Just used my Bank ATM card as Mastercard

Just in case you're curious, I just bought tickets to evening Disneyland for their halloween celebration. Here's the details:

$396 HKD for 2 tickets
$52.61 USD '*DEBIT AUTHORIZATION'

It seems like a 3% fee is being charged:

$396 * 1.03= 407.88
407.88 / 7.75 = 52.63

I couldn't use my Capital One Visa as Visa is forcing people to use a PIN on international websites and I haven't received my PIN yet.

Foreign Fees Revisited

It looks like it takes a while for the international ATM network to split out the foreign fee from the withdrawal amount.

For my previous withdrawal from October 29th, I now see a separate Foreign Fee for my withdrawal of $1000 HKD:

10-29 FOREIGN FEE Oct 29 08:05 3016 $ 3.87

10-29 NONCITIBANK ATM WITHDRAWAL Oct 29 08:05 3016 $ 129.00

The fee split takes a while (around 2 days)... and once it happens the 3% charge is readily apparent.

Misc Stuff I bought related to PCCW

Bought a 32" Sharp LCD TV, LC-32BX5H for a special price of $4,380HKD. Part of a special offer when getting NowTV. This is pretty good considering the prices I'm seeing online range from $6,000 to $8,000. Turns out this TV has 32" WXGA (1366 x 768) resolution. Funny though since the TV seems blurry to me... though I don't have HDTV.

Monthly fee for NowTV is $253HKD/month.
Monthly fee for PCCW Mobile 3G - $190HKD/month

PCCW Blackberry service ordered in March. Service commenced April 10th, 2008.
18 month BES contract.
8820 retails for $4,488HKD, but this fee is waived with the 18 month contract.
Prepaid $3000 HKD for the 8820, which gets paid back to me over the course of 18 months by a deduction off my monthly bill.
Here's the prepay repayment schedule over 18 months:
HK $167 x (1st-17th) + HK$ 161 x 1( 18th) = $3000
Blackberry Enterprise Service - $658HKD/month (-$167 or $161 if final month)
1200 min voice w/ Unlimited China Data (Macau not included)

Blackberry Caveats

The service I have is the unlimited data plan for both Hong Kong and China from PCCW. This does not include Macau.

I was shocked to get a charge of about 3000 HKD (about 400 USD) when I was using my phone in Beijing for around 10 days. It turns out that the plan only supports DATA. Voice is still roaming, which averages to about 1 USD/minute!!

I called about an 'unlimited voice roaming' plan for China, but no such plans exist.

For travelers, best thing to do is to bring 2 phones - one for Blackberry/data service, and a local voice phone using a local prepaid card.

Blackberry service in Hong Kong with PCCW

I actually went through a lot of pain and heartache to get Blackberry Enterprise Service in Hong Kong (the service necessary for Corporate Exchange support).

I initially went to one of those PCCW street vendors and got cellular service (complete with 2 year contract) since I was getting cable and internet anyway from PCCW, I thought the bundling made a ton of sense.

It turns out the guy selling me the plan, even though he assured me it would work with a Blackberry, didn't know what he was talking about. Now I have a 3G plan that I don't really use. I lend it to relatives who visit me from out of town... that's about it.

You can't even get PCCW Blackberry Enterprise Service from a store front! You have to call their corporate support number. I ended up meeting a salesperson in a train station and signed the necessary things... I also needed to give a check from a local bank for the necessary prepay amount, and setup autopay against a credit card (thankfully, my US credit card worked).

Anyway, I was able to switch both of my PCCW cell numbers to use my new Capital One credit card by calling a PCCW Blackberry support number my salesperson gave me: 2888-8778. It only rang 2-3 times and a live person picked up! She was only supposed to help with my Blackberry number, but she helped me with my other PCCW as well thankfully.

Now the only things left to change are my cable service, and California fitness...

Debit Transactions against an ATM Card

I accidently setup my Netvigator Broadband account to debit against my Citibank Mastercard Debit ATM card, instead of my credit card.

I calculated the fees, and it turns out only a 1% Foreign Fee is charged in this scenario. Strange.

I just activated my Capital One card

I went through a lengthy process to finally activate my Capital One credit card that I've had for 6 months. I had to call the 800 number, as well as call a separate fraud line to notify them I'm in Hong Kong. The website at capitalone.com is pretty good. I was able to associate both my checking accounts to it without much hassle.

Now I need to switch over autopay for the following over to my new card:

• California Fitness
• PCCW Mobile (3G account)
• PCCW Mobile (Blackberry account)
• Netvigator Broadband/Cable

I guess it's a good reason for me to workout tomorrow...