I wrote my experience signing up for the U.S. Bank Smartly 4% card and all the details involved. I’ve been happy with U.S. Bank thus far, and have started using their checking and savings account a bit. I have done some large charges, but have not yet done large tax payments and the like; I’m hoping they’ll be good with those charges too.
Interestingly, since getting the card I’ve been less likely to sign up for other credit cards since they almost always have a spend requirement. Take, for example, a card with a $500 signup bonus after spending $5,000. Assuming that card earns 1% back (or the points equivalent value of 1%), I’m losing 3% on the $5,000 in spend. That’s $150 knocked off the bonus which brings the real net bonus for me at $350. This is even more pronounced on cards with large spend requirements of $10,000 or $20,000.
In the end, I’ll continue to cherry pick the better credit card offers, and I’m prioritizing those with lower spend requirements. I signed up recently for the (expired) 70,000 American Airlines offer from Barclays which has no requirement spend amount.
