Best cash back card in the US for Canadians without a SSN? | Credit card reward programs | Discussion forum

traveling_ING said

RBC USA offers a credit card for its Canadian customers but it doesn't have any rewards to speak of. I was wondering if anyone has found a credit card on US soil with at least 1% cash back available to Canadians. The best I found is 0.5% cash back with a US$ CC with BMO, but its in Canada. I'd love to find a CC in the US that doesn't insist on a SSN, has no annual fee and has at least 1% cash back on general expenditures, not specialized stuff that is useless unless you're in the US.

To the best of my knowledge you MUST have either a SSN or an ITIN (Individual Taxpayer Identification Number) to obtain a US based US$ card from a US bank. It appears Canadians can get an ITIN fairly easily but that opens up other cans of worms with which I don't want to deal.

The real sticking point seems to be the requirement for the applicant to have a US address. For many people that is much harder to obtain. I suspect that sticking point is also due to one lacking a US based credit history.

This leads to the Canadian Bank's offerings. The only two of which I am aware are RBC Bank USA's card (which you mentioned) and an offering by TD Canada Trust's new "cross border banking".

I obtained the RBC Bank USA card to either replace or supplement my existing Canadian Based BMO US$ card. The only limitation to the BMO card is that the billing address does not have a ZIP code and so trying to use US gas pumps was a large hassle. My RBC card has my sister's US address as the billing address and that got me a ZIP code to use for it. But I decided I would rather have the cash back and so learned the easiest way to get the pump going with a non-US card detailed here.

I pay $49.00 per year with the BMO card to get 1% cash back. I just looked and it looks like my card is grand-fathered as the US$ card now appears to have a $35 fee with no cash back. I've also just been doing the math to determine if I will drop the $49.00 fee as I made just $58.68 this past 12 months which means I netted less than $10, but that is better than $0.00.

If you find the type of card you are looking for, please let us all know.

Further reading is here and here .

Greg