Update 4/1/19: The offer has changed to exclude employee cards from earning a bonus, so the max bonus is now $200, and requires the spend be done on the primary card only (thanks to reader charles li for pointing this out).
The Offer
- Signup for the U.S. Bank Business Edge Cash Rewards World Elite Mastercard and get $200 back when spending $1,000 within the first 90 days.
There are interesting terms on this signup bonus: “Each card meeting the spend requirements will earn cash back. Spend on multiple cards may not be combined to meet the requirement.” MMS confirmed this specifically with U.S. Bank that each employee card can earn the $200 bonus so long as that card spends $1,000 within 90 days. A reader also confirmed having success getting the bonus on each employee card.
You can not mix the cards, however; each employee card, separately, has to do $1,000 in spend to get the $200 statement credit.
Card Details
- No annual fee
- Card earns 3% cash back on cellular, gas and office supply store
- Card earns 1% cash back on all other purchases
- An annual bonus equal to 25% of your prior year’s Cash Rewards will be awarded following your Cash Rewards enrollment anniversary date, up to $250
- Free employee cards
- No cash back maximum, no expiration on the cash back
Our Verdict
We’ve never seen before a card which offers the signup bonus on the employee cards as well. I guess they are trying to drive signups from business with multiple employees.
The card application allows up to 10 employee cards for a total of 11 cards. They say you can call in and add more employee cards after approval. Important note: you do need the SSN and DOB of employee to be able to add them. Related, U.S. Bank does not report business cards to the personal bureau even on the primary card, and certainly not on the employee cards.
A business with many employees can get a $2,200 bonus by signing up for this card (!), though it would require $11,000 in spend. It’s possible you can get the $200 bonus even on employee cards added after the fact, but that much isn’t clear. (Apparently, adding more after the fact does not work.)
The card also has a 25% bonus after the anniversary. Not clear if the $200 signup bonus will get bonused. If yes, that would turn the bonus into $250 per card ($2,750 if you did the full 11 cards).
Definitely intriguing for the right person. Not sure how strict U.S. Bank is with employee cards, e.g. if your spouse sometimes helps with making business purchases, you can probably add them as an employee card.
Looking at the terms on a couple of other U.S. Bank business cards, like Select Rewards and Flexperks, it appears only this Cash Rewards business card has the special terms allowing the signup bonus on each card separately.
Check out these 22 Things Everybody Should Know About US Bank Credit Cards before applying.
Hat tip to reader John
My annual 25% bonus posted recently. Sad to say it was only on the regular rewards, and not on the $200 per cardholder bonus I got last year.
Just a FYI.
Bonus is back up to $500 for $4.5k spend but it gives 150 days for the spend. That’s nearly 5 months.
Not as generous as the AU offer they had last year but its “free” $500 for a card that does not report and has 0% for 12 months.
Thanks, got that here: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/u-s-bank-business-cash-rewards-500-sign-up-bonus/
PSA – US Bank cancelled / shutdown my new Business Travel Rewards Visa for spending $2000 at giftcards.com (transaction went through…account was closed afterwards). Sent letter said they suspect improper usage of account. Didn’t get the bonus as the account was closed before the points could hit the account. Will pay the $2000 account balance and move on. Don’t want to deal with their horrible customer service. Would have been nicer if they mentioned some where in their conditions that buying gift cards are not allowed. Also on a different US bank credit card, got charged $39 overlimit fee for going 5 cents over the credit limit. Be careful with this bank which is supposedly the most Ethical company deemed by ‘The Ethisphere Institute’ (wonder if they could not think of a better name).
Do you need to be an existing US Bank customer (e.g., have a US Bank checking accont) to be approved for this card? Or does that only apply to their personal cards, not business cards? Or it only applies to Altitude Reserve and not any other cards?
Major bummer. Should have applied before our vacation last month.
We just got in last night from almost three weeks abroad.
I am a little surprised that this lasted as long as it did.
Such is life.
Chuck, the change of signup offer does only affect the appl on 4/1 forward, correct? mine & employee cards were approved in Feb. and each will still earn bonus? Thx
Man equal parts bummed I didn’t try the ‘Reverse Dip’ on this one… I applied in Nov with me the wife and 4 ‘friends’ who work for me, and got a cool $1500 after spends. Was planning to have the wife (Already an AU) apply and do the same- but was worried the AU’s would already be ‘in the system’ or that she couldn’t open the card under the same Business EIN since she was already an ‘Employee.’ Now i don’t have to wonder I guess.
You’ll have whatever terms you signed up with, we aren’t sure exactly when they changed. If you applied in feb you should be fine
Removed it entirely
Is there a better US Bank business card offer than this one?
Not sure off the top of my head
Radisson if you are looking to diversity hotel points. The business card is the way to go since it comes with 40,000 points per year for the $60/AF.
When I first read Ceric’s post about Raddison it sounded too good to be true, but its true. I believe 40,000 Raddison points are worth $160. Thanks CericRushmore.
Yes they are still decent cards. Of course many people got rid of them when they devalued their program significantly years back. (They used include an extra free night on all points bookings.)
The yearly points are worth more than the annual fee even on the more pricey consumer cards. Also for every $10,000 you spend you get a free U.S. Night (Up to 3.) But of course you also get the points from the spend (50K). So for spending $10K you essentially get 2 free nights. – This is the only points card I put spend on.
As pointed out, the business version is the best deal due to the low annul fee, but I’ve never gotten it because I’m already a little heavy on US Bank cards.
i dont understand. at the end of the day if i spend 1000$ on each c.h. card will i get the bonus?
No, only one $200 bonus.
did us bank changed the term for the employee card bonus? I dont see they mention the bonus for employee now.
When did this happen? I didn’t read the term close enough when I applied 4 weeks back. Will see how it goes…
I tried checking wayback machine, but no information there – I don’t know when the change took place.
Approved 2/16 and received bonus on primary and AU.
How long did it take you to receive the bonus from the date the spending reached $1000? I applied 3/3, received the cards on 3/12, statement cut was 14th, and only AU reached $1000 but no bonus yet.
The bonus funds do take a while to post sometimes, but if you go to your main account and click to view your cashback
(pending or history) there can be some clues.
Once you meet the spend thresh-hold it will show on the list the total au user spend. It says something like:
” blah blah spend $1005.65″
Thanks for the hint! I went to my account, and I do see the following line for the authorized user —
New Account Spend Bonus $1,063.58 Pending
Looks like I should be able to get it?! That’s great! 🙂 I will post back when I do receive the bonus, but this is a datapoints for others who applied in March — yes, I applied a bit early in March.
Just to add the complete data points for my case. I did receive the bonus for each of my authorized users. This is indeed a very good deal. Too bad it is no longer available…
Any datapoints on USB biz cards being MS sensitive like Altitude?