1: https://www.us.hsbc.com/checking-accounts/products/premier/
HSBC operates a bit like a franchise, each country's branch has to abide by domestic regulations but internally customers with Premier status are basically VIPs and get expedited during account opening at overseas branches. If I remember correctly, they generally take into account all of your assets with the bank including e.g. loans and mortgages etc. when banking. They don't only look at your cash assets when conferring Premier status. So if you have a house or car loan with them you can easily attain Premier.
"Expats" is also used for elderly retirees moving to the Costa Del Sol, so IME it's not a particularly high-income or white-collar term.
Now, if you were talking about "non-doms" that would be a different matter :)
Of course, I agree that a bank accustomed to dealing with expatriates would probably be understanding of someone spending a lot of time in another country.