ryguy425

Thank you all for being such a helpful community. I wanted to know from people from the states who become expats what they do with their us credit cards. I'm most heavily invested in Chase credit cards and was thinking about if when I move to Japan this summer if I should be planning on using up my points before then since I won't be doing much us spending for the next couple of years. I'd love to hear other people's stories on living abroad with us based Chase credit cards.

Cheers

woodcmfr

I'm currently living in Japan and use my Chase Freedom/ Unlimited/ Reserve / AMEX Plat over here no problem. I'd say its 50/50 chance if the establishment takes credit cards though.

mixedpuppy

As a US expat that went through a similar situation at a time when I was uneducated about these things, but fortunately was smart enough to do two things...

1. At a bare minimum keep your oldest card(s), otherwise you may end up having issues with credit in the future.

2. (consider) Transfer an Amex card to your destination country. It may be easier than getting a card once youre there, even though Amex is harder to use at times. I'm not sure if other CC companies also support multiple countries, might be worth looking at.

Now that I know more:

I would suggest keeping as many as you can, but moving them to cards that either do not have yearly fees, or give you something yearly that you feel is worth the fee. For example, a cheep yearly fee for a free night cert at a hotel is probably worth while.

Use your cards on occasion (once a year is usually good, but I have some I haven't used in 2-3 years), perhaps if you have to buy something in the US, or you make trips home.

Keep a small checking account open so you can pay any bills (electronically). BOA is pretty good with Canadian-based expats.

Keep a US address if you can, with family or trusted friends. This can prove invaluable in certain situations, and makes it easier to maintain accounts with companies that dont deal with foreign addresses. I eventually moved all my US accounts back to a family address, it became easier to grow my US credit that way.

tonei

I recently moved from the US to Mexico and haven't really changed my credit card habits at all (granted I do travel back to the US frequently for work). I use a virtual mailbox service as the billing address for all my credit cards and bank accounts.

sj22

I havent visited the US for 6 months, and like others, have been able to take care of all business from here, including continuing to get new cards (CSR). I also will add that you can port your cellphone to a service like google voice, or t-mobile, to keep it working for quite cheap.

aranpura

I have been on-and-off in England for the last 10 years, and as of July 2016 we're pretty much there permanently. I use my family's address in the US as my "home" address, and get my credit cards sent there. I used a BarclayCard Arrival Plus for almost all of my spending until recently, when I switched to the CSR. I also use a Schwab checking account for free international ATM's, and a Google Voice account to maintain a US telephone number.

That system works really well for me, I essentially have a solid US-based presence and pay for everything in US dollars. The BarclayCard was a bit easier than Chase because the rewards were travel credits, which for an ex-pat is basically cash back. I haven't had the CSR long enough to know if Ultimate Rewards are going to be as good, but given that I can transfer them to international airlines I suspect it will work out well. And of course, the 100k sign up bonus was fantastic.

Oh, I will add re: AmEx -- I had one years ago and I found that almost no one outside of the US accepts that card. It's not worth the hassle for me, particularly with the CSR on the Visa network and the Barclaycard on Mastercard.

Good luck with your move, there are a lot of little details to sort out but in the end it's all much easier than you'd think.

jgoodm

I concur with these posts. Keep three to five active US credit cards to maintain your credit rating. I'm in the mortgage business and I find a couple of returning expats every year that are unable to obtain decent financing because they let their US credit disappear. Also, there might be a play to use a US card or a foreign card for larger purchases depending on what the currency markets are doing when you are ready for the purchase.