USD credit cards issued in Canada?
 

OK - this post probably belongs elsewhere but humour me. A friend has convinced me that I should apply for a US$ Visa credit card so that when I'm buying one-way air tickets in the US I don't get zapped with 2%-plus exchange fees. Implicit in that is, of course, one must maintain a US$ bank account.

My question is should I do this through a Canadian bank or a US bank?? My understanding is that to have a US bank account you have to be living in the US or at least have a US address.

OK moderators, steer me to another home if that's where this post belongs though most of my purchases of air tickets in the US are for AC trips back to Canada.

I have a US Debit Mastercard which I frequently use for this purpose. I opened a bank account with Harris Bank (a BMO subsidiary). They know what to do for Canadians.

It does mean you have to leave money there.

If you don't want to do that you want a US$ credit card from a Canadian bank. I would be somewhat surprised if you could get one from a US Bank as a Canadian without credit down there.

Do you buy a lot of tix from US websites? I know many folks who do and don't bother to get a US$ CC. Considering most economists agree we're going to see a parity forex rate into the foreseeable future, I think the argument to get one weakens even further.

If you really want one, I agree your only option is a Cdn bank as you'll need a US address to get one from a US bank.

Quite right - I started the whole process while our $ was well below the Uncle Sam $. Nevertheless, when buying air tickets and other stuff for that matter south of the border I think we can save $$$ using a US credit card.

In the US, BMO has Harris Bank, RBC has RBC Bank (USA) and TD has Commerce Bank. If you've been a good and fairly long term customer with one of these banks in Canada, you may be able to get them to leverage that to get a US(-issued) card. Using my Royal Bank relationship was how I was able to get a card when I first moved to the US.

Forgetting about the US address issue for the moment, and absent getting one of those relationships to work for you, if you don't have a credit history in the US, its extremely difficult to get a US-issued card. Especially since the credit crisis and now that CC reform is in. If you don't have an SSN, it's more of a challenge. Best way in that case is to get a US-dollar card from a Canadian bank.

If all you want to do is avoid the conversion charge, then just get a US$ denominated card from a Canadian bank, such as the TD.

If you want a real US-based card, the easiest option is to go through RBC and obtain a RBC USA bank account and credit card. You do NOT need a US address, SSN or US credit history. Even better, you can apply through a local Canadian RBC branch. I have done this - it's quite straightforward.

All very relevant and appreciated comments folks. I think I'll go with TD which charges $39/year but waives that fee if you keep a minimum of $3,000 in your US$ account (with them of course!).

RBC wants $69/year and does not seem to offer any advantages that TD offers. In fact TD does not charge for 3 additional card-holders while RBC wants an additional fee!

To me TD is a no-brainer!

I also have a Harris debit card but -- how do you guys get money into your debit cards...? I only use it to buy the occassional ebook / MP3 so it's not a big deal for me as I can just drop a hundred or so bucks whenever I am around a Harris bank or meet with a friend from Chicago... but , what is supposedly "the" way to do this? I am baffled. In the European country I am originally from, this was trivial but it seems there is no way here to simply transfer money from account A to B.

I have a USF M/C from BMO and a US$ account with BMO. The credit card is no fee (as long as you spend $1000/yr) and gives me 0.5% cash back. I think the card that gives you 1% cash back costs around $40. My US$ account pays a higher interest rate than my Cdn $ account, even though I can't tell you what that is at the moment. Every month I just transfer funds from the cash account to pay off the credit card balance, if any.

This way, I never have to pay exchange fees. I opened the US$ account years ago to deposit dividend cheques from my US stocks and it's worked out very well for me.

The nice thing about RBC USA is that you can transfer money between your RB (Canada) and RBC USA accounts online. Specifically, when you log into your online RBC USA account, you can see all of your RB (Canada) accounts and can transfer cash between them seamlessly. To the best of my knowledge, neither TD nor BMO offer this service (though that may have changed since the time of my information).

In my case, I do my Canadian banking with RB. My RB accounts in Canada include US$ bank account which is free and has no minimum balance requirements. I also have a US$ bank account with RBC USA which has a $750 minimum balance requirement in order to be free. I happen to have a free MC with Citibank, obtained at a time when I had a US address. So it's a breeze to take my Canadian or US money in Canada, transfer it online within seconds to my RBC USA account, and do online bill payments to my US credit card.

I as well deal with RBC and have both Canadian & US accounts. The RBC US$ Gold card does have one benefit the other Canadian US Dollar credit cards don't - trip cancellation/baggage delay. For myself this was well worth the $35 annual fee (rebate from chequing acct) and getting a supplementary card for my father @ $30 annually is saving at least a few hundred in trip cancellation insurance between the 2 of us. (we both have private travel medical coverage so the card not having that was a non issue)

Initially it was somewhat difficult to pay the card - had to either call or go into a branch :mad: but they have recently added a link to pay it online from either your regular canadian account or a US$ savings account.

With the Access USA RBC account having that $750 sitting in the US account makes it easy when you go on vacation - just use your debit card for everything & once you spend it all you're up to your exemption limit and have to go home LOL :)

I agree - this is one of the best things about RBC - the Cdn. and US sides can integrate that way. I can log into either the US or the Canadian site, and see both accounts and transfer the money - it even gives the choice of whether you want the transfer based on US dollars or Cdn.

Even though I have ING Direct accounts in both countries, they still won't talk to each other.

The disadvantage to RBC is that if you need branch service or ABM's, and aren't in the south (well, southeast, mostly), then they aren't there. It works out well for snowbirds who go to FL half the year. But if you spend time in NY, Chicago, etc. everything has to be done electronically. Fine for me, but for others, maybe not so much. Commerce Bank is similarly limited to the Northeast mostly (and FL, I think, too), and Harris Bank to the midwest, I believe.

RBC vs TD for US banking
 

TD does not yet offer the same cross-border support as RBC, i.e. linking CDN and US accounts.

However, US banking is a big push for TD. With their latest acquisition, they now have more US branches than Canadian! They are working on linking the two entities, so it will happen sooner or later.

For now the best TD Canada can do is issue a US$ card and US$ account - in Canada.

I mail a cheque to them. Takes 4 or 5 days to get there.

I could also wire but that's expensive.

Yes, good point. When I received my bank card while living in California, I phoned in expecting to be able to reset my PIN, and I was told I'd have to go to a branch in North Carolina to do that! So, I live with a non-intuitive PIN. :p

On the plus side, although I have to use non-RBC ATMs when in the US, RBC refunds a couple of ATM fees per month for my account. So in the end, it's not a big deal for me.