how are their fees? Inheriting a large IRA that they’re managing and debating switching. Only problem is most of it is in Bond ladders so might have to hold for a while.
I received an offer today from Fidelity for their Rewards Visa Signature Card.
- Unlimited 4% Cash Back when deposited in a Fidelity account during the first six months.
- $150 Bonus after spending $1000 within 90 days.
- 0% intro APR for all purchases and balance transfers for 12 billing cycles.
2% cashback after six months.
Offer good to 12/31/2024
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US Bank is advertising on their site a new credit card that pays 4% on everything if you have a $100,000 balance in qualifying funds, which apparently is to include their investment accounts. They could be very attractive if you spend a lot on credit cards. They are just building a waiting list for applications so I do not know what the exact terms will be.
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A search did not produce this offer. How might I get it, since it seems attractive?
Mentioned upthread:
Thanks, I had missed the earlier mention.
The new US Bank card went live on Monday. No SUB, but 0% APR on purchases for 12-mo.
Starting today they are allowing product changes to this card. If you’ve been banned from Alliant, if you have BofA with Plat Honors, or if you can math, this seems like a no-brainer.
I’ve had a few US Bank accounts (mostly for SUBs) and in my experience there are a few known problems:
- The website is kinda ugly, but it works fine for my needs (viewing account activity, statements, and rewards).
- If you have business and personal accounts, then all will be combined into a single online profile, and card-linked offers for the personal CC accounts will be disabled.
- You can’t change statement dates on any bank accounts or due dates on business CC. I was only able to change the due date on personal CC. Super annoying to me.
- I haven’t looked at the ATMs, but a few years ago they were outdated to the point of eating my cash. Got the money back but haven’t used their machines since then.
One good thing is I’ve actually been pleasantly surprised by their customer service. I think they’re all US based and the wait wasn’t long the few times I called. I had some technical issues with my email and they were able to fix it after one call. Took two calls for the same problem with Chase.
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I appreciate the data point on USB. After all the drama with Fidelity’s CMA and extended hold times on ACH pulls, I have been thinking about what I want to do for an everyday account. USB has a decent footprint here.
The only thing I hesitate on wrt this card is whether they play games with the HYSA rate once they achieve their sign up goals for the card. I know investments are an option to bypass the HYSA to get the 4% rate, but IIRC there is a fee attached to the brokerage account.
For my situation specifically, I still get more value out of Chase’s credit card ecosystem, especially the Hyatt redemption opportunities. If that goes away though… this looks mighty tempting. Seems wise to get a USB relationship established vis a vis a checking account and go from there.
What’s their current ACH situation? Can you pull and push decent amounts of cash?
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Repeated from brokerage bonus discussions.
I just received my invitation to apply for the US Bank Smartly card. It still appears to offer a 4% cash back if you have $100,000 in assets in qualified assets, and these seem to include US Bankcorp investments. I can put enough assets into them to qualify. Am I reading the offers right.?
If I am, questions are how to be sure of getting card and good limit. I was wondering if transferring the assets in first might encourage them to give a higher limit on the card (I have high tuition payments of about $15,000 made via credit cards so this could be very useful).
The comment about them permitting changes from other cards might be useful since I have a couple with $15,000 limits, but I suspect you would not get the 0% offer for a year, which is valuable for the usage I have in mind.
I recently was declined for a Wells Fargo card in site of very high credit scores and several hundred thousand in the investment account, when they observed the associated checking account had little funds and was little used. I wonder if I would get a similar reaction from US Bank in spite of long term credit card relationships and banking (but with little activity in banking). Has anyone here applied for this card and had any experience. Any problems in getting securities into an account?
I think this is very clearly a play by USB to drum up retail banking business by using the card as a loss leader. From what I have read, they don’t like giving out certain cards without an established relationship. I believe USB Altitude Reserve was one of those cards - IIRC you needed a checking account to get approved for this card.
I would consult the DoC thread for data points on approval. There are some data points that indicate approval without the checking account.
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In my case I have a checking account, and the attitude card, and if a Smartly saving account is need to qualify I could easily open one. As mentioned the $100,000 limit for 4% could be met by the brokerage account.
If this is indeed a loss leader, I presume the terms will be changed in a year or so if they get customers who run up large credit card charges and get 4% back, which can happen without manufactured spending.
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I wouldn’t bother with HYSA unless your CC spend is high enough to justify the difference. They’re paying 3.8% now, and you can get 4.5% with T-Bills. I suspect if they play any games at all, it’ll be capping or reducing the 4% rate.
The brokerage account fee ($50/yr) can be waived with a $250K combined balance. The IRA account fee ($50/yr) can be waived with either $50K (according to my understanding of footnote #10 here) or $100K (according to reddit DPs).
