So I wanted to get the Smartly card and it looks like I’m required to have a savings account to get the benefit it seems. Savings account fees are waived with a Checking account and Checking account fees are waived with a Credit Card and IRA fees are waived with 100,000 or more in assets on the premium tier. I think I got that right. I don’t even plan on using the checking or savings honestly but I don’t want to pay any fees. I know there is a $25 minimum to open the savings account but there is also a sub for the checking account right? So I’d be making a little bit of money on the deal and then getting unlimited 4% cash back, correct?
This is the way I read it, so a total of 4 accounts, including the credit card. Some say you only need 50k in the IRA, but that is also reported to be a bank IRA and not on the brokerage side.
Pace said:
This is the way I read it, so a total of 4 accounts, including the credit card. Some say you only need 50k in the IRA, but that is also reported to be a bank IRA and not on the brokerage side.
It’s honestly not clear that USB even offers bank-side IRAs lol, like I’m sure if you’re bringing them enough money and want one they probably have a legacy offering they could set you up with but it’s not an advertised service.
@Landry
Yeah I’m guessing there isn’t a bank side IRA.
Pace said:
This is the way I read it, so a total of 4 accounts, including the credit card. Some say you only need 50k in the IRA, but that is also reported to be a bank IRA and not on the brokerage side.
I read some comments about the bank side vs brokerage side but everything on their website seems to say IRAs with Bankcorp investments so I don’t know. How do you open one vs another?
I think there’s a fee for an IRA that’s waived if over $100k and a brokerage fee that’s waived if over $250k. I’m not sure if the brokerage fee applies to all brokerage accounts or just non-IRA brokerage accounts.
What’s giving me pause is how barebones their brokerage platform is from what I’m told. Things like basic account alerts and DRIP not being available are a big deal for investing accounts.
@Floyd
I think it’s for Non-IRA as they say there is an IRA waiver here. https://www.usbank.com/dam/documents/pdf/deposits/consumer-pricing-information/deposit-products.pdf
@Quill
I downloaded this document. It’s long, lol. Do you know which page it’s on?
faithmay said:
@Quill
I downloaded this document. It’s long, lol. Do you know which page it’s on?
Page 8 on the chart.
faithmay said:
@Quill
I downloaded this document. It’s long, lol. Do you know which page it’s on?
Page 8 on the chart.
Thank you. I thought I had seen that before on a webpage somewhere. Same table here: https://www.usbank.com/bank-accounts/checking-accounts/smart-rewards.html
So it seems like it’s $50k to waive the IRA fee, not $100k? Requires Smart Rewards® Plus tier, which starts at $50k. Please correct me if I am wrong.
No fee for 250k, but otherwise looks right.
@Quill
I’m not sure what to believe with US Bank documentation right now. For example look at this chart for Smartly Savings account rates: https://www.usbank.com/dam/documents/pdf/savings/smartly-savings-rate-table-disclosures-deposit-products.pdf
Notice a problem? Particularly starting from the lower left quadrant.
How do you have $100k in a savings account and yet have < $5k in combined balance when the savings account is one of the accounts included in that mix?
They filled in a bunch of interest rates for combinations that cannot exist, at least the way the program has been described so far.
I called and the rep let me know there are two IRAs: one offered by US Bank (100k to waive fee) other is US Bancorp (250k to waive). They also let me know the US Bank investment options are very limited (not sure how limited or what that means).
@Ciel
So how do you sign up for each of these because the website only says US Bancorp for IRAs? A bank-side IRA I couldn’t find mentioned anywhere on the website.
Yes I think so. I also made a post on it: https://www.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/1fzi3rq/upcoming_us_bank_smartly_visa_signature_card/
There are a ton of questions on the IRA fee waiver if it needs to be ‘bankside’ (CDs, etc.) or investment account in order to get the new card with max cash back and no fees.
So I think these are the steps:
- apply for the U.S. Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card
- open a Checking account ($6.95 fee should be waived because of qualifying credit card)
- open a Savings account ($5 fee should be waived because of presence of Checking account)
- open an investment/IRA account and deposit $250k+ ($50 fee should be waived because threshold met).
@faithmay
I would suggest opening the checking and savings accounts first, just because that establishes a banking relationship, which may help with approval of the credit card.
You can park the 100k in the savings account to avoid the fees as well.
ace said:
You can park the 100k in the savings account to avoid the fees as well.
Or the elite money market account, which I believe is .1% higher and lets you operate out of it as an only account.
@UmberLeighton
What is an ‘only account?’
ace said:
@UmberLeighton
What is an ‘only account?’
As in you can write checks out of it, ACH, use a debit, do everything you can out of a regular checking account without shuffling money. I never really had a savings account till recently, but this seems like an easy interest earning account to run everything out of.