Opening American credit cards while residing in the UK
To build a US credit record, you need a Social Security Number (SSN), which is now not available for most non-residents.   An alternative is an ITIN number, which is now available to non-residents only if they have US income giving a reason to file a US tax return (do you really want to get into all that...). Assuming you did have a reason to get a ITIN (one reason would be if you sold some ebooks via Amazon US, and need a withholding refund under the tax treaty), then recent reports on Flyertalk give mixed results on whether it's possible to get a credit card with an ITIN, and whether that would build a credit record.  It does sound possible in some cases.   A credit record in any other country would not help.  You would certainly need a US address, and banks are increasingly asking for a physical address, rather than just a mailbox. Regardless, building this history would be of limited benefit to you if you later became a US resident, at that point you would be eligible for a new SSN (different from the ITIN) and have to largely start again. If getting a card is the aim, rather than the credit record, you may find some banks that will offer a secured card (or a debit card), to non-residents, especially in areas with lots of Canadian visitors (border, Florida, Arizona).  You'd find it a lot easier with a US address though, and you'd need to shop around a lot of banks in person until you find one with the right rules.  Most will simply avoid anyone without an SSN. Go to the states on vacation. Get a virtual (or friend's) address. Get an ITIN from the IRS. Open a bank account. Get a secured credit card on your next trip from Capital One – add as much money as you can afford. One year later, you should have a decent credit score.
"I will disagree with the other answers. The idea that there is some to establish a ""credit history"" is largely a myth propagated by loaners who see it as positive propaganda to increase the numbers of their prospective customers. You will find some people who claim they were rejected for a card because they had no ""credit history,"" but in every case what these people are not telling you is they also had no income (were students, house wives, or others with no steady income). Anyone who has income can get a credit card or other line of credit regardless of their ""credit history."" Even people who have gone bankrupt can get credit cards if they have proven income. If your answer to this is that ""you have no income, but still want a credit card"", I would advise you to re-read that sentence several times and think carefully about it. I have never had a credit card and never missed having one, except when trying to rent cars which was somewhat complex and annoying to do in the 2005-2010 time period without a credit card. Credit cards have a number of disadvantages: I definitely agree with those who will tell you credit cards are convenient, they are, but for someone who wants to be financially prudent and build wealth they are unnecessary and unwise. If you don't believe me, read ""The Total Money Makeover"" by David Ramsey, one of the most famous and best-selling books ever written on personal finance. He actually will give you much better and detailed reasons to avoid CCs than me. After all, who am I, just some dumb rich schmuck with lots of money and no debt and a happy life. Comment on Culture I think it is pretty funny we have a lot of spendthrift Americans in this thread basically telling the OP to get lots of credit cards as soon as possible. If you asked the same question in Japan you would get completely different answers and votes. In Japan its hard to even use credit cards. The  people there are much more responsible financially than Americans; the average Japanese person has much higher wealth than a person with the same income in the United States. One of the reasons for this, among many, is that the average Japanese person does not use credit cards. A Japanese person, if you translated this question for them, would think the whole thing a typical example of how foolish Americans are." "I think your best bet here would be HSBC.  They will provide the required currencies, credit/debit cards, and very easy to use online banking transfers.  This includes an online ""Global Account View"" which features all of your accounts on a single screen and allows you to ""drag and drop"" money between accounts. Regarding fees, I suspect you will need to be a ""Premier Account"" holder in order to avoid any fees imposed on transactions such as money transfers and exchanging money between currencies.  In my experience HSBC offers extremely good exchange rates when exchanging ""large"" amounts of money ( greater than $10,000 / GBP 5,000 ).  Exchanging small amounts will carry a larger spread but still much better than most banks offer. In my experience, exchanging GBP 5000 will have a spread of about 0.50-to-0.75 percent, while exchanging more than GBP10,000 will have a spread of as little as 0.10-to-0.20 percent. In order to qualify for a ""Premier Account"", if my memory of HSBC UK serves me correctly, you will need to have at least GBP 50,000 net across all of your HSBC managed accounts, including stockbroking and other investment accounts. In order to open a banking Swiss account, you will need to travel to Switzerland and apply in person.  