U.S. Bank Cash 365 American Express Card Review – $100 Sign Up Bonus + 1.5% Cash Back On All Purchases

Today U.S. bank launched the U.S. Bank Cash 365 American Express card (alongside the U.S. Bank FlexPerks Gold American Express Card that we’ve already reviewed). It seems that 1.5% cash back cards with a $100 sign up bonus are the flavor of the month with Wells Fargo offering their Cash Wise card and Barclaycard also recently launching the Cash Forward card). Let’s take a look at U.S. Bank’s attempted with the Cash 365 card.

• $0 annual fee
• Card earns 1.5% cash back on all purchases
• Rewards never expire ($20 minimum redemption)
• $100 sign up bonus when you spend $500 within 90 days of account open date. You also must have a qualifying U.S. bank product:
  • Any U.S. Bank-issued Credit Card
  • U.S. Bank Checking or Savings Account
  • U.S. Bank Mortgage
  • U.S. Bank Home Equity Line of Credit
  • U.S. Bank Student Loan
  • U.S. Bank Retirement Accounts

Our Verdict

There are cards that offer 2% cash back or more on all purchases and plenty of cards with a sign up bonus of more than $100. In fact at the moment the Fidelity Visa from Elan (subsidary of U.S. bank) offers 2% cash back on all purchases and a $100 sign up bonus, so I don’t see why anybody would sign up for this new card (even the Wells Fargo card is better because of cell phone insurance). The one upside to this card is that it’s an American Express card, so you can enroll in AmEx Sync Twitter offers, but good ones have been pretty thin recently. I wish this trend of 1.5% cards would die, I’d much rather some category bonuses or a decent sign up bonus – then again I’m not exactly a profitable customer so I’m not surprised card issuers aren’t creating new cards that I like.

If for whatever reason you still want to apply, read 20 Things Everybody Should Know About US Bank Credit Cards first and make sure you’ve frozen these two bureaus.