Update 11/13/24: U.S. Bank is now accepting product changes to this product.
Update 11/11/24: Card is now live, here is the link
Update 10/31/24: Landing page says the card will be metal.
Update 10/13/24: U.S. Bank has confirmed there will be no cap on the 4%. Hat tip to reader John D
Update 10/6/24: Card will have 3% foreign transaction fee. Also 0% APR on purchases for 12 months. Also 0% APR for 12 months on balance transfers done in the first 60 days (3% standard BT fee). The 0% APR on purchases for 12 months is interesting and makes for a ‘signup bonus’ of sorts for someone willing to carry a balance on a personal card.
Update 9/17/24: a reader heard from a bank source that the release date is slated for October 21, 2024.
Update 9/8/24: Reports are that the card will have no annual fee and will have no welcome bonus.
Original Post 9/3/24:
U.S. Bank is set to launch the Smartly Visa Signature card and this will earn up to 4% back on all purchases. Card details as follows:
- Earn 2% cash back on all purchases
- Earn up to an additional 2% cash back when paired with a U.S. Bank smartly savings account.
- Earn 2.5% total cash back when you have a qualifying balance of $5,000 – $49,999
- Earn 3% total cash back when you have a qualifying balance of $50,000 – $99,999
- Earn 4% total cash back when you have a qualifying balance of $100,000+
There are a few things that are unclear such as whether there is an annual fee, is there a cap on the additional up to 2% cash back and if there will be a sign up bonus or not. The Smartly account itself earns 4.1% APY when you also have a Smartly checking account and a balance of $25,000+ so this is competitive with the best high yield savings accounts.
You can also have the money in their investment account to qualify. (Note: there is a $50 annual fee for self directed brokerage account balances under $250,000. It appears that IRA balances of $50k+ which also have a linked checking account, get the $50 fee waived, so if you meet the $100k minimum with an IRA, and also have a checking and savings account, it should be possible to get the 4% on the Smartly card without any additional fees.)
This has the potential to be big, worth signing up for the wait list in case they offer a better than normal sign up bonus for those that do.
If you pay a large amount from an external bank (essentially ACH pull), they may not release your available credit for a week. If you need it sooner, push to the USB checking/savings and then transfer to the credit card.
Thanks for the information. I plan to push my fund to my Wells Savings account first from another bank and pay the Smartly CC via the fund from my US Bank Saving’s account, when will the available credit is released?
Thank you
midas89 . Can I know approximately how big the amount is you paid Smartly via your internal transfer from your USB checking/savings? I am planning to do it soon. Thanks again.
One note: I do not click the button to pay the Visa. I specifically go to the Bank Transfers section to do an internal transfer. I have always done my internal transfers to my Visa account on banking business days, during banking hours. This was not intentional, it just worked out that way. I have no idea if the same result would occur if I had done the internal transfer on a weekend or in the evening. I would hope it would not matter, of course, but again, I never tested it.
Great. Thanks a lot
midas89 .
I appreciate the information
midas89 . Thank you.
Anyone tried to have P1 and P2 shared the same brokerage account with $100K in total while applied for their own Smartly card separately and still qualify for the 4% cashback on both Smartly card? Thanks.
Anyone tried to open Savings/Brokerage accounts and move in the asset first before opening this credit card? I was wondering if this helps to get a higher credit line?
Has anyone successfully done a product change to a Smartly in the last week, especially from a Cash+? I’ve tried HUCA 3 times and live chat today to try to change my Cash+ to a Smartly, but every time I am told it’s not possible.
I did see that there was an issue with rewards not converting with the product change, so I wonder if it’s been disabled from the bank’s side until that gets resolved.
tried to product change cash+ to smartly card but was told not possible
I tried to product change this week (second time) and was told no. $0 balance and $0 reward on the Cash+.
Any DPs on how long after applying for a Cash+ card one can product change to Smartly?
For those product changed into Smartly card, can you please share what date you product changed and what date you finally got the updated 4% reward reflecting on the online account?
