As I’ve often written about on this blog, I do as much as I can to earn miles and points so that our family can travel for as close to free as possible. Most often, this takes the form of earning large signup points bonuses for new credit cards. In fact, I’m now up to about 18 active credit card accounts and continue to apply for new ones about every six months. (And yes, my credit score is pretty high and continues to stay that way even with this many cards.)
Of course, I’m always looking to earn more points and one easy way to do this is to get your spouse or partner to also sign up for credit card bonuses. Unfortunately, we live in Argentina and my Argentine wife had absolutely no credit history in the United States. That meant she’d have zero chance of getting approved for any credit cards
I started to work on building her credit history about two years ago. I first added her as an authorized user on all my credit cards that allowed additional users for free – American Express, Chase, etc. Luckily, she already had a social security number from previously being employed by a multinational firm and working in the US. That made this simple, but she could also have applied for an IRS Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITN). I’d be responsible for any of her charges, but she’d start to build a credit history.
It seems this strategy worked!
She just recently received a credit card application from American Express in the mail. (We have a US mailing address that we use.) We applied online and she was instantly approved! This was a solid offer for the American Express Gold card with a 50,000 point sign up bonus after spending $1000 in three months and first year fee waived. Not too shabby…
Now, with one credit card under her name, we’ll keep building her credit and apply for another round of credit cards in about 3-6 months and see how we do.
So, to recap, how can you build a credit history for a foreign partner?
If they have or can get a social security number, do that. If not, get them an ITN. ( This thread on Flyertalk has several reports of which banks approve credit cards with only an ITN, including Bank of America, Citibank, Discover, Chase, and Amex.)
Now, add them as an authorized user on your credit card accounts and use that card. Over time, they will build a credit card history and should start to get pre-approved offer letters.
That was all we had to do and now we can start building more miles and points!