While previously the terms on the U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve card (direct link) excluded previous cardholders from getting a bonus, the terms have now been updated to allow churning after 5 years.
One-time 50,000 bonus Points will be awarded if you are approved for a new U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve Visa Infinite Card and eligible Net Purchases totaling $4,500 or more are made to your Account within 90 days after Account opening. Points are earned on eligible Net Purchases. Please allow 1-2 billing cycles for your bonus Points to be credited to your Account. Existing or previous U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve Visa Infinite cardmembers are not eligible if you have received a new account bonus for this product in the last five years. Use of the Card is subject to terms and conditions of the U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve Visa Infinite Cardmember Agreement, which is provided at Account opening and may be amended from time to time. This offer may not be combined with any other bonus offer.
The U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve card launched in 2017. The card comes with a 50,000 points bonus, worth $750 on travel. Previously all prior cardholders were excluded from getting a signup bonus, and now only those who received a bonus within the last 5 year are excluded. We’ll update our post List of Churnable Credit Cards with this info.
Hat tip to reader Terp and to UScreditcardguide
[Original person who noticed the change.]
I’ve completed spending on the new card as of a few days ago – about 3 weeks before end of period – and as of this morning it says on the home page:
“Congrats! You’ve earned 50,000 bonus points (worth $750 in travel).”
When I click into the offer it goes to a page that says:
“Offers completed in the last 180 days. Statement credits will appear within two billing cycles.”
But I assume points will show up with next statement. I’ll update here when I can confirm.
Confirming points on second Altitude Reserve have now posted!
Chuck
@terp: Did you had to close first Reserve card? If yes, how long was the gap between closing and applying for the second one?
My first one was closed about 6 years before applying for this new one.
Cool, thanks
this card rules and is a keeper for me anyway, since 2017. I would not even risk closing it at the small chance I don’t get approved again. I make a ton of cashback off tap-to-pay and apple paying on mobile.
I just used this card for the $325 travel credit mainly. I pay the annual fee with 35,000 points and end up just cashing out the 20,000 or so points I have after that. Not enough to bother with on travel. I then close the card, ahead $525. BTW I did the same thing in 2017. So i churned it after 7 years.
I doubt they care that you churn it every 7 years. People don’t have that many 7 years
how soon does points post , after statement close ? also when does AF post , last day of the month ?
Points post with each statement close. You can see a transaction list with pending points beforehand.
AF posted at close of first statement.
Wow, never thought I’d have this card again. Back when it came out, all U.S. Bank cards were churnable, so it made no sense to keep it after a year. We got a rude awakening then with the new policy. I guess they finally want us launch users back.
As others have noted, you have traditionally needed another account to qualify. I opened a savings account and maintain a $500 balance to avoid fees and that did the trick.
I’d really love to hear DPs about whether you have to close the first card to get a SUB on the second card.
Redemption can occur via text and is called “Real Time Rewards”. https://www.usbank.com/customer-service/knowledge-base/KB0192126.html
You can easily redeem points without making a real travel purchase. If I have 20,000 points in my account that I want to redeem, I’ll buy a refundable airline ticket for just under 150% of that (in this case, less than $300.00). Seconds after the purchase, I get a text via Real-Time Rewards asking if I want to redeem points for the purchase (e.g., a $299.99 ticket would allow me to redeem 19,999 points at 1.5x). I respond “REDEEM” and the points are immediately redeemed and a $299.99 credit is added to my account. I then cancel the refundable ticket – never a claw-back. Whole thing takes 5 minutes once you’ve found a ticket at the right price.
The purchase MUST require LESS than the number of points you have in your account, or the redemption won’t trigger. In the example above, if I had purchased a $301 ticket, which would require slightly more than 20,000 miles, it would not trigger a redemption via real-time rewards if I only had 20,000 miles in my account.
The purpose is to allow you to convert your points to cash at the same rate as if you got reimbursed for a travel expenses.
“No claw-back” means that US Bank doesn’t take their money back.
Yes, you get a credit on your statement, which you can do whatever you want with (just like any other statement credit).
where do you buy the ticket , on app or website ??
So it is based on when you last got the bonus date not based on the cancellation date?
That’s the way it is at most banks that have a bonus limitation based on a previous version of the card. I don’t recall seeing a bonus limitation at any bank based on cancellation date beyond a short time (and in that case in combination with other stuff).
Citi did, with at least the Premier.
Don’t forget the $325 back twice in the first “year” including just after your annual fee posts, you can get the $325 again and cancel. Have done this several times, even when I didn’t realize I wasn’t going to get the SUB (but now I should be able to).
I just got approved for this card this week but got my last bonus for it back in 2019, so inside of the 5 years. Had no idea it wasn’t churnable. I guess I’ll take my PP and TSA credit but damn, what a waste.
Did you ever end up getting the bonus? Did the tracker show up?
I tried to applied the altitude card 2 days ago. received “Thanks for applying. You’ll hear from us soon” called the credit card dept and was told that everything was fine except I have not long enough relationship with them (which is their company’s policy” and so they are denying my application.
US bank is one of those relationship banks. Having a checking account helps too. Also one of few banks does manual underwriting.
hey, how do you do the “manual underwriting”? should i ask it during my call with them?