Lots of us have a U.S. Bank Altitude card up for renewal now with its hefty $400 annual fee and are considering whether to keep, cancel, or downgrade.
If you plan to cancel, the first thing you want to do after the annual fee posts is to quickly spend $325 on an airline to trigger the airline credit – I bought Southwest e-gift cards and the credit posted a week later.
Today, I made the phone call to try downgrading to the Cash+ card, but was told that they don’t offer any product changes on the Altitude card. Many readers were told the same.
They might have disallowed product changes on the card so as to avoid having to give prorated annual fee refunds when people cancel after 30 days – once you hit the 30 day mark the fee is locked in for the year. [Interestingly, I believe I got a mailer which indicated that the 30 days begins from the date the mailer was received a couple of weeks ago, but I’m guessing in the end it’ll just be 30 days from when the annual fee posts to the account.]
Lots of people get real value from the Altitude card, but I wasn’t getting much value and decided to cancel the card. At that point, the rep offered me 10,000 points to remain a cardholder – no spend requirement was mentioned. Readers mention getting the same offer. That’s a cool $100-$150 which can help offset the annual fee. I assume they’ll wait until after 30 days to let the points post to the account, it certainly does not happen immediately.
In the end, I decided to just cancel anyway, but it’s certainly good to know that there is this 10,000 points option for someone who is on the fence.
Then I ran into an issue of 1,000 orphaned points which can’t be redeemed for cashback since it’s less than $50. Those who have the Flexperks card can transfer the points there. I do not have Flexperks, and just decided to let the points die with account closure. (There are some magazine subscriptions for 1,000 points, but I didn’t need those.)
The rep closed the account after a quick disclosure, and indicated I’d get a mailer confirming the fact. FYI, U.B. Bank does not seem to have a Secure Message system so that won’t be an option, you’ll have to call in. A reader says there’s an ‘Email’ option where you can request a card cancellation.
