Hostel Fee Issues

Payment. If I could have paid my hostel (dorm) fee before I left, I definitely would have. However, the fees were dependent on what type of room I got and I wouldn't know until I arrived. I could have up to three roommates or none at all, but at least they provided the estimated prices.

Left: I-House information; Right: Payment breakdown for all hostels

Fortunately, I came prepared to pay around $7,000 in cash (it ended up being $6,315 HKD as seen in the yellow table above because I got placed with two other international students).

Unfortunately, the fee was not charged on my account until about two weeks into January, so I could not pay it off immediately and had already spent a decent amount on transportation, food, etc.

What I had to do. I asked if I could pay online, with a credit card, or with a personal check, but I found out that they only accepted payment by cash at any Hang Seng Bank location (there's one on campus in the John Fulton Centre). Since I did not have a debit card, I used my credit card and pin number at one of the ATMs on campus to take out money. I selected the option to do a cash advance and found out from my bank that I would be charged at most a 1% transaction fee every time I took out money at an ATM with my credit card. I could have set up a bank account, but this was the fastest and most convenient option for me at the time.

Bank account option. From my observation, making a bank account is not common for students at CUHK, because we were told from the start that there are ATMs on campus. However, it is an option you should consider, so that you won't get charged every time you take out money. Basically, there's two banks on campus: Hang Seng Bank and The Bank of East Asia. It takes months to set up an account with HSB, so it's not worth it if you're only going to be there for a semester. At The Bank of East Asia, it takes only about a day or a week depending on how you transfer your money. If you do a direct line transfer, it should only take a few hours, but since my account is with a credit union and not a big bank, it wouldn't work for me. Instead, I would have to transfer my money by making a deposit via cash or check. I brought a personal check, but because it was from a foreign bank, I was informed that it would take about a week to process. Given my options, I may decide to set up an account after the Chinese New Year week long break.

Overall, the only challenging part for me was to get that large amount of money in cash, but once I did that, I just screenshotted my payment number on my CUSIS account and showed it to the teller when I was paying my fee at the Hang Seng Bank on campus.

Tip #1: Your CUSIS account is equivalent to UH Manoa's Laulima and STAR websites. You can view the debit note (payment amount), register for courses, receive emails, and view your course assignments on BlackBoard (where professors can upload announcements and post their PowerPoint slides). The payment number that is given on the same page as the debit note is your student ID number with an extra number at the end, and is needed when you are paying your fee.

Tip #2: Give yourself some time. Because that is a lot of money, you might not be able to take out that much cash per day at the ATM. For me, I wasn't able to take out the whole payment at once, so I took out half and paid off the remaining balance with what I had left from the beginning of the trip. If I didn't have enough, I would have to come back the next day to take out the remaining half. Additionally, keep in mind that there is a $200 HKD charge for late payment, so it's better to pay before the month ends (or whenever the deadline is).

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