toplayer

Gotta learn how to read, sorry and thanks!

alan945

Percy, thanks for the informative post about DCC, so what do you recommend as the best credit card for spending in China?

Does the Bankcomm union pay card consider transactions in China as overseas? Is that the best card to use for spending in China?

Currently I use my DBS Black mostly in China for 1 mile per 4HKD.

Happy mid autumn to all

percysmith

Wirelessly posted (Palm850/V0100 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 7.11))

alan945 - I'm on a 8 seater heading up to Huizhou now with a car full of impatient uncles and aunties.

Shacom is best for this and next month ($1.6/miles). But I'm only gonna use it at counters (e.g. hotel cashier, golf club cashier). If in restaurant, unless acceptable for me to walk out to the cashier, I'm not gonna risk getting DCCed on the Shacom. I think it's about 0.75% markup on HKAB RMB sell rate.

I'll use SCB AE when I can, $2.5/mile with a 0.61% markup to HKAB RMB sell rate.

Bankcomm Unionpay? RMB8/mile only, with RMB4/mile at hotels and restaurants. Extra RMB6/mile this month makes it between RMB2.4-3.43/mile. No exchange markup cos you settle directly in RMB.

I would use the Bankcomm Diamond Unionpay over the SCB AE at hotels and restaurants but the SCB AE over Bankcomm Unionpay everywhere else, even if markup's involved.

percysmith

Update 14 Sep - my 30,000 RMB transaction posted yesterday for HK$37,352.96, exchange rate of 1.2451 which was higher than I expected.

Still way lower than the Bank of Crooks DCC rate (HK$601.24 less), plus I got 224,118 SCB points (14,941 Asia Miles) for my trouble.

Nevertheless, if I knew the exchange rate was so high, I might consider using the Bankcomm Unionpay Diamond. The margin over HKAB has increased from 0.61% last year to 0.98% this year, and I noticed the HKAB rate itself is 0.66% higher than the RMB cash withdrawal ATM rate I got from ICBC Asia ATM that day http://www.hongkongcard.com/forum/fo...hp?id=3939&p=2. So I paid a total of 1.64% in HKD for the privilege of using AE over Unionpay.

Unionpay would have earned me (30,000/8 (not a hotel or dining location so this is not doubled) + 30,000/12x2 (3X promotion) =) 8,750 miles anyway. Using $0.1/mile valuation, Unionpay's miles are roughly 2.34% of transaction amount, SCB AE miles are 4% less 1.64% fee = 2.36% - well, a wash.

And the Bankcomm Unionpay Diamond 3X promo ends today anyway.

sp23

Thanks for all the great advice!
I think I've finally sorted out what to use and when.

Overseas - Shacom Plat $4/mile
Supermarket - Citibank Rewards $3/mile
Department Stores - Citibank Rewards $3/mile
Telecommunications Bills - Citibank Rewards $3/mile
5xRewards Home Category (Supermarkets, Bonjour, Sasa, Ikea, Broadway) - HSBC $2.78/mile
Dining - Shacom Plat $4/mile
Bills (Water, Electricity, Rates) - Shacom Plat $8/mile
Octopus AAVS - Shacom Plat $8/mile
Everything else - 1. DBS Black Card $6/mile, 2. Shacom Plat $8/mile

We're getting a Citibank Rewards each. I'll probably give him a supplementary card for HSBC. I'm thinking we should we get a DBS Amex and Shacom each. How likely is it to get the annual fee waived? Do the points expire with those cards?

Can't wait to start saving! Thanks again peoples, couldn't have done it with you!

percysmith

Citi, DBS, Shacom, HSBC - I won't sweat about renewals on these cards.

kaka

Expiry dates:
HSBC: 2 years (Except HSBC Premier and Advance: 3 years)
Shacom: 2 years
DBS Black: none
Citibank Rewards: Don't know none

Can he also get an HSBC? it'd be good to have 5x in another category: dining, or foreign spendings etc..

ChrisLi

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Citi Rewards : Infinite.

sp23

[QUOTE=


Citi Rewards : Infinite.[/QUOTE]

Bonus. We got the Citibank rewards today and just put in an application at Shanghai Comm Bank. DBS tomorrow!!!
Hmm.. does it look really dodgey from the credit card centers point of view if suddenly we apply for 3 different cards? Maybe I should give it a few months in between...

percysmith

Cool! I didn't realise for this promo doesn't group subsidiary ("additional") cardholders with their principals.

https://www.hsbc.com.hk/1/2/special/cards/prom224

percysmith

http://www.bankcomm.com.hk/mediafile...f_10285_en.pdf
http://www.hongkongcard.com/forum/fo...hp?id=5873&p=1

More restrictive this time.

I just finished paying UK taxes on a redemption ticket and a PRC hotel booking on hotel's direct website before I saw this promo on hongkongcard.com. I paid for both with SCB AE.

But it turns out I didn't lose much. I couldn't use the Unionpay for either. Using the Visa, my earn rate will be $12/5.5 = $2.18/mile if $1,000 - 4,999, $12/10.5 = $1.14 if $5,000 - 10,000 (cap at $10,000). My hotel was roughly $2,600 so I've lost only 153 miles (14.7% more). The taxes are under $1,000 so no point.

Not gonna bother with this promotion - I get the SCB points immediately. I have to wait til February to get the Bankcomm.

Edit 7:30PM: Normally 14.7% is enough to make me switch offers. But because there's some ambiguity regarding deferred charges in the T&C http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/catha...k-78.html#1156, I am glad I didn't risk my hotel transactions to being excluded under convulated T&C.

Edit 17 Oct: Offer extended to 14 Nov

Edit 15 Nov: Extended to 31 Dec http://www.bankcomm.com.hk/mediafile...f_10614_en.pdf

kaka

only the multiplier is the same, but not the cap, you mean?
i didnt know that too! i was more thinking he gets a seperate principle card

kaka

the cap is per transaction...? so i could get 10x for the entire bill of my parent's hotel if i can get it through the phone (but they say its no go) but is there conversion charge on the card? (to do this i also need to change from rebate to points. so far i havent done any transactions after getting the miles)

sp23

That's what I thought too! So that's great news if he just gets a sub card since I only need to pay the $300 fee once

percysmith

The cap follows HKID...

So in theory sp23 can spend 100K and her SO can also spend 100K.

BUT (per HSBC CS) principal ***cannot*** redeem subsidiary's RewardCash for Asia Miles (can combine for non-AM redemptions).

Assuming sp23's SO becomes sp23's subsidiary cardholder, he will need to pay $300 to redeeem his RewardCash into Asia Miles and sp23 has to pay $300 to redeem her RewardCash into Asia Miles (total to be paid: $600).

Last year there was a promo of using 2,000 (pre-RewardCash) HSBC points ($2,000 spending) --> 400 Moneyback Points --> 100 Asia Miles (no fee), but the offer has since lapsed http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/catha...artner.html#12