2.1 Record of acquitting AMEX Platinum card issued in the U.S.

   I tried to call AMEX desk to get an AMEX platinum card one day after arriving at the U.S. I will summarize the procedure in this article.

Procedure

1     -  Call a person in charge of Global Transfer (Accessible from a personal account)

           AMEX Global Transfer website

2      - Tell the person that you need “Global Transfer” clearly and would like to get a credit card issued at the U.S. using your credit history accumulated in Japan.

  The procedure looks very simple, but you may feel some hardship different from Japan when you get a credit card in the U.S. At the outset, international students like me, who are not workers, cannot get an SSN (Social Security Number), hence cannot get a credit card. There are some exceptions for this system, but as for AMEX, international students can get AMEX credit cards using the credit history if you have any experience of using AMEX credit cards.

   Also, as described above, you have to talk with an English native speaker on the call as the procedure of global transfer without SSN requires applicants to call the desk directly and does not allow them to apply for it on the website. In my case, a person who I talked first on a call, transacted my application by mistake and sent an email to request me of entering SSN information. Also, another telephone responder misunderstood my application as not to be global transfer but a typical application. These mistakes happened even though I repeatedly and explicitly said “My application is Global transfer” “I don’t have SSN.” As other applicants for AMEX Platinum said the same experiences, we have to confirm the conversation over and over in the U.S., and if the respondent says wrong things we have to confirm and modify these persistently.

   Applicants will be asked general things such as name, SSN, annual income, and assets so you can answer these questions without preparing something of papers handy. As far as I heard my friends’ experience, ordinary employees in Japan seem to meet the requirement of the Platinum card so you can apply for it at your ease. I called the desk three times, and my English was not good, it took me one and a half hours to complete the application. Although I felt it took a long time, the delivery of the card was speedy! I got the card, what!, in three days.

   I will explain the main characteristics of the AMEX Platinum card in the following article.