(Update) [Rumor]U.S. Bank Smartly Changes After April 14th: Exclusions on 4% Earn (Tax, etc) & Brokerage Funds Exclusion (For New Signups)

Update 4/8/25: Most of the rumors were correct – see this updated post for the full details.

Update 4/7/25:

There’s a memo U.S. Bank sent to their bankers telling them that a new version of the Smartly card will be available starting April 14th.
The memo makes clear that those who already signed up or who sign up before April 14th will keep the old features and benefits.
You can see a screenshot of the memo here.
The memo says to stay tunes for April 8th when resources on the new card version will become available.
The memo also mentions changes coming on May 19th.
It seems that until at least May 19th grandfathered Smartly cardholders will keep the existing benefits and terms. Even beyond May 19th, the grandfathered cards will apparently have different/better terms than the newer signups who after April 14, 2025.
We might know more tomorrow when we’ll hopefully learn about the resources being sent out to bankers then.
Hat tip to zanutrees on Reddit

Original Post 4/1/25:

A rumor on r/creditcards tells of changes coming to the U.S. Bank Smartly card, beginning April 14, 2025:

Bonus earn rate now excludes: Educational/school, gift cards, insurance, taxes, business-to-business transactions, and third-party bill payments.
Any earning bonus is now capped at 10k/spend per statement cycle.
For NEW cardmembers who sign up after April 14th: only checking account balances will count towards the 10k/50k/100k requirement. Savings balances and investment balances do not count.

Another small change coming is that the 2.5% tier earn will require $10,000 in balances (previously $5,000).

Our Verdict

The rumor seems to be that for existing customers brokerage and savings funds will still count, just not for new customers. And that for all customers there will be a $10,000 monthly limit. And that for all customers taxes and education won’t earn bonus rewards, just the base 2%.

We pretty much knew that some changes were coming. My hope had been an easy $10k/month or $100k/year spend threshold. Which they will be doing, per the rumor. But they also added the taxes and insurance exclusion. Altogether this would amount to a total nerf job.

I expect we’ll see some of these changes, but let’s hope we don’t have all the details right. (I find the savings account exclusion surprising.)

I hate the exclusions: (1) it obviously limits the usefulness of the card, and (2) it even makes me hesitate using the card on legitimate spend for fear that it might somehow fall under one of the excluded categories. For example, I just paid a contractor a large bill with my Smartly card knowing that the rewards would cover the surcharge. But can I be confident that it won’t somehow mistakenly code as ‘business-to-business’ and just earn 2% instead of 4%? It’s always something of a guessing game, depending how the contractor set up his credit card processing code.

Assuming these changes all comes true, I might just move on back to the BofA 2.62% card. I suppose since I have the 4% all set up already I’ll continue it for purchases that I’m confident will earn 4%. If, at some future date, U.S. Bank ever stops allowing brokerage funds to count for existing cardholders, I’ll move on and close the card out.

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Our Verdict

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