Make sure you calculate the value of those Hyatt points appropriately, because in my experience, Hyatt is priced higher in dollars than comparable hotels. If you can get a $400/night Hyatt room for 20K points, then the perceived value of each point is 2 cents, right? But I could just as easily stay in a similar room at Hilton for $250/night. So the value of each Hyatt point would only be 1.25 cents. I personally value Hyatt at 1.6c/p from a very limited experience. Also I have more points and free nights (from SUBs) than I can spend in the near future.
I’ve only initiated ACH from external accounts, so I don’t know or care about US Bank’s own limits. I don’t know what drama you’ve had with Fidelity’s CMA, but I would not consider US Bank as a replacement for it.
I haven’t seen any data points on this, but I would apply for the card first just to make sure you can get it (assuming you’re not doing PC). One amazing tip I read recently is that immediately after you get approved, you can call their recon (or credit dept, don’t remember) and ask for a credit line increase. I’ve seen a few posts claiming success. Someone got approved for $500 (!) and got either 15K or 25K (I don’t remember) with the recon call. And they don’t pull credit a second time if this is done right away.
I wouldn’t bother applying if I can PC an existing useless card (and IMO all their cards are useless compared to this new card). No new inquiry and no new account is worth at least a few hundred bucks for a churner. Also US Bank does not allow credit line reallocations, so I don’t know if there’s anything you could do if you get approved for a smaller limit.
They do raise limits automatically if you use your card enough (according to DPs on reddit).
Actually I did read something that may be relevant. Someone kept getting declined when applying online. They went to a branch and the banker took care of it and got them approved. They have very stringent identity verification requirements. I personally was told to go into a branch when I tried to open my first (personal) account, even after they asked me a million “public record” (but not really) questions. When I applied for a second (business) account they tried to give me a similar run-around (“must visit a branch”) until I told them that I already had an account and that I went to the branch recently and verified myself. The person on the phone apparently either didn’t check or didn’t have visibility of the entire relationship until I mentioned it. As soon as I said it, he’s like “oh yeah I see it now, you’re all set”.
Long story short, you’ll have less trouble if you live near a branch and you might have better chances of getting what you want in-person.
Looking I did not see a branch near me, but did notice a $450 offer for a new Smartly checking account while my current account is labeled Preferred. This may be worth doing if they do not disqualify me as a current customer, especially since a couple of $4000 direct deposits might start way towards the $100,000 relationship. Alas, part way through the application they said " To be eligible, you or any owner(s) on your new Bank Smartly Checking account cannot have an existing U.S. Bank consumer checking account." Since they asked if you were an existing customer and were told yes, they could have posted this immediately.
ACH changes are the drama I refer to. Fidelity had to deal with a wave of fraud in September. As a result, they placed a 20+ day hold on any ACH pull initiated on their end. There is a megathread on their subreddit - they pissed off a lot of customers by doing this with no notice. I was hoping USB might have reasonable ACH limits and transit times attached to their accounts.
There’s truth to that, although I typically use Hyatt points in two cases. The first is on event weekends where everyone is charging an arm and a leg, and it’s hard to get a room anywhere at a decent price. Given that Hyatt does not use dynamic pricing, I have gotten some really good deals in the 3-4cpp range by doing this.
The second is to spend them at the GH in Kauai. Kauai is our “retreat” of sorts and Hilton really has no option there. Marriott has one, but it’s obscenely expensive on points and we prefer the Hyatt.
Hyatt has also protected globalist status pretty well - it’s not available unless you stay there or are willing to put (very) significant spend on their credit card. I get upgraded a lot more as a globalist than I ever did as a diamond at Hilton… and we get a proper breakfast unlike the dining credit diamonds now get.
Basically, I get enough value out of the ecosystem that while the ROI on Hyatt’s points don’t quite match the retail value of the room, it comes pretty close for me.
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Quick googling suggests everyone has different limits and the only way to see it is to login to your account. I’m guessing it has to do with relationship, age of account, etc. I’m sure it’ll start out being very low, and even at the high end it’ll probably be much less than Fidelity. Transit times are probably comparable to everyone else, except Fidelity, because 20+ days is just stupid. But there’s an easy workaround – don’t use pulls 
I don’t do many pulls into Fidelity, but my pulls have hold periods of 0-2 days.
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Out of curiosity, why does anyone do a a pull? I push almost everything to one or two banks that I trust, and then push from them into Fidelity / Schwab.
For me, my use case was taking advantage of Fidelity’s (formerly) very fast ACH times and high limits. I have a local credit union account that maxes out at 5k/mo for ACH transfers. I used to be able to initiate a pull at Fidelity and have the money available for trade instantly, up to 100k.
Unsurprisingly, there were individuals who took advantage of this and as a result, they now hold any ACH pulls (or check deposits) for at least 20 days.
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