The Bonus
U.S. Bank runs increased sign up bonuses on the FlexPerks Travel Rewards Visa Signature card or the FlexPerks Business Edge Travel Rewards Visa card for the Olympics, the number of points you receive is based on the success of the Olympic team. This time the total bonus was 34,800 points. 20,000 base points and 14,800 for the following medals:
- 46 x 200 = 9,200 bonus points
- 37 x 100 = 3,700 bonus points
- 38 x 50 = 1,900 bonus points
Card Details
Personal Visa Flexperks Card
- Earn 1 FlexPoint for every $1 spent
- Earn 2 FlexPoints on gas or grocery or airline purchases, whichever you spend the most on every month
- Earn 2x FlexPoints most cell phone purchases, including monthly bills, accessories and Internet charges
- Earn 3 FlexPoints for charitable donations
- FlexPoints are worth 1¢ in statement credit 2¢ when redeeming for travel
- Annual fee of $49 is waived the first year
Business Visa Flexperks Card
- $25 airline allowance for each award ticket booked for incidental expenses such as baggage and food
- Earn 2x FlexPoints on gas or office supplies or airline purchases, whichever you spend most on each monthly billing cycle
- Earn 2x FlexPoints most cell phone purchases, including monthly bills, accessories and Internet charges
- Earn 3x FlexPoints on Charity donations
- Earn 1 FlexPoint for every $1 spent
- Annual fee of $55 is waived the first year
- Receive a credit for your $55 annual fee back to your account if $24,000 or more in net purchases posts to your company’s account within your 12-month annual statement year
See this post for more details on the various Flexperks Business cards. And see this post to learn how much Flexperks are worth.
What You Should Know
The application must be received by midnight on September 3 to be eligible for the Olympic bonus, so today is your last chance to apply for this bonus. If you’re thinking of applying, read our original post and our follow up post. I’d also recommend freezing these two credit bureaus first to improve your odds of approval. Also read these things everybody should know about U.S. Bank.
The points are worth a minimum of 1¢ for statement credit, up to 1.5¢ for hotels and up to 2¢ for airfare. The standard bonus is only 20,000 points and is only increased for the Olympics, we win a lot more medals at the summer Olympics than winter Olympics so now is really the time to apply (plus that would be another two year wait and who knows what the credit card landscape will look like then). Also if you want the Olympics bonus, then you cannot use a referral link.
The 14800 Olympics bonus posted, roughly 10 weeks after first purchase.
I haven’t quite finished the $2000 spend for the remaining bonus yet.
No time to freeze anything, since I decided to apply yesterday.
Approved for $4900
CK score: 818
EQ: 0
EX: 5
TU: 0
I have the Silver checking/savings package for relationship.
Started my application at what was probably the last minute– 10:59 Central time. Got a pending. Followed by a inquiry notice from Credit Karma. New hard pull on my Transunion report. (I did not freeze the suggested minor reports.) My CK score for TU is 811 with now three inquiries. Hoping that’s good enough to get me approved!
How have you made Credit Karma send notification of an inquiry?
I have that checkbox filled, yet they never send any alert.
It might be that banks are pulling your Experian report, which Credit Karma doesn’t track.
Discover, CapOne, and I believe Citi cards were all EQ/TU tho.
They are all off my reports now anyways.
Applied for both and both went to pending. Will, for future reference, how far in advance should I be freezing the two credit reports for it to take effect before I apply?
I waited until I received the confirmed letter from both. I fax them on Sat 8/27, and the mail from SageStream and ARS dated both Mon 8/29. So my guess is two days after they receive it is the safe time.
Earlier the better I guess, not sure how long it takes them to process freezes.
I’ve never had this card it, meaning Arrival, etc. Is this a useful card to most people? I know near nothing about it but wouldn’t mind getting in on a good deal. One can spend 30K points for up to a $600 ticket, but how can you redeem the rest unless you spend to get up to another 20K points?
Read the article on how much points are worth, you could just cash out the remaining points for statement credit.
or redeem into checking/savings, which is what I plan to do.
Instantly approved 5 days ago for personal card. 17/24 btw.
Haha wow. Thankfully approved but they gave me a $1000 line. Ive never had a USBank card before so I guess thats why but, come on! 796 FICO. Have over 100k total credit elsewhere, near 0 utilization
I don’t know to laugh or cry. I applied in person at a US Bank grocery satellite location. It was instantly approved for a limit below the $2000.00 Minimum Spend. I have had the card less than two weeks. I already have made a payment and completed the $2000.00 Minimum Spend, but current utilization is 99%. The one reason that I filled that cup so high is 12 months of 0% APR on purchases. That low CL made me “highly displeased”. This is how I peacefully show it.
When the bonus comes, that will dent the high utilization. I know folks will look at me odd, but travel is not my reason for getting the card. I can get better cash back year around on gas, groceries and restaurants than this card pays.
Data Point from my Experian
Aug 22, 2016 – US BANK CONSOLIDATED obtained a copy of your EXPERIAN Credit Report.
Sep 4, 2016 – US BANK reported a new account on your EXPERIAN Credit Report.
I applied online two weeks ago and got a decision pending. I then immediately called to check the status and got a recorded message that I was denied. The next day I called the reconsideration line and the very friendly agent said I had too many recent inquiries, but that everything else looked good and that he would send my application back for reconsideration. My card just showed up on Wednesday.
Congrats! i just applied for mine yesterday. Was waiting until I was at 4/24 so I could get the CSR first. Now I have both.
What # did you use for recon? I was denied for the same reason.