You cannot open a foreign bank account remotely.  With a foreign investment account, I believe you can open accounts remotely.  For example, I opened an account with Fidelity Switzerland using my Fidelity UK account directly from the UK, however obviously Fidelity does not provide banking services so this is not of interest to you. The simplest thing to do is to visit your local HSBC branch and discuss it with them in person. Other UK banks, such as Barclays, will also provide such services, but in my experience they are not as competitive on fees." You can open a NRE account or a NRO account online before you leave the US and transfer the bulk of your money into it.  After returning to India, your tax status will be RNOR (Resident but Not Ordinarily Resident) and you can keep the NRE and NRO accounts for several years (three?) and can do whatever you like with the money in them: transfer the money to ordinary (resident) savings accounts, or reconvert back to US dollars for payment of any outstanding bills (e.g. credit card bills) or US taxes for 2017 etc.  Don't forget to close your US bank account before you leave. Many banks allow opening of NRE and NRO accounts on-line, though some paperwork needs to be sent in (e.g. copies of passport pages, signature cards etc). In most cases, one month is more than enough time to complete these formalities. "There are a number of companies that will issue pre-paid chip and pin Mastercards this is probably the easiest way to deal with the issue. Most of them are limited to UK residents but with a very quick google I found this one http://public.neteller.com/content/en_US/cards_index.htm which seems to be open to US residents. I have no experience of using this company but when I googled ""chip and pin usa pre paid credit card"" they came up." Yes, you can keep the accounts.  In fact, I opened my US bank account as a Canadian citizen living in Canada, and still have it after living in the US and returning. American Express offers UK cards and the have an excellent system for transferring the cards.  You should definitely contact them about this, otherwise you will likely have to start building credit from scratch in the UK.  AE Global Card Transfer "You could convert your Australia cash to US dollars in cash now through a Foreign Currency provider like Travelex or UAE Exchange. To convert to USD cash right now, here's the rate you're looking at with both providers: The downside with either converting to cash now, or getting a ""cash passport"" like my other answer is you're not earning any interest on your cash. Alternate Option Anther idea is to just leave your cash in an Australian bank earning interest, and get credit card that has no Annual Fee and Free Foreign Currency Conversions. That way, use that credit card to make purchases while in the USA, and the currency conversion will happen at the time of the transaction using the credit card issuer's Bid/Offer spread. This is what I do. The credit card I use in the Bank West Platinum Zero Mastercard. Just make sure you pay the full amount off the card when the bill comes (not the minimum) to avoid paying any interest on the card's balance. The current conversion they give for a USD transaction is:" Nope. Or at least, if it were possible the company offering such a credit card would quickly go out of business. Credit card companies make money off of fees from the merchants the user is buying from and from the users themselves. If they charged no fees to the user on cash advances and, in fact, gave a 3% back on cash advances, then it would be possible for a user to: The company would lose money until they stopped the loophole or went out of business. The only card I've seen offer this on credit card purchases is Discover.  I think they have a special deal with the stores so that the cash-over amount is not included in the percentage-fee the merchant pays.  (The cash part shows up broken-out from the purchase amount on the statement--if this was purely something the store did on its own without some collaboration with Discover that would not happen). The first few times I've seen the offer, I assumed it would be treated like a cash-advance (high APR, immediate interest with no grace period, etc.), but it is not.  It is treated like a purchase. You have no interest charge if you pay in full during the grace period, and no transaction fee.  Now I very rarely go to the ATM. What is in it for Discover?  They have a higher balance to charge you interest on if you ever fail to pay in full before the grace period.  And Discover doesn't have any debit/pin option that I know of, so no concern of cannibalizing their other business.  And happier customers. What is in it for the grocer?  Happier customers, and they need to have the armored car come around less often and spend less time counting drawers internally.