly, all permutations of transaction options at Safeway using UnionPay have posted as purchases
and earned 1% cashback. The same goes for the debit purchases at Costco. This is unlikely to scale for topics reserved for other forums
