Originally Posted by
danielmadrid07
Will they make me leap through hoops to get a Platinum international dollar card?
Platinum card is available for anyone who requests it, pays the annual fee and meets the basic requirements (annual salary, no suspicious person etc.). I think you will have no problems on getting that.
It is Centurion that requires invite.
Originally Posted by
danielmadrid07
Secondly, I understand that to pay these account you have to wire money to the UK. How exactly does this process work and is it convenient? Do they coordinate the billing cycle to allow ample time for you to wire? Do they accept online pay? Do they send you the card and all of the bills from the UK?
You will transfer the money to their account, in case of IEC, the account is with Amex Germany. With IDC, I think it is with Amex USA. You can see your bill online and see when the new billing cycle will start. You will receive your paper bill quite soon after that and then you will have usually a week or two to make the payment. It also depends highly about your bank and how fast they are on transferring the money.
Most of the European banks will allow online transactions to foreign banks and on even foreign currency. Please note, that your bank may take a fee for Dollar transactions to foreign country/bank. Inside Europe, the Euro transactions are free of charge (in case IEC for example).
When I was using IEC, it was very convient and no problems at all. The only problem is that as these transactions are foreign, the banks will need you to input much more data than just in case of domestic transaction (street address, bank name, IBAN etc.). I only stopped using IEC as they introduced Platinum in Finland and I switched to that because they didn't introduce the new benefits right away to IEC Platinum. Otherwise I would be still using Platinum IEC.
The card will come from the UK; the bills are coming from the USA. We get the bills from USA even to Finland (local cards).