Credit Cards and Points in Thailand: My Expat Setup

Before I moved to Bangkok I had this dialed in. Amex Gold for restaurants and groceries at 4x points, Amex Platinum for travel and lounges, and almost every flight booked with Membership Rewards. It was a good system in New York.

It fell apart in about a week here, and not for the reason I expected. The obvious problem is that American Express is barely accepted in Thailand. The bigger problem is that a large share of my spending stopped touching a card at all.

This is what I actually carry now, what I got wrong, and the one account change I had to make that nobody warned me about.

The Amex Problem

If you are arriving with a wallet full of Amex, adjust your expectations. Most restaurants, shops and local businesses here do not take it. Some international chains that accept it elsewhere do not accept it in Thailand.

I still have the Gold and the Platinum. Since moving, I have used them for a handful of transactions. The Gold in particular is dead weight: its whole value was 4x on restaurants and US supermarkets, and here restaurants rarely take Amex and US supermarket spending is zero by definition.

The Platinum gets a bit more use for online bookings and hotels. Everything else moved to my Chase Sapphire Reserve, which runs on Visa and is accepted essentially anywhere that takes a card at all.

The Cash and QR Reality

This is the part that actually changed my points strategy, and it is not about which card is better.

Thailand runs on cash and PromptPay QR. Street food, market stalls, small restaurants, motorbike taxis, laundry, a lot of convenience-store purchases. No terminal, no card, no points. PromptPay pulls straight from a Thai bank account, so those transactions earn nothing on a US rewards card.

Roughly, about half my monthly spending in Bangkok goes on a credit card. In the US it was 90 to 95 percent. That is a large permanent cut to points earning and it is the thing I would tell anyone to plan around before optimising which card to carry.

The irony is that the best things here are the ones you cannot put on a card. You are not earning 3x on the 50-baht plate of pad thai that beats most restaurant meals.

My Current Setup

Chase Sapphire Reserve

My daily driver for anything that takes a card: restaurants, malls, online, Grab, subscriptions. In the US I barely touched it because Amex earned more per dollar in my categories. Here it does almost all the work, purely on acceptance.

Worth saying that the Reserve is not the product it was when I signed up. Check the current fee and credits against what you will genuinely use rather than assuming your old maths still holds.

Charles Schwab: Checking and Brokerage

Schwab is now my US banking. The checking account is where I pull cash from, and the brokerage sits alongside it.

The reason this matters here specifically: Thai ATMs charge a local operator fee of around 220 THB, roughly seven dollars, on every foreign-card withdrawal. It is charged per transaction regardless of amount, and there is no way to avoid it at the machine. An account that reimburses ATM fees turns that from an annoyance into a non-issue. I take out larger amounts less often anyway, but the reimbursement is what makes cash practical.

One habit worth building: when the ATM offers to charge you in dollars instead of baht, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is always worse than letting your own bank handle it.

The Account Change Nobody Warned Me About

I used to bank with Mercury Personal and I would have recommended it. I do not any more, and the reason is worth knowing before it happens to you.

I opened a Mercury business account using my Thailand address. That triggered a review, and Mercury came back and told me Mercury Personal is for US residents. I moved my personal banking to Schwab.

This is not a Mercury complaint so much as a category warning. US fintechs run periodic KYC refreshes and reassess based on your residential address and where your account activity actually happens. A US address you no longer live at, combined with logins from Bangkok, is exactly the pattern that gets flagged. Traditional brokerages and banks with expat experience tend to handle this better than newer fintech products, which are often built around a US-resident assumption that only surfaces when you stop being one.

• Do not let a US address go stale: if you are keeping an account, keep the address on it accurate and current.
• Have a second US account before you need it: losing your only US banking relationship while living overseas is a genuinely bad week.
• Check the terms on newer fintech products: residency requirements are often buried and only enforced at review time.

This is the mirror image of what is happening on the Thai side, where banks are now closing accounts based on visa type. If you are on a DTV, read the Thai bank account guide before you assume you can open one here.

Should You Cancel Amex While Living Abroad?

I have been working through this myself. I still hold a large Membership Rewards balance from years of US spending, while almost all my new points now accrue with Chase.

The Gold is the easier call. Its earning categories are US restaurants and US supermarkets, and its credits are tied to specific US merchants. From Bangkok that is close to zero value against the annual fee.

The Platinum is harder, because some of its credits still work abroad and the lounge access has real value when you fly often. My rule is to add up the credits I will actually use in the coming year, not the ones the marketing page lists, and compare that to the fee. I am keeping mine for now and I re-evaluate every renewal.

Keep Your Points Alive

The one thing to get right before cancelling anything: Membership Rewards points generally disappear when you close your last card that earns them. If you are going to close a paid card, make sure you still hold a card that keeps the programme balance alive, or move the points somewhere useful first. Check what no-fee options your issuer currently offers rather than assuming the downgrade path you remember still exists, because those product lineups change.

Award Travel From Bangkok

This is where being based here is genuinely better than being in the US. You are close to some of the best airlines in the world: Singapore Airlines, ANA, Japan Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Thai Airways. Business and first class products that are hard to book from a US origin are a short flight away.

I use seats.aero to search award availability. It scans multiple programmes at once, which beats checking each airline site individually.

The Positioning-Flight Trick

Suvarnabhumi has limited long-haul options to the US, and award availability on what does exist is inconsistent. The move is to search nearby hubs as well, especially Singapore Changi. Singapore is about two and a half hours away, Changi is one of the best-connected airports anywhere, and a budget positioning flight is cheap.

So I search BKK first, then SIN, and more often than not the better product and better availability is out of Singapore. The catch is that a positioning flight is a separate ticket: a delay is your problem, and you may have to collect and recheck bags. Leave real margin.

Transfer Partners

Partners and ratios change, and transfers are almost never reversible. My sequence is: find the award seat first, confirm the issuer still lists that partner at that ratio, then move the points. Never speculatively.

My rough plan is to spend the older Membership Rewards balance on large premium-cabin redemptions and accumulate Chase points for everyday bookings and hotels. Both programmes have partners worth using from Asia; which ones are best depends on where you are going and what is available that week.

Lounge Access

Priority Pass through the Sapphire Reserve covers me across Asia. Suvarnabhumi has several Priority Pass lounges, and it works at Changi, the Tokyo airports, Incheon and most places I transit.

The thing you give up by deprioritising Amex is Centurion Lounge access, and in Southeast Asia that costs you almost nothing because there are none here. You would only feel it transiting US airports on trips home.

If I Were Starting Fresh

• One good Visa or Mastercard travel card: this does most of the work. Acceptance beats earning rate here, and it is not close.
• A checking account that reimburses ATM fees: at 220 THB a withdrawal, this pays for itself immediately.
• A second US account as backup: for when a card gets frozen or a fintech decides you no longer fit its profile.
• A Thai account if your visa allows it: PromptPay is how the country actually pays for things. It earns nothing and you still want it.
• Amex only if the credits work for you: it is a benefits decision, not a spending card, once you live here.

What I Would Tell Someone Arriving

• Carry a Visa or Mastercard: Amex will fail you at the wrong moment.
• Keep cash and PromptPay: half your spending will not touch a card.
• Decline dynamic currency conversion: always let your own bank do the conversion.
• Recheck benefits at renewal: issuers cut credits quietly and fees rarely go down.
• Find the award seat before transferring points: transfers are one-way.

For the local side of this, including PromptPay and which visas can still open an account, see the Thai bank account guide. For what things actually cost here, see the cost of living breakdown.