arant

Hi all,

I am currently at a very weird status. I would like to get some advice.

I was a foreign student in US and I got a social when I got an intern then, which was like five years ago. I applied for several credit cards and stayed in good records from then.
Recently, I moved to Canada as I got a job here. I brought several cards (SPG and CSR basically) which have no foreign transaction fees here and use them now. I decided to stick to them as they have better rewards than any Canadian cards.

I was wondering if I should report my move to banks and update my billing address and job titles. It seems risky as banks have reason to believe that a foreign person live abroad is dangerous and withdraw all my cards. I set my address to a friend of mine and he will deal with everything for me. But I feel unsettle as all my transactions occur in Canada and I am afraid it could trigger some checks from banks.

I plan to go back to US several years later but should I do anything now?

I hope somebody could share their similar experience and how they dealed with it.

Many thanks.

mixedpuppy

I've dealt with this, moved to Canada years ago and before I ever thought about stuff like this. The best thing I ever did (related to credit) was to retain my oldest US card and keep a US address on file. Since then I've acquired more US cards as well. Move everything to electronic billing to save your friend some effort.

If you're using a US card for your normal card, even if the card has no-forex, you'll have to transfer money to the US to pay the bill (forex around 1-2.5% depending on how you do it), so you're loosing benefit of rewards in that alone. Unless of course you have plenty of cash in the US to pay the bills. Even then you're getting less rewards for dollar spent than you would with a Canadian card. If you get one point per US$, you have to spend $1.36CAD to get that point. The same card in Canada (e.g. SPG) you're spending $1CAD or $0.75US to get that one point.

AMEX can move the card to the Canadian side, and back later, that may be an easy way to start building Canadian credit. If you do that I'd first move it to a card that you don't care about the signup bonus. You can always apply later for a Canadian SPG and get the bonus here. Another alternative is to just get a credit starter card in Canada and use that for 6 months to build some credit.

I'd probably avoid using a US card for daily spend in Canada if it's attached to a US address, never know what that may cause with the issuer. I have cards in both so I can choose what works best when traveling.

The only reasonable no-forex cards in Canada are from Chase (Marriott and Amazon). Rogers kind of has it via 4% cash back on spend out of Canada. Some high end cards may have it also.

Sintaku

Not sure how worth it is unless you main income is in USD.

I pay my UK student loans with my CC and end up getting a better exchange rate and rewards even with the 1.5% fee. If I was earning in GBP then I'd love out more in moving money to the USA.

garykung

That's it. You are good to go.

Deal with it when it comes. There is nothing you can do now except closing the account.

arant

@mixedpuppy
Really appreciate your reply and calculation about the input/output.
My cards are CSR and SPG. I basically use CSR for travel related things (e.g. air tickets, car rental, and hotels), where it gives me three points a dollar. I think it should give 5% benefit at least. Even considered exchange loss, it should be at least 3%. I can easily spend way more than $5000 (break even point), so I think it is worthy to use it here.
In terms of SPG, my plan is to get the open account bonus ($5000 for 35k points), which is a no-brain worthy for now. Given the merge between Marriot and SPG, let's wait and see what will happen to SPG next year.
Last reason I use US card is I think CAD is under-valued now and I am expecting to get 0.9 exchange rate at least for CAD:USD in two or three years. (cc @Sintaku )

@garykung
I also think that is all I can do. It means no more new cards these few years tho.

tmiw

Another thing to keep in mind is that Canadian cards are set up...a bit differently than the ones in the US. (See this thread and this one too, mainly the latter.) Using a Canadian card for day to day spending might end up being more convenient simply because you don't have to sign for stuff, unlike American cards.

That said, you can always set up one of the mobile wallets on your phone and use that instead if US cards still work out better for you.

mixedpuppy

Right now it's about a 30% spread on the cost of acquiring points, a 5% value on the point will not make up for that. It's not so much that you're being dinged for it (from a US-centric perspective), as much as you may not be taking advantage of the low CAD$ in this instance. Just food for thought.

Campath

I have been through a similar situation. Moved to Canada from the US while having 30 or so cards. I changed the address to that of a friend who will get the occasional mail but all correspondence is generally electronic.

After about a year, most of the cards with annual fees I closed because they were not worth it anymore (few exceptions like Citi Prestige and Chase IHG which I still find valuable and Amex SPG because I got a good retention offer). The cards without annual fees I planned to keep to maintain my history. Eventually I ended up closing some of the no annual fee cards too just because I couldn't be bothered to keep track of them all. I do maintain at least one no fee card from each of the major issuers to keep the relationship in good standing.

I don't use the US cards for daily spend in Canada because I don't have enough $USD to keep paying them off indefinitely and it is not worth it to keep converting currency. Also the risk of a shut down if I keep using them in Canada.

I have a Canadian Amex SPG that I use for my daily spend here and am quite happy with it. I will occasionally buy a $1 Amazon reload with my US cards to keep them active and prevent the account from being closed. Not to mention using them if traveling to the US.

This hasn't prevented me from getting new cards either. I recently churned 2 Citi AA Plats and manufactured the spend with NW Buxx (now closed) without ever having the card in my possession. Pure online methods of MS are very rare so now I only focus on cards with very low minimum spends. The only upside is that I will eventually get under 5/24 which would have never happened without moving to Canada .

Pro tip: cards from Discover, US Bank, Wells Fargo, Barclays and some smaller issuers will waive small balances of ~$1 (exact values differ for each of them). I buy Amazon reloads from each of these cards every month and earn about $70-80 in gift cards every year.

Tyrwhitt

A cautionary tale from the other side of the 49th parallel. I'm American, moved here 28 years ago for work and marriage, and closed most of my U.S. financial things to simplify my life. It's bad enough filing two tax returns, one on each side of the border, for life; I didn't want to have to deal with bank accounts, credit cards, etc. in both countries. I still have a few financial accounts there but not enough to maintain a credit rating.

Now I want US credit cards again, primarily for the sign-up bonuses. I'm still a U.S. citizen, still file my tax returns there faithfully, and pay my U.S. bills in U.S. dollars from a U.S. checking account (been here too long, tried to spell that as chequing.) But I have no recent credit history so I get declined.

Apparently the one way around it is to file an IRS form allowing them to release my tax return summary to the credit card issuer as a substitute for a credit report. Can't decide if I want the cards that badly or not.

Moral of the story, it might make sense to keep your cards open if you don't want to be in my shoes in a few (okay many) years. But be sure you understand the costs - both in $$ and time - of your strategy. And free advice, don't forget to file a U.S. tax return and FBAR forms if you ever want to move back to the States. It's complicated but worth it.

Tyrwhitt

edited to add: "to file a U.S. tax return and FBAR forms ON TIME EACH YEAR FOR LIFE"

garykung

Read OP again.

Since OP is not a U.S. person, OP is not subject to U.S. tax law unless the income originates from the U.S., as well as FBAR requirement.