U.S. Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card Email (Oct 21, 2024)

Many of us received an email this morning. Here are some notable things in the fine print.

  • Applications open soon “within the next few weeks”. The week of Nov 11, 2024 has been floated around on this sub.
  • Fees:
    • Convenience Check fee: 3% of each check amount, $5 minimum.
    • Annual fee: $0.
    • Foreign Transaction fee: 3%
  • Cannot earn points on these: transactions posting as Convenience Checks*;* Balance Transfers*;* Advances (including ATM withdrawals, wire transfers, traveler’s checks, money orders, foreign cash transactions, betting transactions, and lottery tickets); interest charges and fees*;* credit insurance premiums*; and transactions to (i) fund* certain prepaid card products*, (ii) buy* currency from the U.S. Mint*, or (iii) buy* cash convertible items*.*
  • If you transfer money into a NEW account, they will begin calculations immediately, and we don’t need to wait the full 90 days. (This seems consistent with BoA for the Platinum Honors tier, as I did not have to wait 3 months to qualify.)
  • It looks like they will calculate daily(?) what tier you belong in and apply it near the beginning of the month.
  • Have to redeem into an eligible U.S. Bank deposit account to get the max points. Other redemptions (statement credit, gift cards) may yield less.
  • For joint accounts, they use the individual with the highest Combined Qualifying Balance to calculate tier level; they don’t add the people’s total. Also, AU’s don’t qualify in calculations.
  • Points expire if there is no reward, purchase, or balance activity for 12 consecutive statement cycles. Boo.

For Combined Qualifying Balances, the bonus tiers are (nothing new here):

  • 2.5%: $5k-49k
  • 3%: $50k-99k
  • 4%: $100k+

As far as I understand, to get the new card with max cash back and no fees, we need to

  1. apply for the U.S. Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card (duh)
  2. open a Checking account ($6.95 fee should be waived because of qualifying credit card)
  3. open a Savings account ($5 fee should be waived because of the presence of Checking account)
  4. open an investment account with $250k+ or an IRA account with $100k+ (fees should be waived because threshold met)

Please let me know if I have missed anything.

10 days left of a current $400 Smartly checking promotion, if anyone wants to get started early.

LiamCreditWizard said:
10 days left of a current $400 Smartly checking promotion, if anyone wants to get started early.

Or the $450 promotion: https://www.usbank.com/splash/checking/2024-all-market-checking-offer.html

Earn $450 when the combined total of your direct deposits is $8,000 or more.

Promo code: 2024JUL

THIS IS NOT A REFERRAL LINK.

@Axelle
THANK YOU!!!

@Axelle
Does this work for people with existing US Bank accounts? Smartly checking is technically different than a regular checking?

Cam said:
@Axelle
Does this work for people with existing US Bank accounts? Smartly checking is technically different than a regular checking?

Maybe not? Footnote 1 on that page:

U.S. Bank Smartly^(®)Checking bonus: To be eligible*, you or any owner(s) on your new Bank Smartly Checking account cannot have an existing U.S. Bank consumer checking account, had a U.S. Bank consumer checking account in the last 12 months or received other U.S. Bank consumer checking bonus offers within the past 12 months.*

@Axelle
Would transferring money from another bank count as a direct deposit, or would it need to come from an employer?

Chadwick said:
@Axelle
Would transferring money from another bank count as a direct deposit, or would it need to come from an employer?

People are saying that transfers from other banks have counted.

LiamCreditWizard said:
10 days left of a current $400 Smartly checking promotion, if anyone wants to get started early.

I keep getting denied :confused:

US Bank Wealth Management account doesn’t look very appealing on the surface.

Some may be better served by only putting $100k in US Bank WM and consider the $50 annual fee to just be the equivalent of a AF for the credit card.

@Pip
Their WM account doesn’t seem appealing to me either. I’m not convinced (yet) moving $100k of my investments to them is worth the 4% rewards.

@Pip
Not bad for set it and forget it type investors though right? Plan to transfer $100K of VTI and just let it sit. Pay the $50/yr and get 4% on everything. Seems like a slam dunk.

Axel said:
@Pip
Not bad for set it and forget it type investors though right? Plan to transfer $100K of VTI and just let it sit. Pay the $50/yr and get 4% on everything. Seems like a slam dunk.

Do they offer automatic reinvesting for dividends? For some reason I thought I’d read that they don’t. So 100% set and forget.

Axel said:
@Pip
Not bad for set it and forget it type investors though right? Plan to transfer $100K of VTI and just let it sit. Pay the $50/yr and get 4% on everything. Seems like a slam dunk.

I saw a thread on here that they don’t offer DRIP, so you’ll need to log in and reinvest your dividends manually. I’ve also heard their investing accounts have very limited alerts, so you’ll need to periodically log in to check on your investments.

Axel said:
@Pip
Not bad for set it and forget it type investors though right? Plan to transfer $100K of VTI and just let it sit. Pay the $50/yr and get 4% on everything. Seems like a slam dunk.

You can’t churn brokerage bonuses with that money. That’s my only holdup personally.

OT but hopefully this pushes BoA to increase their PR-boosted multipliers, rather than the speculated increase of required funds for their tiers. And also hopefully USB opens their banking to all states, not just ones with physical branches. One can dream…

@oddah
While we’re dreaming, can they make it so you can set both your 3% and 2% categories on the CCR, and choose from all available options?

I would love to be able to set, for example, Groceries as my 3% category, then Drug Stores as my 2%.

@oddah
As much as I hope as a BoA customer that they can increase their rates, I kind of don’t see it happening personally. The combo of CCR (covering super broad categories) with UCR/PR as a baseline is already pretty powerful even compared to the new USB card. And we all suspect in the back of our minds that this 4% isn’t sustainable long-term.

@Ashby
I participate through their financial advisory panel that is run by Ipsos and this question gets asked occasionally seeing how important the Rewards program is to BofA customers.

Eleanor1 said:
@Ashby
I participate through their financial advisory panel that is run by Ipsos and this question gets asked occasionally seeing how important the Rewards program is to BofA customers.

How do you get on the financial advisory panel?