Yea it’s still around, survived the SVB collapse.
1 Like
Shhh
I don’t like to talk about this benefit🧐. The more people use it, the earlier it’s likely to die…
It’s been around a long time. It’s so easy to cash out that’s it’s basically 4.5% cash.
1 Like
Correct, but whenever I try to convince someone to sign up, no one wants to deal with US Bank for whatever reason.
I do want to point out that their travel website is garbage, and their helpline is pathetic. I’ve probably accrued over $10k points with US Bank and I hate redeeming those. Some problems:
- Wait times to talk to an agent consistently are over 30 mins, without a call back option.
- Can only book hotels 3 days ahead of time, no last min reservations.
- International hotel collection is lacking, very difficult to find hotels
- Hotel rates are 10-20% higher than comparative expedia, priceline rates
- Their flight credit system (in case you cancel a flight) is a nightmare to handle
Also pretty inquiry sensitive so you have to be 0/6 or 1/12 in many cases for an approval. I’ve always been turned away, though have never had an issue with their wholly owned company Elan.
Why do all of this anyway? Just buy refundable flights, redeem points against it to get 4.5% and then cancel the flights. Altitude Reserve is literally one of the easiest to do this on.
1 Like
Not sure what you mean. If you refund the flights, won’t you get flight credit back?
You keep the credit duh. The flight is refunded. They don’t clawback the credit.
That doesn’t make sense. Is the credit stuck at the airline or US Bank travel?
-
Book refundable flight with credit card
-
redeem the points as Real Time Rewards against that charge
-
credit posts to your card
-
cancel flight, refund posts back to your card
-
you are left with the credit
Rinse and repeat till all your points are cashed out.
1 Like
Oh I see. You are offsetting independentLy booked flights using points, versus booking flights directly from points. I didn’t realize USB allowed that. Chase did that for a while
I’ve never been into the churning/manufactured spend stuff, but I have found what is my reasonable tradeoff for time vs return:
Everyday spending - Citi Doublecash - 2%
Groceries - AmEx Blue Cash Preferred - 6%
Gas - AmEx Blue Cash Preferred - 3%
Amazon - Amazon Chase - 5%
Restaurants/Entertainment - Capital One Savor - 4%
Apple products/App Store - Apple Card - 3%
Rotating Categories - Discover/Chase Freedom - 5%
Fairly easy to remember them all and I only have to check on the rotating categories/caps every month or so.
3 Likes
Here is a breakdown since you haven’t seen it before
2 Likes
Thanks. Much appreciated it. I did it once on Chase and once on Amex
Your using Plastiq I’m assuming for Mastercard mortgage payments?
Yup. Works great.
1 Like
That seems like so much work for so little return IMO. You may as well get the US Bank Altitude Reserve at that point.
1 Like
Why would that card make sense?
And that is maybe 10 minutes of work per month for $200/month more than just using a 2% cash back card. Hard to think of a way to make more from that little time.
4.5% cash back with less work than the ones you posted by just paying using a mobile wallet. This works at almost all the categories you listed.
1 Like
Ah. I don’t travel enough to make it 4.5%, I just want cash. And, unfortunately, a lot of places we shop don’t take mobile payments still. Still one I’ll have to look at later.
1 Like