BritishGuy36

Yes!

Once I knew I was going to be moving I applied for a UK-based Amex, which was granted given my good UK credit history.

Less than a year later, I moved to the US, and applied for a US-based Amex card. Since they checked out my UK Amex history, I was granted a US account with a new card and $10k credit limit right off the bat.

Obviously the longer your UK Amex has been alive the better.

ubernathan

It didn't seem to disturb the bank we're getting a mortgage from. I simply printed off a UK experian credit report and gave it to them. He was quite excited by the quality of the report, much more detailed than a regular US one apparently. I suppose that might be different from having the bank get the report directly from the UK (something they were unable to do).

Pulaski

I have heard that sometimes happens with mortgage applications, however there are significant differences between a mortgage and revolving credit accounts (store/ credit cards and personal loans) ..... when you apply for a mortgage (i) the bank does a fairly extensive review of your financial circumstances, not just your credit history, so they look at your income, your other liabilities, and any other assets you have, and (ii) there is typically (in the US) 25% more value in the asset (house on which the mortgage is secured) than is lent i.e. $100 of asset value for every $80 lent, and if they lend more than 80% of the value there is mortgage insurance to cover any potential shortfall in the event of foreclosure (repossession). ..... In short, perhaps paradoxically, when you have a limited credit history it is much easier to get a mortgage than a credit card.

ubernathan

Agreed. Improving ones rating via cc's so one can get a mortgage turns out to be a bit of a red herring. However one does need to find the right bank -- the local one with which we have an account at the moment didn't want to know. The bank local to where we're buying was fine (perhaps because that area has a high fraction of internationals, so they know what to look for).

sherbert

Not true - we did it. We didn't apply for them all at once. We applied for one and when we got rejected, applied for another. I think we applied for about 5 in all until Discover gave us one.

Pulaski

I have no doubt that you did it, but the more times you apply the more it detracts from your credit rating, (it DOES, Google it - so the more times you apply and are rejected, the less likely you are to be accepted) so notwithstanding your own experience, generally speaking it is better to apply sparingly and for credit and only that for which you are most likely to be accepted - which usually means store cards.

snotmaster1

Just realised I have a Citibank UK account. They are such a shower though I doubt that will help me at all.

sherbert

And if you have no credit rating whatsoever, how can it harm your rating?!

Pulaski

"No credit" doesn't really mean literally no credit, it means no data. You really don't want to start off your credit data file with negatives.

Anyhow, look, I'm not trying to be critical of you. Like the many thousands who immigrate to the US each year from the UK without help from BE, things worked out for you OK. ..... However, with the benefit of hindsight you could have done things differently, and that would have been better, and that is what we're trying to do here, to share our knowledge and help people make the best choices. ..... Saying "we winged it, you can too", is not exactly the best sort of advice.

sherbert

We didn't wing it, we sought advice and did what we were advised and it worked. I know you are not trying to be critical, but the few very vocal 'we' people on here are way too quick to a) judge and b) offer their experience from xx years ago...just trying to add my very recent experience to the pile that's all!

Pulaski

Apparently from someone who doesn't understand how the credit score is calculated.

sherbert

Obviously...

ubernathan

citibank UK and citibank US are effectively entirely different organizations. When prepping for our move we evaluated both citibank (I had an account there) and hsbc (mrs me had an account there). HSBC won hands down and citibank lost a customer.