Alliant Credit Union

Has anyone here received AA from Alliant?

I’ve been using their ACH function for a while, only a few times a month, but they’ve just changed my ACH limits to $1,000 incoming, and $250 outgoing!

Nope. I’ve been with them for pretty much forever, though…

Rather big news at Alliant for holders of the Alliant Visa Signature card . . . and also for anyone considering this 2.5% reward card which imposes a $99/year fee.

Executive summary: We lose!!

Detail:

According to DoC Alliant will soon limit monthly purchases yielding 2.5% to ten grand. Above that: no rewards.

Here is the DoC discussion. Read this and weep:

Alliant will impose BIG changes on their formerly outstanding Visa Signature card

I virtually never spend $10K per month on the card, so it won’t affect me. In the 3+ years I’ve had the card I only spent that much once; when I purchased a used car for about $15K with the 3% rate first year.

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Have you run the numbers to see if you might be better off downgrading to Alliant’s no fee platinum card at 2% back? You could always upgrade again to the card with 3% for first year and likely get the first year without the $99 fee. According to DoC, you need to spend more than $19,800 per year to be at the break even point. Are there other benefits to the 3/2.5% card over the 2% card that makes you want to keep it?

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There’s a huge sweet spot between the $19,800 ($1650/month) minimum and $120,000 ($10k/month) maximum.

For those of us who have already been warned by Alliant, or those who’ve heard of them and been worried about receiving one themselves, this limit is a good thing. It implies that they’ve “solved” the so-called abuse problem, so there’s much less risk of individual scrutiny going forward.

As much as I like the idea of “unlimited”, we all know there’s no such thing as unlimited - it always catches up to you, eventually. And this removes a lot of the uncertainty as to how much is too much.

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It is a minimum of $1650 average (unbonused) spend per month just to cover the $99 fee. (Deleted bad info.). So the beginning of any “sweet spot” for me personally would need to be higher. Not sure about the poster to whom I was replying.

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Hitting $19,800 in annual spending is pretty easy for me as I put most things on the card including health insurance, auto and renters’ insurance, Internet, phone, cell phone, and a few other monthly bills. I also found that I can pay my rent with the card for a fee. Paying two months rent at a time on the card gives more rewards than the fee.

I guess that’s good that you have at least broken even from paying the annual fee. :wink: I am able to pay my mortgage (which is my largest monthly expense by far) with the 2% Citi DC via plastiq, but wouldn’t be able to do so with a visa. I get 5x on internet, phone, cellphone, and sometimes insurance payments. So paying a $99 fee for .5% more doesn’t make sense for me. I may do the first year at 3% with the fee waiver by converting my existing alliant card, but I have been focusing all unbonused spend to make the minimum spend for credit card sign up bonuses instead.

I’m guessing you only do this when there’s a lower fee promo? It doesn’t make sense to pay 2.5% to get 2% back…

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I do more than “break even.” Annual rewards average about 2.2%, sometimes higher, which is better than 2%.

Why do you use Plastiq and its 2.5% fee to pay your mortgage with a 2 % card? You’re losing money. You would lose less with a 2.5% card.

I also found I could pay my rent from the savings account and, of course, I pay my card from the savings account, which means I can keep most funds in a higher interest account rather than checking.

BLUF-I minimize paying fees and only do so when it make sense or “cents” for me. Yes, I only use my Citi DC to pay when there is a promotion for plastiq with less than a 2% fee or I have available fee free dollars on plastiq. It goes without saying that I would not pay more in fees to pay my mortgage with a credit card than I would earn in cash back. I mentioned it only in response to someone who said they pay a fee to pay their rent with the Alliant credit card and because it is my biggest expense that I am unable to pay with a visa. (I can only pay that expense with MC, either DC or (it used to be) MC debit cards for 1% fee, which I purchased at 5x.)

There is a single static fee for credit cards charged by the company that handles rental payments for my community. It works out to 2.8% for a single month’s rent, but 1.4% paying rent 2 months at a time, and 0.95% 3 months at a time which is the maximum they will allow to pay at one time. In addition to making a small amount with a 2.5% card, I don’t have to pay the card bill for six weeks, so can keep money in savings for a time.

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Alliant saving account rate dropped from 1.65 to 1.6 today.

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Warning: possible bad information

I posted up thread, a while back, that our Alliant Visa Signature statements would close this month on the eleventh (tomorrow). That was based on information from a single rep.

Wanting to be certain, I just telephoned them again to double check. This time the rep told me our statements would close on February twelfth!!

When will our statements actually close? It’s anyone’s guess. If I were to assert an answer it would be my guess. I wonder if even Alliant knows for certain when our statements will close. They are oblivious to the importance of this date to their cardholders . . . . or else they simply do not care one whit.

Bottom line I am holding off charging stuff I want on my March statement until this situation resolves itself.

Annoying? You bet!!

The discrepancy is surely due to the leap year. Any other year, the statement will close on the 11. This year it should close on the 12, due to the extra day in Feb. But where their system accounts for that extra day could potentially cause it to be ignored. More likely, the first rep you spoke with simply forgot about Feb 29.

Again, Alliant statement dates are not “anyone’s guess”. It’s simply taking your payment due date - which is the same every month - and going backwards 25 days (I think it’s 25, I’m not looking it up to confirm). That will be your statement date, every time.

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Anything is possible. But I doubt that. What she was doing was reading from a preexisting list of dates, sequentially and quite rapidly. There was not time for her to be counting days.

I continue to believe Alliant attaches scant little importance to our statement dates. Their focus is on the payment due dates, something to which I pay no attention whatsoever.

I paid the Alliant bill today. You can always pay early - that does the job, too – Argyll’s Postulate

(Thanks for reminding me.)

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It looks like Alliant has added additional detail and/or chaged the format of the account transaction history.

For instance, my direct deposit yesterday looks like this: “DEPOSIT ACH [employer_name] TYPE: EDIPAYMENT ID: [id] CO: [employer_name]”.

The payment on my Priceline Visa looks like this: "WITHDRAWAL ACH BARCLAYCARD US TYPE: CREDITCARD ID: [id] CO: BARCLAYCARD US

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Our savings interest rate has held. March is same as February.

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