AndrewRyan10

I am very interested in this card as my fiancee and I travel to Turkey twice a year. My fiancee is a Turkish citizen but has been living in the US for the past four years on a company sponsored H1B visa.

She should be able to acquire this card fairly easily, however, she said that in order to pay the credit card bill one would most likely need a bank account with Garanti Bank (the issuing bank). While that would be easy to obtain for a Turkish citizen, if they were living and working in the US or Europe they would still need to transfer money to that Turkish account from their local currency which "should" incur a transaction fee. This may take out any benefit of the miles accrual from spending.

Does anyone have this card who lives and works outside of Turkey? How do you pay your monthly bill from Garanti bank?

geirfugl

Not correct.

You only get 2X miles on tickets booked with TK in Turkey,outside of Turkey its 1X.

And,and,and,-given the extreme volatility of the TRY I would strongly advice against blocking an amount of money in TRY,in order to earn a few airmiles unless your are a "financial rusian roulette player",if you live in Turkey its ofcs different,since the realities of Turkey,to a certain extent requires ewrybody to play the noble game of financial russian roulette,I do not,however, realy recomend it to those that has an alternative!!!

Sorry,my wrong,-thought the first post did not apear.

starflyergold

Link

Worcester

Does the Miles you gain from spend on the Credit card go towards earning you Status?

Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere.

Maddhater

Is this confirmed?

PVDtoDEL

Looks like there is now M&S credit cards issued by KuveytTurk and QNB in addition to the longstanding GarantiBank options. i'm thinking of applying for a M&S credit card in Turkey - any advice as to which bank has the best card?

ISTFlyer

If you have a bank account in one of the three banks, apply to the program of that bank.
I can't speak of Kuveyt Türk but for Garanti and QNB Finansbank, unless you have a decent credit history in Turkey or monetary funds at that specific bank, your request is likely to be denied.

PVDtoDEL

Hmm, that's a problem then :/

I don't have any credit history in Turkey, but I do own property and have rental income in country. I guess I will go into a bank branch tomorrow and see what they have to say

hfly

Getting a Turkish credit card for a foreigner, even one with legal residence et al has always been problematic in Turkey. It is easier for an unemployed former Turkish student to get a credit card than it is a foreigner with sufficient funds. If one has paperwork and any in with a bank, the best that can initially be done is essentially a guaranteed or blocked card whereby they block an amount of cash in your account to cover your credit limit, but again they make everything a hassle.

PVDtoDEL

Well, sure enough - I went to a bunch of Garanti and QNB branches and nobody could help me get a credit card.. I think the main problem is language barrier tbh - would somebody be willing to take a few mins to talk me through the best strategy to make it happen? "block an amount of cash in your account to cover your credit limit" is suboptimal but fine, and I don't know how to explain to a bank that that's what I want..

ISTFlyer

Also another small piece of information, do you have a "Yabancı Kimlik Numarası" ( foreign ID number ) starting with 97,98 or 99 in Turkey?
I haven't heard of the secured card concept in Turkey where they block an amount of cash in your account to cover your credit limit.

PVDtoDEL

I'm actually a Turkish citizen. It's a slightly complicated story 😂

ISTFlyer

If you have a "TC Kimlik No." ( obviously you have to be a Turkish citizen ) just apply for a basic card Bonus, Axess, World, Maximum etc... and then build credit. So, in the future you could be easily approved for those premium cards such as Miles&Smiles, etc...

PVDtoDEL

Is there a credit score similar to the US? Or what exactly does "build credit" mean in the Turkish context?

ovacikar

Assuming you already have a checking account to receive rent (mandatory in Turkey), you can check if your current bank is offering you an instant credit account (Banks refer to it as KMH , Kredili mevduat hesabı) . The bank just opens you a line of credit you can use if needed , having such credit line tied to your checking account will also build credit history and show up in your report.

And yes the credit score and credit report (listing all the credit accounts you have) can be obtained from Findeks,