【Updated 2021.6】This buff should also work on JD 618. If you’re interested, you can try it on 6/17. There are also a few JD 618 promos:

【Original article below】

China’s “Singles’ Day” shopping festival is like our Black Friday in the US: a season of celebration for both e-commerce platforms and consumers. Every year at this time, spending volume is enormous, and merchants and payment processors also relax the risk-control mechanisms that usually frustrate everyone in order to drive more transaction volume.

Review: “WeChat + US credit card” risk controls

For both merchants and payment processors, risk control is necessary because it helps prevent fraud, and that is something we do want. But it is hard to strike the right balance, so legitimate transactions often get falsely flagged. For example, both WeChat Pay and Alipay can be used with US credit cards, but those transactions are often incorrectly blocked—especially WeChat + a US credit card. Strict risk controls and limits do help fight fraud.

However, on this particular day, normal spending generally will not trigger that hidden red line.

There is not much notable about Alipay here, so let’s go straight to the payment limits for “WeChat Pay + US credit card”:

  • Supports online payments and offline scanned-code payments where the merchant scans your code
  • One account can link up to three overseas credit cards
  • The per-transaction limit for each card is either ¥2000 or ¥6000, depending on the account
  • A newly linked credit card may have a limit of ¥500 or ¥800, depending on the account
  • Per account: ¥10,000 per day and ¥50,000 per month

The hidden feature of Singles’ Day

On Singles’ Day itself—especially in the early hours right after midnight—cards on accounts in good standing can generally charge up to ¥6000. However, the per-transaction limit cannot exceed ¥6,000, the daily limit cannot exceed ¥10,000, and the monthly limit cannot exceed ¥50,000. These three are hard coded and cannot be bypassed.

The reason restrictions are loosened is simple: during the shopping festival, they need volume. If risk controls are too strict, transaction volume drops immediately. So the main gate is temporarily lifted.

So why should we take advantage of this?

Because the back-end anti-fraud controls are usually very strict and often falsely block legitimate purchases. You may use “WeChat + US credit card” and find that your very first transaction is flagged as fraud risk, or you get a message saying your foreign-card quota for the day has already been used up.

In that case, try again on Singles’ Day. If you genuinely need to buy something priced above ¥2,000 and below ¥6,000, it should usually go through.

Purchase tests

For example, one of the author’s Citi Master credit cards had never been allowed to go over ¥2000, but it broke through that limit on that day.

Another AMEX credit card had previously triggered fraud warnings every time it was used. We tried a ¥1600+ transaction and it worked fine. Right after that, we made another payment for mobile phone top-up.

A WeChat reader, CK, charged ¥6000 directly just after midnight that day (which normally would not work).

Image from WeChat reader CK

This “unwritten rule” is basically common knowledge among people in China who play the credit card game, but those of us focused on US credit cards may not know about it, so here is a simple introduction.

If your own card tends to trigger fraud alerts even for normal purchases, you can use this day to pay for things like a family member’s mobile phone bill in China. Usually that clears things up. Once there is some transaction history, future charges tend to go much more smoothly. Likewise, if you need to make a big purchase, you can use this day to pay with your US credit card and still earn cash back or points.

Bonus

This article is not too late, because besides Singles’ Day, there are two other major shopping seasons every year:

  • “Double 12” and “618.”
  • If you missed this one, you will have another chance.

Note: to emphasize again, risk control is necessary and exists to protect consumers. Even if your legitimate transaction gets falsely flagged, you can still contact WeChat for help under normal circumstances.

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