A number of different banks offer a credit card called the ‘Reserve’ credit card. In this review we will look at what banks offer this card and the benefits of the card.
Issuing Banks
It looks like the same banks that issue the AmaZing business cards that sometimes offer a $500 or $1,000 sign up bonus also offer this reserve card. Those banks are:
- AmegyBank: Texas only
California Bank & Trust: California onlyNot offered by this bank- Vectra Bank Colorado: Colorado only
- Zion’s Bank: Utah, Idaho and Wyoming
- National Bank of AZ: Arizona
- Nevada State Bank: Nevada
Card Basics
- Annual fee of $450 (additional cardholders are $50 each)
- Sign up bonus of $500 or 50,000 bonus points after $5,000 in spend within the first six months
- $250 annual travel credit
- Priority Pass select membership (only five free passes are included annually)
- Card earns at the following rates:
- 3%/3x back on travel/dining
- 2%/2x back on everything else
$250 Travel Credit
This credit is based on a card member year (so you can’t use it twice and pay only one annual fee). Qualifying purchases are:Â airlines, rental cars, hotels, cruise lines, travel agencies, airport terminals, global entry, TSA precheck, Gogo Inflght Wi-Fi.
Final Thoughts
Not a great card as you can only do the travel credit once if you’re only paying one annual fee and there isn’t a lot of other benefits to justify the $450 annual fee. If you get full value out of the $250 travel credit you’re really left with a sign up bonus of $300 after you take into account the other $200 from the annual fee.  If anybody decides to sign up for this card, please share your experiences in the comments below.
Hat tip to tom0963
I was able to apply online.
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Thank you! Your application is complete.
Next Steps
A confirmation will be sent to the email address you provided. Please check your Junk Mail if you have not seen an email within a few minutes.
Any status updates and next steps will be sent to the email provided.
Once approved, your card will arrive in 7-10 days, make sure that you activate it right away!
I’m onto the verification stage. Address, ID, Bank Stubs
Do you know what report they pulled? Have you been approved?
Maybe they all are a unit of Zions? LOL
Nevada State Bank is a division of Zions. I would imagine it’s pretty much the same song and dance at either one.
Zions Bank is avaialble in ID and WY too
it sounds like a me too product created for banks / credit unions that are losing their big transactors to cards like CSR, Plat, Prestige, etc. They don’t need something world beating, just something that will keep their own existing customers from straying into the national card issuers. heck my mom still uses her local credit union rewards card, even though its not an that great.
But how can they afford the rewards they’re offering?
I can confirm you do not need to live in their service area to apply for their cards. Nor do you need to have a bank account with them. But see my post above about emailing your app. I do think these banks are not really setup for fax/email apps. So plan to follow-up by phone within a few days after submitting so you can get a banker assigned to you.
You may be able to apply if you live outside the bank’s service area and take a hard inquiry hit but the Zion’s bank application is explicit that the product is only available to applicants residing in UT, WY and ID so I doubt you’d be approved.
I live 1,000 miles and several states away from their service area and I was approved. Also, I’m looking at a copy of the application I submitted last fall and I don’t see any explicit language about needing to live within their service area.
Thanks, added
I applied for the Vectra Bank card. Tons of hoops involving printing out, scanning and faxing or emailing. Got a confirmation of my application being received. And then radio silence. After several weeks I called and not only can they not find the application, they have no idea what credit card offer I am talking about even when I pointed out it’s on their website. Rude. Incredibly dysfunctional bank.
Similar to my experience last fall with Zions Bank when they ran the 1,000 cash back on their business credit cards. No online application process, and although the app has a fax number and email to submit, those appear to go directly into blackholes. I used email, application was received, then radio silence. After a few weeks I called and no one could find my application. At that point, they did assign me a banker who then took over and got it done (called to introduce and provide her direct email to resubmit the app, called the next day to inform I was approved, and setup online access (which requires banker assistance if you don’t have a bank account). Since then everything has been fine, bonus posted the cycle after I met the MSR. This account also had 0% on purchases for 6 months, and interestingly when you apply some of the cash back rewards to your account, those payments count towards your minimum monthly payment (don’t think that is true with most banks). The bonus and regular cash back are just enough to cover my minimum payments for 6 months, making this an interest-free loan for the full term with no out of pocket payments.
( 4 ) Annual Travel Credit – A statement credit will automatically be applied to your account when your card is used for purchases in certain travel categories, up to an annual maximum of $100 (Elite product) or $250 (Reserve product). Annual Travel Credits are refreshed once yearly, the day after the anniversary of your account open date. Qualifying purchases are those billed in the following merchant categories: airlines, rental cars, hotels, cruise lines, travel agencies, airport terminals, global entry, TSA precheck, Gogo Inflght Wi-Fi. Identification of qualified purchases is subject to merchants’ billing settings. Statement credit(s) will post to your account the same day your travel category purchase posts to your account and will appear on your monthly credit card billing statement within 1-2 billing cycles. With questions about your Annual Travel Credit, or when your next Annual Travel Credit will become available, call the number on the back of your card.
Thanks, not sure how I missed that.