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 asConvenience 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
apply for the U.S. Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card (duh)
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 the presence of Checking account)
open an investmentaccount with $250k+ or an IRA account with $100k+ (fees should be waived because threshold met)
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.*
@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
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.
