U.S. Bank offers something called ‘real time rewards’ where you can redeem points for purchases in ‘real time’. When redeeming against travel purchases points have previously been worth 1.5¢ each, unfortunately there are reports that when redeeming Flexperks points are now only worth 1¢. Flyertalk user barrykryshka made a Delta purchase for $417.60 and was told it would cost 41,760 points (1¢ per point). After calling U.S. Bank they were told that this change was made on March 1st and that a letter should be sent out soon to explain this change.
We’ve previously reported that U.S. Bank will be discontinuing the Flexperks cards for new sign ups on March 9th and will be launching two new Altitude cards. I suspect this devaluation is part of that change. That being said, it’s not a good sign that U.S. Bank is making a no notice devaluation and seems unfair to those with a pool of points that were expecting to be able to redeem them for 1.5¢ per point.
Some things to point out: Altitude card is still getting 1.5¢ per point & booking through the travel portal is still getting 1.5¢ per point.
RTR redemptions are still working at 1.5cpp on the Altitude Reserve as of 8/6, and more importantly for totally cashing out Altitude FlexPerks, RTR still calculates 1.5cpp on eligible travel purchases. Purchased a refundable ticket on AS and received/redeemed/confirmed RTR texts to use all but 10 FlexPerks points banked to date.
The travel portal seems to be gone: “We apologize for the inconvenience. The travel site is currently unavailable as we’re taking steps to improve your experience. Please try again later.” All other FlexPoints redemptions are available, including cashout 1FP=1c.
Nevermind, was just temporary outage. Travel portal still there with 1FP=1.5c travel.
Still 1 percent redemption for the flex cards?
Article says “booking through the travel portal is still getting 1.5¢ per point”, and this still appears to be true. (I know nothing about ‘real time rewards’, so can’t comment on that.) Or you can cashout at 1FP=1c, which I may have to resort to as I doubt I’ll have a travel use (before AF is due).
Since some people were worrying about this change applying to Altitude, just another confirmation datapoint: I just a few seconds ago redeemed 33,333 Altitude points for a $500 payment on a 2/2021 cruise. Now just have fingers crossed that the cruise industry is still in business by then.
Just called and was told this changed on certain cards (including the FlexPerks Travel Visa) on 2/28. There rep said that there was no notification sent and that she doesn’t believe they will be sending a notification…
My experience with Flexperks has been less than stellar; i get conflicting explanations on questions every time I call. The travel rewards center is not knowledgeable on booking..esp. for international destinations. I had to literally tell her the flights one time when redeeming points, as she kept on telling me they didnt exist. For best results, just book it online and not thru the real time awards, for now.
just booked a southwest flight with AR and still getting 1.5 real time rewards
like i said…its inconsistent hehe
Maybe this is to get people to stop using the FlexPerks Cards and to push people towards the Altitude and their upcoming cards?
Certainly hope so. That would make sense because I’d certainly switch for that.
Likely wishful thinking on your part. This was an option on the recent survey for the Altitude Reserve that points are worth only 1 cent. Since they have already changed the FlexPerks Cards supposedly with no notice, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Altitude Reserve has changed as well already.
Plus, Citibank did the same thing on their Prestige of making the points worth only 1 cent but then offering more points per dollar so that the uneducated who only look at the earn rate rather then the redemption rate use the card more not realizing that they are worth significantly less then other cards on the market.
JFC, you must be fun at parties.
I just tested a redemption for airline on my Altitude card and happy to say it is still redeeming at 1.5c per point via real time rewards.
today?
just right now, like couple minutes ago
Your post is the only reason my heart restarted after reading this
Hi, I’m the datapoint. Does anyone have specific questions? I purchased directly from Delta, and received a text offering the 1 cent per point redemption, which I accepted. I phoned and pushed as hard as I could while being polite. I admit the person I spoke to took some time to understand the situation, but I was then told that the rate changed at the end of February. I’d love to be wrong. I’ve redeemed maybe 200-300k over the past few years, at hotels and airlines, and always at 1.5c.
Which FlexPerks credit card?
FlexPerks Travel Business, opened in 2012.
Which airline?
Delta.
I hope I will still be able to transfer my flexperks to my altitude reserve after I get the SUB for the flexperks biz
Is that even possible? I thought the Altitude rewards are different than Flexperks.
They can be transferred from Flex to Altitude up to 20k/yr online or calling if you want to do more than that but then the points don’t expire
Yes, Altitude rewards are different than Flexperks points, but from the start USBank has allowed transfer of points between Flexperks and Altitude accounts at par. So once I got the Altitude card, I transferred wifey’s bank of Flexperks points to my Altitude card, that way when I make my purchases to redeem, I’m earning points at the Altitude level instead of the lower Travel Rewards card level. Then of course I closed the Travel card before the next annual fee hit, since they’d already nerfed that card to be irrelevant anymore. The Altitude, on the other hand, is still quite worth the annual fee for me.
I sure hope this isn’t true – I’ve already been dealing with Only getting the RTR text like 50% of the time
(How) have you been able to resolve this? One time I called and they said there was nothing they could do. More recently, I received their text, replied “REDEEM” four times, but received no confirmation of redemption.
You can call in and they will help with it. I’ve had low level glitches with this in the last month, and eventually the USB AR service desk was able to help.
You can check your amount threshold and categories to see if that could be why you aren’t getting the text as much. Could also be a 3rd party purchase like expedia or hotels.com which aren’t applicable for RTR
Has this happened to the Altitude Real time rewards also? That would a card killer for me.
Wondering that too
I think it is going to be like the sapphire cards, 1x, 1.25x and 1.5x. Nothing definitive yet but making a $49 AF card *$0 first year* have the same value as a $400 AF card never really made sense…
Don’t think so, just Flexperks for now