USAA offers a few different credit cards, I thought it would be interesting to have a central place these cards can be discussed and also list of all the cards they offer, the best offers (both current and historically) for each card and also rules and things you should know about USAA
Contents
List Of Cards
- USAA Limitless Cashback Rewards Visa Signature Card (currently only available in LA, NM, KS, ID, PA, SC and WA)
- Preferred Cash Rewards Visa Signature Card
- Cash Rewards Visa Signature Card
- Cashback Rewards Plus American Express Card
- Cashback Rewards American Express Card
- USAA Rewards Visa Signature Card
- USAA Rewards American Express Card
- USAA Rate Advantage Visa Platinum Card
- USAA Classic Visa Platinum Card
- USAA Classic American Express Card
- USAA Secured Card Visa Platinum Card
- USAA Secured Card American Express Card
- USAA Military Affiliate Visa Signature Card
- USAA Military Affiliate American Express Card
Best Offers
The majority of the above cards do not come with a sign up bonus, or come with a small 2,500 point sign up bonus. The exception are the cards we’ve listed below:
- Preferred Cash Rewards Visa Signature Card: Normally comes with no sign up bonus, but there have been targeted offers for $200.
- USAA Limitless Cashback Rewards Visa Signature Card: Doesn’t offer a sign up bonus, but does offer 2.5% cash back on all purchases when you deposit $1,000 in direct deposits each month.
- USAA Cashback Rewards Plus American Express: Card offers 5% cash back on gas and military base spend, but it’s limited to $3,000 in purchases per year.
Rules/Things To Know
- Expedited shipping is $8. Normally cards arrive in 8-10 business days for free.
- Instant credit card is issued, with a fixed limit of $1,000 until physical card arrives.
- You can check for pre-approved offers, this is no guaranteed for approval but more likely than a regular application. To do this you must be a USAA member and then search for ‘offers’ followed by the ‘My Offers’ page.
- You can request a credit limit increase online, but it will be a hard pull. They also do automatically credit limit increases, usually every 12 months if you are eligible. Tips for that here.
- Maximum credit limit of $50,000 across all cards.
- You cannot reallocate credit limits between their cards.
- They do not allow product changes between products.
- Cardholders get access to a free credit score (VantageScore). Not really that useful as anybody can get this by signing up to Credit Karma or any of the free credit monitoring services.
- All their Visa & American Express cards come with no foreign transaction fees.
- All their cards are Chip & Signature with PIN as back up. CVM priority list is as follows:
- American Express:
- Signature (paper)
- Enciphered PIN verified by ICC
- Plaintext PIN verified by ICC
- No CVM required
- Visa:
- Signature (paper)
- Enciphered PIN verified online
- Enciphered PIN verified by ICC
- Plaintext PIN verified by ICC
- No CVM required
- American Express:
Eligibility Requirements
USAA is not an open credit union and they have strict eligibility requirements. In fact they are not a credit union at all, but a federal savings bank. You’re eligible if you fall into any of these categories:
You’re eligible if you fit in these categories:
- Active, retired and honorably separated officers and enlisted personnel of the U.S. military.
- Officer candidates in commissioning programs (Academy, ROTC, OCS/OTS).
- Adult children whose eligible parents have or had a USAA auto or property insurance product.
- Widows and widowers of USAA members who have or had a USAA auto or property insurance policy.
Final Thoughts
There is still so much we don’t know about USAA and I’d like to build up that information here. If you can answer any of the following questions, please do so in the comments below:
- How do annual fee refunds work if you cancel the card?
- Do they match bonuses? (doubtful since they typically only offer targeted bonuses)
- Do they combine inquiries if you make multiple in the same day?
- Do they offer retention bonuses on their AF products?
- Is there a limit to the number of cards you can have with them?
- Do they reopen closed cards?
You can also read other posts we’ve done in this series below:
