US Currency Credit Card?

[Jeka]

I find to be doing a lot of business with people from overseas and paying to convert money into Canadian and then back into USD kind of sucks.

Are there any good US cards that you'd recommend?

[tkyoshi]

Try the new Mosaik USD Mastercard from BMO.

There's no annual fee which is always a good thing. I think you can earn airmiles on it too.

[Jeka]

It wasn't listed on their website, but I'll call them and find out.. thanks!

[tkyoshi]

I think online signup isn't available yet because it's a new product. They should have forms in branch for you, you can probably apply by calling in too.

[wheel]

I used TD USD credit card for years - stay away. I had a merchant run a couple of grand through in bogus charges and so far they've done nothing - a year later. They don't return phone calls or letters or anything. It's truly bizarre how I can call in, get escalated to the point where someone has to call me back (I've been told that certain departments don't have incoming phone numbers, only outgoing - an example of why I say bizarre) and they never do; time after time after time.

I've since switched to Royal Bank's USD visa card. It's acceptable, nothing particularly redeeming about it but so far no horror stories.

If you do have a USD credit card, you'll likely want a USD chequing account at your local bank as well - so you can just write a cheque out of the USD chequing account to pay your credit card bill. Otherwise you're looking at some other way of paying and again you'll get dinged the conversion.

[tkyoshi]

One thing that is good about Canadian USD Cards is that it's easier to pay.

Some people have opened Bank of America Visa accounts, but there's no easy way to send money to pay your bill unless you use XE to convert.

But it's much more of a hassle, the big perk though was that there was no annual fee and rewards but that's changing with BMO's Mosaik USD Card.

[ebizimage]

BMO's Mosiak USD is good, and you can collect Air Miles too.

[Jeka]

Thanks for the advice guys, lots of useful information. :)

[discumax]

Be precise when you say you want a US card, if your main purpose is to avoid currency charges, and you use it mainly to purchase oversea, then a Canadian bank issued credit card in US dollar would simply do. If you're like me, you deal with stubbon US merchant who only accept US card and only ships to US address, then you got to jump some hoops. It also depends if you are using it for manual orders or online purchases (with AVS check)

I'm kinda stuck in a situation where I have to jump all the hoops, but I think you're ok.

for details, see
http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3625875&postcount=15

[ebizimage]

I haven't tried for a while, but I think BMO's USD credit card used to have AVS. When I had a US merchant account, I tried all of my credit cards and see what do they behave like.