Citibank US account to Philippine account

I've experience the same thing. I have a Citibank accounts in the U.S. and have a pretty good relationship with them before I moved to the Philippines. (Most of their employees were Filipina and my wife is a Filipina). From the states they were not able to open a Citibank account in the Philippines.  Living  here in Pasig City I went to the Citibank here (only two).  I wanted to open an account (would have to jump through many hoops which I was considering) The real killer was that I could not link the two account, (what the hell?)   

Some other problems: I made a mistake in my 2015 return and surprise I received   a check from the IRS (Treasury Department) I wanted to deposit it in my stateside Citibank account, so I downloaded the Citibank mobile app, surprise, it doesn't work for the states. I was told it should have been downloaded while in the states.  I still have the check uncashed trying to figure out what to do with it.

Do to all the fraud here I'm careful not to use my debit card in any non Citi Atm's. I buy everything using my Citibank Credit Card. They charge a 3% foreign transaction fee. My card does pay me 1% rebate on purchases & 1% rebate when I pay the statement.   I pay the statement in full offsetting some of the charges.

We do our banking at BDO as its close to our house. BDO limits each withdrawal to $200, but you can have multiple withdrawal at the same time.   Citibank is the same except their limit is $300. So I make withdrawals at Citi to replenish my BDO account.