If you live abroad but still maintain Credit Cards in your home base, you will occasionally get pretty interesting offers you can’t take advantage of fully, like this one from British Airways / Chase VISA:
You will earn a total of 7 Avios for each $1 spent, on up to $1,500 in total combined purchases each month, in the grocery store, gas station, and restaurant categories from 08/01/2020 to 09/30/2020.
You might wonder, how do I pay for these things living in another country? Well, since this card in particular has no foreign exchange fees, you should be able to use it locally to earn bonus points, as long as the merchant categories work out. So here is a look at merchant vs category for a few venues in Japan:
Groceries:
- Seijo Ishi (成城石井)
- MARUETSU (マルエツ)
- LAWSON
- FAMILYMART
Food and Drink:
- MEJIRO TANAKAYA — liquor store
- MCDONALD’S
- FRIJOLES
- DOMINO’S PIZZA
Misunderstood:
- Beruberu — “Personal” but actually a Restaurant
There is no way to manufacture spend in the Grocery category in Japan, as far as I can tell, but you can certainly try to focus your regular grocery or conbini spending there.
