The U.S. Bank Triple Cash Rewards Visa Business Card offers a $100 software credit for recurring software subscription expenses. To trigger the credit you need 11 consecutive months of eligible software subscription expenses. The fine print is as follows:
An automatic statement credit of $100 per 12-month period will be applied to your Account within two (2) statement billing cycles following 11 consecutive months of eligible software service purchases made directly with a software service provider. Eligible software service providers are identified by their Merchant Category Code (MCC) and purchases made at discount/retail stores or online retailers may not qualify. We do not determine the category codes that merchants choose and reserve the right to determine which Purchases qualify. We reserve the right to adjust or reverse any portion or all of any software services credit for unauthorized purchases or transaction credits. Account must be in good standing (open and able to use) to receive the credit.
What Works & Doesn’t Work?
For it to work it needs to have the merchant category code: 5734 “Computer Software Stores”.
Works:
The following have triggered the credit:
- 1Password: 1,
- Adobe
- BitWarden: 1 (can make this profitable by using the monthly teams plan that costs $4 per month)
- ChatGPT: 1,
- Code42 / CrashPlan Pro: 1,
- FreshBooks (given as an example on website)
- Hurricane Tracker: 1 (paid through PayPal)
- Inoreader: 1,
- Kagi search: 1,
- MaxMyPoint: 1,
- Midjourney: 1,
- Ninite: Ninite,
- NordVPN: 1 (e-mail received, unsure on credit)
- NumberBarn: 1,
Protonmail: 1,2 (doesn’t work anymore)- QuickBooks (given as an example on website)
- Remember the milk: 1,
- seats.aero: 1,
- Shopify: 1,
- Turbotax: 1,
- Vent Works: 1,
- Xero: 1,
Doesn’t work:
- Backblaze: 1,
- Datto: 1,
- Discord Nitro Basic: 1,
- Dreamhost: 1,
- Emisoft: 1,
- Google:
- Green Geeks: 1,
- Microsoft 365: 1,
- Mullvad: 1,
- Namecheap: 1,
- Simplelogin: 1,
- Todoist: 1,
Profitable Ways To Use The Credit
Getting the $100 credit only requires a monthly charge, there is no minimum and you get the full credit. This can make it profitable. For example if you sign up for
- BitWarden’s business team plan you pay $5 per month ($60 over 12 months) for a $40 profit. BitWarden is not on any portals.
If anybody finds a better one than this let us know in the comments.
A couple of others that work for me are shopify and Xero (accounting software).
I currently have three Triple Cash (and a Leverage I’m going to PC in Jan) — does anyone know if there’s a limit to the number of Triple Cash cards you can have open?
I can confirm MaxMyPoint’s charge on Stripe is also coded as 5734 “Computer Software Stores”.
How do you do Bitwarden? It seems to say 4.00 monthly billed annually?
I don’t see the $5 monthly option either
Once you start signing up, it’ll give you a monthly option
I’ve been tracking MCCs for a while, including 5734 “Computer Software Stores” for the purposes of this credit.
These code as Computer Software Stores (yes, some of them are odd):
• Code42 / CrashPlan Pro
• Ninite
• Vent Works (old data point, as of 2021)
• NumberBarn
• Hurricane Tracker (only if paid through PayPal)
• TurboTax (state eFiling fee)
• Remember The Milk
• Inoreader
These do not code as Computer Software Stores:
• Hurricane Tracker (paid directly)
• Datto (Backupify)
• Google Workspace
• DreamHost
• Green Geeks
• Namecheap
• Emsisoft
numberBarn? that’s an interesting one that I may be able to use.
Could I just buy a $5.00 phone number once a month with Numberbarn and get the credit?
Yes, I would expect that to work. As long as you get a charge in the correct MCC every month (the amount doesn’t matter), you should get the credit.
I believe the “month” is actually “per statement cycle.” That shouldn’t be an issue with an automatic monthly charge, but it could be helpful to keep in mind in some cases.
Looks like numberbarn is trying to charge $5 a mo + $2
Any freelance SWEs use this for Jetbrains?
1Password also codes as 5734 (similar service to Bitwarden)
Thank you for this!! I love 1Password – I would use it anyway – but I love it even more now that I can turn it into a moneymaker =D
Not directly related to the topic, but how do you guys access the business account of the card online? I can see the card in my personal USBank account but found no place to see the business related information.
i think this is related to a “central billing account”, something I believe DoC has written about before, you should be able to search for it.
You have to create a separate online banking login for the business, which will allow you to manage the “Central Billing Account.” I don’t remember whether I needed any special information to set that up, or if it was pretty straightforward to do.
I just did this last week. It was pretty easy to do, just not really explained on their site very well. You need to sign up for mobile banking using your business card number. You will have to use this second account to pay your bill.
You need to create a new online business profile. It is quite straightforward: instead of “login” click on something similar to “register new profile”. You need card details and a few other details like DOB.
Did you enter the central billing account number or the card number? Do you also have a personal profile for the account? When I tried this, it said my info was wrong. I haven’t called USB yet.
Thanks so much! It worked! I called customer service a few times, and no one could help me. They even escalated it, did this whole ‘investigation,’ and still came back with nothing. LOL.
Is the credit issued each month? I thought it’d be added as a lump sum after the 11th month..
I’ve charged Docusign for a year and realized it doesn’t qualify..
It is a lump sum, not monthly. When I first got the card, I threw everything at it and then downloaded the transactions to see what coded (and periodically check). I have a backup service I use for my computer that qualified, CrashPlan, that has worked the past two years. It’s not a money maker, but I was paying for it anyway so it worked out well. It was Digital River but I learned they’re now changing it so not sure it will qualify going forward.
Are you using the crashplan for $2.99 a month or the $8.00 a month one?
I’m using the small biz one so it’s like $10/mo or similar.
I’ve seen dropbox used to work, so I moved my cloud storage from Google One to Dropbox 10 months ago. But I have never received any email about this credit being triggered. I also read on reddit that there is some tracker on the app (which they said is hard to find due to a weird wording) once this benefit is triggered and starts counting. I don’t see that tracker either. So, I think I am screwed on this but I just can’t stop at 10th month mark.
I tried to use this benefit since like 3 years ago with various services. US Bank CSRs almost always tell me to contact the merchant to find out what MCC is used. One CSR even told me that my Dropbox transactions don’t have any MCC on them… Most CSRs at these merchant usually don’t even know what MCC is and gets suspicious of me asking for it. Some thinks it’s confidential info and not willing to figure it out. This benefit is the hardest to use I’ve ever seen on any credit cards use.
never received an email nor a tracker about my adobe monthly, but i did get my $100 credit very quickly once i hit the 11 months. not getting emails/having a tracker doesn’t mean anything so hopefully you’re fine
You can download your transactions as CSV and it will show the MCC to avoid asking the CSR.
Bitwarden is really $5 a month when billed monthly, the $4 quote is for annually. Still a money maker though, just not as much.