invisible

I have moved out of US 4.5 years ago. Did not have too many credit cards before that and never played chirunning or MS games, just had 2-3 cards at any time.

Since the move I closed Explorer. Now have Chase Sapphire and Ink Bold cards and still keep them open, while >95% of my expenses are with the local cards.

While I fly >70K miles annually and coming back to US 1-2 times per year, 90% of my long distance trips are work related for which I have to use (crappy) corp AMEX card and flights are Y only, cheapest option available. My vacations are short, on weekends, no more than 3-5 days per trip and I my wife travel on budget - always use LCC to travel within the region, while staying at hotels for no more than $80/night.

Chase cards are kept mostly for travel/car rental while travelling internationally for our vacations and to order couple time per years something online at US - some stores do not take international cards. Annual expenses on both cards are less than $1000. I have appx 80K points on them.

So I have two questions to the audience:

- Is it possible to downgrade/replace the current cards to no annual fee option cards while keeping the point balance and primary benefits (no FOREX fees, primary car rental and travel insurance) intact?

- Question to people in similar situation: if you moved out of US at significant distance (living in Canada/Mexico does not qualify) - which cards did you keep and why?

Please note - I moved most of my expenses on local cards not only because I have my income in local currency. Another significant factor is that if I had to keeping using US cards heavily, I have to wire funds from local to US accounts while paying 2-3% on top of the VISA/MC exchange rate. So in a way, $20K annual spent would cost $600 extra on fees.

MSPeconomist

Is your move out of the USA to your current location "permanent"?

What's your country of residence? citizenship?

Do you have a USA social security number and/or an extensive credit history in the USA?

Have you checked the benefits such as auto rental insurance and no foreign transaction fees that are available on premium credit cards in your country such as AmEx?

Must you put all of your business travel expenses on your corporate card or just the airfare? If not, do you tend to stay in hotels from one chain? Is your (business) travel on one carrier or alliance? I'm thinking about whether it would make sense to try to get an airline or hotel affinity credit card.

mia

If you downgrade both cards you can preserve the points, but not the ability to transfer to airline or hotel partners, and you will lose the FTF waiver and primary auto rental coverage. Best to research in the Chase forum, starting with this thread:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chase...de-cancel.html

invisible

More or less. As long as I have this job, or even if I don't - I will try to stay here as long until I can retire (>20 years from now).

Singapore.
USA, plus in addition, citizenship of one developing country.

Yep, >15 years. Last time I checked my credit score (it was >2 years ago) both Experian/Equifax was >800 points.

Nothing available in local market comes close to US cards in terms of consumer protection, trust me on this. Even local Centurion card offers benefits close to US Platinum card while having SIN $8000 annual fee with requirement to spend half million dollar annually.

Airfare and hotels, for misc business spend (read - food/parking/gas) personal cards can be used up to $80 per day. But when coming to US I stay with my friends to minimize travel expenses, so airfare is 70-80% of expenses.

Travelodge and Super 8. Yes, no joke. I have Gold with UA (was PP four years in row), while my spent with local cards goes with SQ/KF but I have no status there.

Hotel card - do not think would make sense with my approach towards spending and preferences. I personally try to avoid big Western chain hotels. Last 5 years I never stayed at any western chain hotel for vacation while paying my own money.

Airline card - do not see any candidate. UA is the best presented from big three in Singapore and yet after Explorer card does not fulfil requirement of 4 UA flights - no point to have it. Plenty of options to get local SQ cards here (and I have couple of them) but due to the ticket costs I can't imagine switching to KF as my primary FF account.

MSPeconomist

If you have *A *Gold from UA, this covers you for a free checked bag and lounges when flying *A, so I agree that getting a UA or any other affinity care would be pointless.

I'm wondering whether you can get a USA AmEx card with good rental car coverage and other benefits, although ideally you would have done this while still in the USA and then just kept the card rather than moving it to being Singapore based.

Singapore seems to have some local credit/debit cards that give good local benefits such as very attractive restaurant discounts and a lounge at SIN. Regardless of your other decisions, you should consider these for local spending to be paid in local currency in addition to the benefits.

muzman

I live in the Philippines. I have both personal and business cards issued from the USA.
It is a pain to pay off cards.

You might be able to find a bank with an international connection like Citi.
They have a branch here also.

Another bank, BDO charges $10 for wire transfers and has a relationship
with WellsFargo. You need to open a dollar account to transfer. Banks here do not
convert from local currency to dollars. I was able to find a vendor that actually
lets me meet them at the bank and give them peso's and they then transfer
dollars to my account.

To get your transfer fee's to a minimum, open a USA savings account with
a bank. ( Possibly one with a relationship to your bank ) Then do one wire to that account.
You can then pay all of your credit cards free of charge.

So, it might be worth some time to ask banks if they have any relationships
with banks in the USA.

garykung

No. The benefit will be downgraded significantly as a trade off. But the reward you have earned will be yours to keep.

