[tsuiwah]

Anyone have luck getting the fee waived on the Citibank cobranded cards -- for instance, the Cathay Pacific Visa card?

I will need to get a new card if they won't waive the annual fee in a few months.

[tstexpat]

Citibank are the worst when it comes to waiving fees and customer service in general. I also hear that Cx might move their card to HSBC as UA is no longer in business with them. Let's hope that happens soon.

[honeybee]

Ehh.... but so far only Citibank offers perpetual annual fee waiver for my Credit Card

[discobay]

But is that a Citibank ONLY card or co-branded with say Cathay Pacific?

[ania]

i agree that banking costs more in this city than in london. perhaps it is all absorbed one way or another, but i would rather have the bank absorb these costs through thier effciency than pass on the costs of lazy and rude customer service staff to me. i agree that citi is about the worst ever in HK. i banked with them in 3 different countries and this is by far the worst. i opened another account with hang seng. the service there is not much better, but they have more branches and far better website. in citi if you forget your pin you have to go the branch, fill in an application form (free!), wait a week to get a new card first! (as if they cannot use the same one, complete waste of resources), then another week to get the pin. in short you are without access to your own cash for 2 weeks. also thier webiste is pretty much a farse. most of the functions they claim are online, are just a facade for the branch staff to key in your data once more. has anyone ever managed to make a term deposit on citibank website. i never succeded.

i also noticed that as long as you do not qualify for premier banking of some sort, you will always be charged extra. if you read terms and conditions for any premier account most of the charges are waived. in short if you are rich you will be richer, if you are poor they will make sure you remain poor.

good luck with finding the right bank, and please let us all know
ania

[snowball]

Banks make more money from premium a/c's that's why they waive charges. They make money on higher credit card activity (from the merchant fee), a/c balance, and have more likelihood of cross-sell, esp. for wealth management products, eg investments & insurance.

If less money, u can still get fee waivers if u use only one or two banks so that, relatively, u are more active with each one than if u used 5 banks. For HKD2k credit card spend each month, most banks will waive the fee if asked. The Citi CX card is an exception. The margin on co-branded cards is lower and the CX one in particular (due to HKD8 per Asia Mile rather than HKD12 with other banks).

HSBC seems ok as they just pay less interest on low balances rather than actually charge like Standard Chartered. Anyway, why have a few low balance a/c's if u can consolidate to get more interest?

[Janewiches]

From what I remember, if you keep a minimum balance of $100,000 at HSBC they waive all regular banking charges.

[PDLM]

tstexpat,

I really hope that is true - I would love to give up my Citi CX Platinum (which I have solely for the miles) if I could get the same miles on my HSBC Premier Mastercard (which I use essentially just for paying my tax).

[PDLM]

Originally Posted by PDLM

my HSBC Premier Mastercard (which I use essentially just for paying my tax).

Just a note for people who may not be aware... tax payments on HSBC cards (and, I believe, most others) will cease to be eligible for Rewards (and hence AsiaMiles) for payments made after 15th December. If you were planning to get miles for tax this year then you'll need to pay early.

(Look in the small print here: http://www.hsbc.com.hk/hk/personal/pdf/crrterm.pdf )

[Lammarite]

Originally Posted by Janewiches

From what I remember, if you keep a minimum balance of $100,000 at HSBC they waive all regular banking charges.

Hmmm, leave it here and get 0.0125% interest or send it offshore and get 4%+.......I know which one I have done. The staff at HSBC was most concerned that I wasn't keeping my money in HK and wondering why!

I have my company account at Bank of East Asia because they give a shit about the company that has less than 20 million dollars income per month and you don't have to waste an hour of your day standing in a Q waiting to be served because they decided to close 50% of their branches.