Establishing Credit - tips and tricks please

[thisamericanlife 3]

I don't know if this will be helpful, but in preparing for my own move, I applied for an American Express card for the sole reason of its Global Transfer scheme. It's not a secured credit card – you basically take your native card and it is transferred to the US arm to help you build credit there.

The card HAS to be issued by American Express - ie, not an American Express card issued by another bank/lender. Once it's been used in your native country to build up credit history with AmEx, the cardholder can then apply for a Global Transfer to the US. It stipulates you're meant to have held the card for 12 months before it can be transferred overseas, but when I checked, the operator just said that's so they can see you manage your credit responsibly, and you CAN have had the card for less than 12 months and it still be eligible for the Global Transfer.

You can read more here: http://www.americanexpress.com/global-card-transfers/

[Darnell 8,478]

was doing some research for my wife on this recently,

here's a list of secured cards..

http://www.creditcards.org/secured-credit-cards