I product changed mine from Cash+ to Smartly on 12/24 but till today 2/12, my online account still says that it’s “cash+” despite having Smartly icon and reward section only listed 2x reward, not 4x… I’ve had 2 statements closed since then on 1/7 and 2/6 and both statements only mentioned 2x Smartly reward, not the updated 4x reward…
Please help!
Do you have the Smartly Savings account? Where do you keep the $100K?
Yes, I have the smartly saving. I kept 100k in the investment account.
Hmmm. Have you asked USBank to see what’s going on? No personal experience, but I have heard about it taking a billing cycle, which is too long, in my opinion.
Unexpectantly, USB reported my CC balance to Experian on 2/6, a week before the current billing cycle ends (2/13). This is unique to USB when compared to my other CC companies. Has this happened to anyone else?
You’re welcome. I’m so dumb I moved next door to a 99 Cents Store, thinking it would make it easier for me to do this 99 cents balance monthly at reporting time thing. You can imagine the look on my face when I realized I forgot to consider the sales tax. (I bow my head down in shame.) 🙂
(I apologize in advance if anyone does not like my silly attempt at humor.)
This is for my Cash+ card, which closes around 12th of the month.
Date of Account Status: January 31, 2025
I don’t have this card yet, but my experience with USB/Elan is they always report on the last day of the month. If I’m carrying a balance, I pay it down to .99 before then so it reports as $0 (and gets waived).
Ah, thats what I figured. Ignore my ETA below, lol
$1 is waived.
yes, but doesn’t report as 0…worth the penny (rip, lol) if you want as few accounts with balances as possible
ETA: is 2/6 the date Experian says USB reported, or is that just some lag between usb/exp/you?
Has anyone done a product change online (self service) recently? The following link suggests that it can be done, but I could not find that option.
https://www.usbank.com/customer-service/knowledge-base/KB0272326.html
FYI- I requested a credit increase online and US Bank immediately did a hard credit pull. I didn’t get an immediate response, and several days later they notified me online that it was denied, and I have 800+ credit score and have never been denied by other cards. I’m not a frequent credit card churner, but I was surprised they did a hard pull without stating anywhere they would. Anyway, thought this info might be useful for others.
USB cli is always a hard pull, I think.
What credit bureau does USB hard pull from at the time of the application and for a credit increase? Thanks!
Any one got tax payment declined on this card? I was given $15k limit. I was able to pay IRS estimated tax on that amount. But after I paid the credit card balance and wanted to try again, any payments to IRS or CA tax fails. Paying (smaller) amount on other merchants are completely fine. I might be able to call their fraud department and get supervisor override to approve tax payment, but each call costs me 1+ hr, and sometimes the person just refused to help me so I have to call again (with another 1+ hr wait). This is very frustrating. Anyone know how to get my account back to normal?
Were the additional tax payment attempts within the same statement period? I’m wondering if this is related to “credit cycling”, if they are simply blocking tax payments.
Yes I’m cycling the credit. I know it’s against the best practice but I have a large tax bill to pay
Any update on your tax payment issue? I just got my Smartly card and will make a tax payment within the next week.
Did you get 4% back on the $15k that didn’t get declined? I would love to know if you did (that’s the deciding factor on whether to get this card or not for me).
Also, the fact that your subsequent payments to other merchants are NOT being declined, seems to indicate that the cause of your declined 2nd tax payment is something other than credit cycling. If they frown on credit cycling, I would think they wouldn’t allow purchases or payments to ANY merchant, or am I missing something?
Just something else to try.
It seems like lower amount (like $1k from the same tax payee) was also declined. Not sure if the system just don’t want me to pay the same merchant again (hopefully just temporarily). CS said the fraud detection system is a black box. There’s no way for them to systematically whitelist my transactions. If I really want to pay again, I’ll have to go through the lengthy manual override. I guess they really want to deter similar behaviors
I am assuming you used Pay1040 to make your fed tax payment. Have you tried the other payment processor (ACI Payments) to make your 2nd payment? The fee is slightly higher (1.85% vs 1.75%) but still far less than the 4% cash back. And USB would likely allow the payment as it is a different “merchant”.
Yes. I got 4% on every accepted transactions