22 Things Everybody Should Know About U.S. Bank Credit Cards

US Bank doesn’t have the the most enticing credit card offerings, but they do have a few credit cards worth applying for. Before doing so (or if you already have one of their credit cards) there are a few (

Before applying for any US Bank credit cards, you freeze your SageStream & ARS credit reports. US Bank checks these reports, but it doesn’t seem to help in the approval process at all, just another reason to deny you. Although you will need to have these unfrozen when you sign up for a US Bank checking account (they sometimes offer promotional bonuses, don’t need to be unfrozen if applying in branch).
(Not currently able to check pre-approvals for US Bank) US Bank allows you to view your pre-approved offers before applying. This can be useful for people that don’t have great credit, just remember that this doesn’t guarantee pre-approval.
There is at least one data point of US Bank merging multiple inquiries in the same day into a single hard pull. That being said, US Bank is quite difficult to get approved with.
There is no hard limit to the amount of US Bank credit cards you can hold. But keep in mind that the more cards you have with them, the more difficult it is to get approved.
If you are denied for a credit card with US Bank, make sure you call their reconsideration department. You won’t always get approved, but it’s worth a call anyway. If you haven’t called reconsideration before, read these tips first.
US Bank won’t agree to pull a different credit report if you have the one they want to use frozen. You can’t eve give them a PIN to access the frozen report.
It’s possible to churn US Bank credit cards. Just keep in mind they are such sticklers when it comes to approval.
US Bank reports your credit utilization based on what it is on the 1st of each month. This is useful to know if you need to reduce your credit utilization for FICO score purposes.
You can also change your statement closing date. It might make sense to change it to just before the end of the month, that way you’ll always show a low balance (as mentioned above).
When it comes to credit limits, US Bank is quite weird. They will usually do a soft pull when using the online form or via phone but this is no longer always the case. For reallocations, they don’t seem to offer them anymore
If US Bank increases the sign up bonus of one of their cards that you’ve recently applied for, they should match it. US Bank don’t mess with their sign up bonuses often, so we don’t have a lot of data on them but it’s worth a try.
If you cancel your card within 30 days of the annual fee posting, they’ll refund it for you. Can be useful if you forget to cancel the card before the annual fee hits.
You can’t product change between brands (e.g Club Carlson to Cash+). If you do want to downgrade a US Bank branded card, then the Cash+ card is likely to be your best option with your choice of 5% categories (even if most of the good ones are gone).
US Bank offers a referral program. If you want to refer one of your friends to one of their cards, then you can get a bonus of up to 10,000 points per referral.
When meeting minimum spend requirements, the clock starts when your card is approved.
Spend on authorized user accounts doesn’t count for minimum spend requirements. Only spend on the primary card counts.
US Bank will usually waive the annual fee on FlexPerks cards when calling retention. Actually they’ll just give you enough points to offset the annual fee, but same difference really (actually a little better since you could pay the AF in cash and then use the points to get more than that value in travel redemption).
It’s not possible to get sign up bonuses paid out earlier than expected. So make sure you apply with plenty of time before you want to redeem those points/miles.
US Bank waives the fees on their checking account if you have one of their credit cards. This is useful when they are offering a sign up bonus on those accounts. Personal credit cards will waive the fees on personal accounts and business credit cards will waive the fee on business accounts.
US Bank doesn’t report business credit cards to the personal credit bureaus which is useful for keeping your credit report cleaner.
You cannot check your application status with U.S. Bank online, instead you must call them on (800) 947-1444.
If you have auto-pay set up with U.S. bank they will pay the full statement balance if you make a partial payment, we’re unsure what they will do if you make the full payment.

You can view other posts in this series by clicking the links below.

If you want to discuss any of this in the comments, please do so. I’d recommend not referring to each item by it’s number, as that changes as we add in more/remove others.

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