Fidelity Visa Credit Card From Elan Services (U.S Bank) Review

Update: Card currently comes with a $100 sign up bonus, making it more attractive.

Fidelity recently decided to switch their credit card from FIA card services (Bank of America) to Elan Services (U.S Bank). I haven’t done a thorough review of this card and how it compares to the previous card offered in the past yet, so here goes.

Card Basics

  • Card earns 2x points for all purchases, no limit on the amount of points you can earn and no expiry
  • No annual fee
  • No sign up bonus
  • 14.24% APR
  • 1% foreign transaction fee
  • EMV chip with signature
  • Runs on the Visa payment network

How Much Are Points Worth?

We know that if you deposit these points into any of the following accounts you’ll receive 1¢ per point. You need a minimum of 5,000 points ($50) to redeem.

  • Brokerage account
  • Fidelity® Cash Management Account
  • Fidelity-managed 529 College Savings plan
  • Retirement account

One of the advantages of the old American Express Fidelity card is that it earned WorldPoints, which are worth up to a maximum of 1.76¢ a piece. U.S Bank offers the FlexPerks program, with points being worth up to 2¢ per point, unfortunately this card does not earn these points directly.  It’s still possible that you might be able to transfer these points into an account that earns FlexPerks, but that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me so I doubt that it’s possible.

Existing Cardholders

If you’re an existing cardholder with the American Express card, chances are your question can be answered by reading the linked F.A.Q’s. I think the transition is a net loss for existing cardholders, before we were able to take advantage of AmEx sync offers (and Serve online loads when that was working for most people) and also had access to the WorldPoints program. On the bright side, we will be able use this card at Costco when they move from American Express to Visa on April 1st, 2016.

Our Verdict

More and more card issuers are coming out with 2% cash back cards these days, this is probably one of the better cards – although I’d love it if they dropped the foreign transaction fee to 0%. It’ll be interesting to see if they ever offer a sign up bonus on this card and what type of credit criteria they have for this card and what credit limits they have extended. If you’ve applied for this card since the switch, let us know more of this information in the comments and we’ll add it to the post.

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61 Comments
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fdic
fdic (@guest_1507111)
December 11, 2022 17:44

Does anyone know which credit report Fidelity pulls for this card? thanks

Otto
Otto (@guest_1101221)
December 1, 2020 16:40

Didn’t see this posted anywhere but I received a targeted email for using Apple Pay. Email received 11/24.

Subject: (name), get a $10 statement credit when you use Apple Pay

Details:
Spend at least $50 with your Fidelity® Rewards Visa Signature® Card using Apple Pay by December 31, 2020.

Get a $10 statement credit!

Superchurn
Superchurn (@guest_1077792)
October 22, 2020 19:23

DP:
Applied on 10/22/20 after getting a targeted mailer
Fico: 770EQ, 762TU, and 703EXP.
160k income
2 year old (but mostly empty) checking and brokerage accounts already
5/24 and 2/12
They pulled TU, where i had 1 other pre-existing inquiry also from 10/22/20
Got a 7-10 day decision by US mail message. Too late to call recon (800-364-9648) today, but will call tomorrow to see if i can get approved faster

Superchurn
Superchurn (@guest_1078214)
October 23, 2020 17:13

Called in, they basically told me everything with the app is fine, and they just have an approval process, and i’ll hear by mail. Pretty ridiculous. I’m not optimistic. Will update with decision

vince
vince (@guest_720375)
February 11, 2019 12:04

I think it should be stated that Citi DoubleCash is way better due to price protection.

momo
momo (@guest_768237)
June 7, 2019 12:37

And it is a $25 minimum to redeem instead of the $50 with Fidelity’s card.

HENRY Y
HENRY Y (@guest_671503)
November 12, 2018 21:06

I redeemed my points in the reward center today into my fidelity account via statement credit, 11/12/2018, and found that the rewards are cut in half. 10,000 points redeemed only $50. This isn’t a 2% cash back card anymore…..WATCH OUT GUYS!

Chuck
Editor
Chuck(@chucksithe)
November 12, 2018 21:59

You only get 2% if you redeem into a Fidelity account – most people do it to the Fidelity Cash Management account.
Cash redemptions have always been .5 cents per point.

Cathianne Watkins
Cathianne Watkins (@guest_439474)
July 14, 2017 07:33

The switch for former Fidelity Visa card customers was handled poorly.
Next former card holders got stuck with a customer un-friendly (greedy) company. I’m sorry Fidelity made this choice because it was nice to have rewards shuttled automatically to investments.
However, after two glitches in less than a year, I closed my Elan-Fidelity card. There are other high rewards card options that value you as a customer.
I recommend you look at those options. USBank wants your money, they don’t care about serving you.

rick
rick (@guest_398107)
April 29, 2017 22:33

What is a SVM?

Chuck
Editor
Chuck(@chucksithe)
April 29, 2017 23:26

SVM Gift Cards is a gift card seller

Mary J
Mary J (@guest_368515)
March 11, 2017 16:56

My credit union’s Visa is through Elan, never ending problems and issues with Elan, many errors always in their own favor, have to ask them over and over to fix their own mistakes. A couple of years ago when Elan was still FIA, a balance transfer turned out to be at full interest rate, not 0% as I’d been told, and was *lots* of trouble to resolve. It took a couple of billing cycles to unwind the transaction – my memory of it is that they’re unbelievably difficult to deal with, apologies notwithstanding. I’d assumed it was FIA (that is, Bank of America) -related, but maybe not — it sounds like the conversion to US Bank didn’t fix anything.

Bill
Bill (@guest_360637)
February 26, 2017 15:15

Thanks for the link! It was SVM gift cards I purchased the gift cards from via eBay. I stumbled upon it yesterday evening that they were the culprit when I looked at SVM feedback on EBay. There was another dozen negative comments about it being treated as a “cash advance”. I left my negative feedback as well and I asked SVM gift cards why I was charged a “cash equivalent fee” when in the past it was treated as a purchase. They sent me an automatic response that they don’t work weekends, and they’ll get back to me when they are back.

I’m going to call Elan Monday or Tuesday to lower my cash advance limit to almost nothing, I read online that is a way of preventing this from happening again. I’ve never used cash advance on a credit card anyways.
Also I talked with Elan yesterday about this matter, and since I was talking with them I asked him why I’ve been only receiving 1.5% cash back, when it said I’d be receiving 2%. Apparently since I’ve had the card for fifteen years, I was supposed to call them to upgrade it to the points system, which I can convert to cash back into my fidelity account. Anyhow now I’ll be earning 2% cash back. I only wish I knew about it when I received it in July 2016

Thanks again for the link😀

jt153
jt153 (@guest_352944)
February 13, 2017 18:15

AVOID THIS CARD!!! I was charged a fee of $10 of so called ‘CASH EQUIVALENT FEE’ when I purchased New York State Lottery Subscription of $20. I’ve purchased the same subscription a number of times using credit cards from different companies and never saw such a charge. I would never use a credit card from Fidelity as you never know when the company decides to charge this hidden fee called ‘CASH EQUIVALENT FEE’.

Bill
Bill (@guest_360293)
February 25, 2017 16:12

Was also charged the $10 “cash equivalent fee” as well for purchasing discounted gift cards on e-bay. I would never have used this card if I was going to be charged that. I noticed I purchased the same gift cards in November of 2016 and I wasn’t charged a fee. It must be something Elan just started. I also don’t understand why I’m not getting 2% cash back, I have the cash back directly go into my fidelity account and it’s still 1.5%. I need to find a better cash back credit card.

Chuck
Editor
Chuck(@chucksithe)
February 26, 2017 14:18