IMHO - your location does not generally impact which cards you apply and keep, but if you have someone to take care of your business for you (i.e. getting your mails) or not.

If you have, you can practically get whatever you can as you see fit. If not, you are limited to: 1) Cards without an AF; 2) Cards with long history; 3) Discontinued cards that have grandfathered benefit that is still so good to be true.

This does not mean anything.

invisible

So, seems the setup is already optimal, see below.

Clear. Obvious solution is to keep both cards and pay for it $15/mo.

I can get it - still maintain my US address which is now a forwarder post box service.

Question is if want to get one. Especially AMEX because acceptance of AMEX in SEA is pain in neck (or lower), even here is Singapore. Going outside - forget it

That whole another enchilada - with 4 years here in Singapore I managed to get 300K miles earn with SQ with the unique features of local cards, one of them is to pay local income tax via credit card and earn 4 miles per dollar spend.

At the end, seem that does not make too much sense to change whole setup. Ink Bold is discontinued and it still has some bonus categories making sense to keep it.

chunky649

I see a separate problem. It sounds like you like the 'consumer protection' of USA based cards. However, in practice, you may not get protection due to residency. You definitely should read your terms carefully. I.e. I wonder if you will be protected if you go rent a car assuming your USA AMEX will protect your car from collision damage, but later they find out you have a Singapore driver's licence.

In terms of currency conversion - some banks will waive currency conversion for high value customers (account over 100K USD$ or maybe 250K USD$), or at least offer a discount/preferred conversion. Look into your local branch of USA banks (Citi, Chase), and big international banks like HSBC, etc. Some banks and many official currency exchange places will give preferred rate if you exchange over $10K usd$ at a time...

invisible

This is an interesting aspect I've never looked or known aware of. Do you know cases of denied coverage?
As far as DL - I am using my US DL everywhere.

Trust me - I've done fair amount of research here. The problem is not when you have account in US branch and want to convert greenbacks in some other currency. Problem is other way around.

I already am Premier customer with HSBC - get it before I moved out specifically for this purpose - to be able to use multiple currencies and convert them easily. What they do not tell you is that when you convert from other currency to USD, then the conversion rules of the local currency applies. And in this case if you want to convert from SGD to USD, you need to pay 2% on top of the spot rate, in addition to wire fees. So converting $10K SGD to USD generates minimum $200 fees.
I found a solution but trust me - ordinary person would not wanna to deal this level of hassle.

rbAA

Living overseas and having US CC's has not been a problem for me, based upon 5.5 years, first Taiwan, then China, now BKK. In fact, even though I have a US Citi Gold, I found that none of their overseas branches offer CC's to US citizens. Only debit cards. (And, their correspondant bank in China was not the Citibank but rather Bank of China, so check which SIN bank is the correspondant bank for the US bank account you use, to reduce fees.) Same with the Chinese banks and in BKK, most banks won't even open an account for you, though Citi will, with my non-immigrant O retirement visa and lease agreement. Never really need to convert local currency into US$ since all of my income is US based and direct deposited. Paperless billing eliminates having my son having to scan and email me those.

I'm sure it would be different if I was working here, but then been there, done that.

chunky649

That is interesting. If you are able to keep your USA DL active, and have a USA 'home address', you should be ok for rental car coverage.

I believe there will be forms and documents you will need to fax to the credit card company to make insurances (thief/damage) claims... You may also need to talk to someone. They may ask for a phone number to call you... In that case, you will need someone in USA to deal with that.

Chalmers3716

I will likely be moving from the US to Spain on a fixed term (3 years, with an option to extend 2 more).

Assuming I sell my house, would I be able to keep my Chase account (CSR, MileagePlus, Bonvoy cards) open? Would I need to list a US address, like a family member?

If I am not able to keep the cards/accounts, would I need to transfer all of the Ultimate Rewards to hotel/airline programs before closing it to avoid losing them?

And, would the answer to the above questions change if I did NOT sell my house in the US?

mia

Yes, if you close a Chase account that participates in Ultimate Rewards the points are lost. You need to Combine them with a card account that will remain open, or Transfer them to an airline or hotel program.

der_saeufer

Chase lets you put an address outside the US on your account, but I have no idea how they decide who should get to keep cards and who shouldn't (nor do I know how it affects AVS for US-based purchases or ZIP code entry at American gas pumps). You can just list another US address where someone can forward you a potential replacement card. Some people use mail forwarding services, but literally the only postal mail Chase sends me are replacement cards and Priority Pass cards.

As a CSR holder living in Europe, I'd advise you to keep it if you plan on travelling at all--Priority Pass is a far better benefit in Europe than it is in the US because there are way more lounges and way fewer PP holders. And thanks to the EU's cap on interchange fees, the rewards and benefits of European credit cards are best described as "crap". I use my American plastic for as many purchases as I can.