hd44

All my bank accounts and cards are still active at home and registered to my parents address. I have the Abbey zero credit card which doesn't charge for using abroad (and has very good exchange rates) which I used A LOT here before I got the US American Express card.

I still buy presents and cards on UK amazon, play.com, moonpig which all come out of my UK cards.

I use online banking for everything so it's worked out well.

Rougesvp

You will probably have to be prepared to move around a little on the CC front as policies change. Citi UK changed so I got rid of that card. MBNA and Virgin have no issues and MBNA is an American Bank anyway!

I retained a foothold in the UK Property market and have it rented out; so have no issues with paying any balance off.

As an alternative transferring funds online with HSBC is a piece of cake.

gatsbygirl8

Do you mean you have both a US and UK HSBC account? Our UK account is with HSBC, so if it's easier to transfer between the two, then we would consider opening a US one too.

Rougesvp

I do yes, and I the transfers are straight forward.

I have never run into any issues with HSBC.

dcjsimons01

As others have said I had no problem with Nationwide on CC or other accounts ISA's etc, they simply changed my address to US. Others have varied I could not do the same with a Debenham's Mastercard and AMEX used my UK history to allow me to set up a US card but also kept UK card. Only issue I have had is the time it takes for statements to get over here I have known them take 5 weeks, if you have to rely on paper statements then set up a direct debit to make sure you dont miss a payment.

avanutria

Lucky. I ran into nothing but issues with HSBC. When I wanted to transfer funds between my UK (student) account and my US account in 2005 they wanted to charge me on both ends of the transfer. They also refused to let me open a joint account with my husband shortly after our wedding (think it was because I was there on a spousal visa), so instead we went to his bank, which welcomed me, and I closed my HSBC accounts shortly thereafter.

sir_eccles

I believe for ISAs you must be a UK resident due to its tax exempt status.

dcjsimons01

You can keep existing ISA's but you can't open new ones or add to existing ones once you are non resident. Also US does not have a tax exempt status so they will become liable to US tax.

Volt61

I have rental income so any bills gets paid through that.
I also use XE for any transfers either way. Great service.

ldobson

Use XE trade to directly pay Barclaycard via Wire, no bank account needed.

Barbara1133

I had my Barclaycard for years - over 35. They cancelled it last year because they say they no longer allow cardholders to use a foreign address and make payments from a foreign bank account. I don't have a UK current account. Still, I'll be moving back this summer and will deal with things then.

SanDiegogirl

Hubby and I had Citibank accounts with credit cards and debit cards in the UK before we came over to the US.

We have kept our accounts and cards open in the UK - just changed our address to here in the US. We even managed to get a Euro account opened for us while here in the US so now when we go to Europe we can use our debit cards for either sterling or euro purchases.

ottotheboar

I also have UK / USA HSBC accounts and transferring money is easy, have a Visa card on the UK account. The only issue is there are not many HSBC branches in the US

Cape Blue

I've just looked online at the MBE deal - do they group your letters and send them in a larger envelope once a month or something similar?

What about things like your new credit card being sent to them and the PIN being sent by a different letter - the staff at MBE end up with both and there would seem to be a security risk?

gatsbygirl8

Just to give an update, we have been using XE trade for the last four months to pay our UK credit cards. The money is debited from our US account and then transferred to our UK account via ACH/EFT. We don't pay any fees whatsoever. So far, we've had no problems.

Changing the subject slightly, we also managed to get DH a VISA card with at the local credit union where we opened our joint account (I banked there for years before we ever got married). I had to co-sign for him and the limit is only $500, but otherwise no problems. We were pretty happy with that, especially as he'd only been in the country for 10 months and wasn't working full-time yet. For anybody who's struggling to get a CC, I would definitely recommend going to a local credit union and talking to someone in person. I think that helped us.