Last week we broke the story about a new premium card from U.S. Bank being introduced calling the altitude reserve card. According to a source from Wallaby, the card specifics will be as follows:
- Card will be available starting May 1st
- Only available to existing U.S. Bank customers
- Sign up bonus of 50,000 points after $4,500 in spend within the first 90 days
- Comes with an annual $325 travel credit (this is applied automatically). Still unsure what this covers & also if it’s based on a calendar or card member year
- Annual fee of $400 ($299 for wealth clients according to this reddit comment)
- Card will earn at the following rates:
- 3x points on all mobile wallet purchases
- 3x points on travel
- 1x point on all other purchases
- Points are worth 1.5¢ when redeeming for travel through their portal
- 12 free Gogo passes per year
- No foreign transaction fees
- Metallic card
- Visa Infinite benefits (unclear if this includes airfare discount)
- Black car and rental car service
- TSA PreCheck or Global Entry reimbursement
The fact this card will basically earn 4.5% towards travel portal purchases or 3% cash back is pretty insane. More and more merchants are accepting mobile wallet payments so I don’t think this can really be overstated.
“Only available to existing U.S. Bank customers”
Should I submit my receipts from OM/OD? 🙂
Elan Financial Services is US Bank?
Can you do a product change from Fidelity Visa?
Does Elan count as customer of US Bank?
Elan is Bofa
That’s wrong. Elan is run by US Bank.
https://www.usbank.com/cgi_w/cfm/commercial_business/products_and_services/fi_svcs/index.cfm
Thanks for correcting me 🙂
FIA card services is BofA
That is ok DOC.
Can mobile wallet be used online? I have a huge amount of non-category spend and it’d be great if I could get 3x on that, especially after my Disco IT miles runs out.
Apple Pay does for select online stores. One of them being the Apple Store.
https://www.apple.com/apple-pay/
I’ve had two experiences with US, both awful.
First was the Carlson card where they took away the 2nd night free on awards perk while Carlson devalued Carlson points too. “Too good to be true” went to “almost worthless”.
Second was last year with the Olympic Perks promo on the Flexperks card. The ad I applied under gave almost double points from the US winning gold medals. They said I hadn’t applied under that promo and I even sent them screenshots of the offer. Went through several levels of appeal, all denied. I “cashed” out my Flexperks with a $400 Southwest ticket cancelled for Southwest travel funds for my points.
Will take a lot for me to ever deal with US again. Buyer beware.
and anyone who hasn’t frozen ARS and Sagestream needs to do so asap. They torpedo much more than just US. Very dangerous outfits.
Most recent data points seem to indicate that having these frozen will actually result in a denial from US Bank. See comments starting with 11/3/16: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/two-credit-bureaus-you-should-freeze-before-you-apply-for-a-u-s-bank-credit-card/
If US is worth the risk.
I had all my cards closed by Chase after a 7-year relationship for the reason that they got a crazy ARS report on me when my credit line reached a certain level. Took 3 years to straighten out.
I also had someone in another part of the country attempt to get a cellphone in my name from a storefront reseller using ARS.
YMMV actually, some approvals as well.
In my experience freezing ARS / Sage will lead to denial for business accounts. For personal accounts, not so much.
Imagine if it is $325 in incidental fees. That would be hilariously limited.
If US Bank gives PPS +2 and/or Boingo Access, this will be hard to pass this up for me and I will have to contemplate downgrading to CSP.
Any signup bonuses available for US bank deposit accounts?
Not currently, no
no, but they’re one of the banks you can use Amex with, and there’s no paperwork or branch visits to open an account. it’s all online, and you can pay $500 w/ an Amex (or Visa/MC) for each Checking, savings accts you open.
3x points with mobile wallet + 1.5c / point??? Hello flat 4.5x everywhere with Samsung Pay?
dont say that too loud dude…
Post should define what a “wealth client” is.
Do you know the answer?
you need to be part of the USB The Private Client Group ($100k), The Private Client Reserve (?) or w/ Ascent Private Capital Management ($25MM).
this is no different than Citi Gold or Chase CPC etc. but i guess now we know where they got the word reserve from. its used a lot within their wealth management group. maybe Chase copied USB.
Is this an extension of Flexperk? If I upgrade from flex perks to altitude do I keep my points?
Don’t believe so, as Flexperks are worth up to 2¢ each.
Are the points transferable?