So I used to use the USBank 5% card for restaurants and hotels. However, it seems, once you spend 2000.00 for EITHER 5% category, your cash back for the 5% categories goes down to 1%. Since I just had a big party at a hotel which was over 2k, the card is now earning 1% until 1/1/2014. Is there a better cash back restaurant card to use which earns 3% or higher? I have the Citi Forward, however, I really am not crazy about Thank You Points. Chase hates me, and they won't tell me why, so I cannot go for a Chase card right now.

Open for ideas.

How about the US Bank Club Carlson Visa? It's 5x points on every purchase (10x when staying at Club Carlson properties). Great initial bonus of 85K & lots of benefits.

I thought about that one, however, there are no Carlson owned hotels to where I travel.

Sounds like we need to get ideas from you!

In all seriousness, make sure the charge posts as "restaurant" instead of "hotel", because sometimes I've run into that problem.

In which case, though, your problem SOLVED for the short term

I wish. I logged into USBank's web site to check things out and it already stated I met the 2k 5% spending for both. However, I did not spend 2k at the restaurant yet, only at the hotel. The 2k bar is full for the quarter it shows.

The most points you get by using a credit card is from signup offers that require minimum spend. So, for example, if a card needs $2k of spend (in a small number of months) to give you 50k miles, the 25 miles per $ spent until you get to $2k).

Then you apply for another card with a big bonus for meeting another spending threshold.

But even if you only get 1x for a while after that, who cares? You got 25 miles/$ for a while, and so you can "balance that" with "only" getting 1x for a while until your next card signup.

And you don't have to worry about categories. Any merchant that accepts the card you are meeting the spending threshold for, you earn at the higher rate until you meet the threshold. It doesn't matter whether it's a restaurant, a hotel, and airline, a gas station, a grocery store, a shoe store, a book store, a online pet supplies store, who cares about categories. (All you have to worry about is that it counts as a "purchase", rather than a "cash advance". But I'm sure all your "normal" spend on credit cards already does, anyway.)


But if you don't want to do that, some Hilton cards (at the very least the no-fee Amex) give extra points for restaurants, as does the Chase Marriott Rewards card. Figure out which hotel program(s) would work for you, and then among those see which ones have cards that give extra points for restaurants.

The Amex Mercedes Benz card gives 2x membership rewards on dining.

I'm not a cash back guy so I can only comment on the most points for restaurants. IMHO Chase is going to be the best bet with the Sapphire and Hyatt cards...since that is a no go with you I would also typically suggest the Club Carlson Visa...again no go. That doesn't leave a whole lot of options other than Hilton Honors Amex which earns 5 HH points per $1 spent.

Have you searched the forum since I know this topic is discussed fairly often?

I also have the USBank Cash+ and I don't know what you mean by "the 2k bar is full". When I log on to my account, there is no graphic showing my 5% spend.

However, there may be some good news. I got my card in October of 2012 and around May/June of this year, got a letter saying that a $2,000 spend cap was being placed on my account. Last month, I got another letter saying that the first letter was a mistake and that there is currently no cap on my 5% spend. I then purchased around $5,000 in temp amex campus cards at B&N and got 5% CB.

I would suggest making a restaurant purchase and look in the rewards center in the online account to see how much cashback is pending for that specific purchase. Keep in mind that for the restaurants category, US bank only considers merchants that use the 5812 MCC code as eligible.

Why the hate on the Forward? 5x per dollar is good, I have it currently paired with a Premier card which makes it better thanks to the improved redemption rate.

All new applications for the forward card will only get 1x on all spending. Not sure how long the 5x will continue for current cardholders

I think if you got the card around July or later, the $2k cap is in place, and those users see the bar. I too got the letter (I got the card in Nov 2012) and a $10 credit, but the letter also said that a cap would be imposed on our accounts at some point.

If you have student loans / mortgage to pay, you can redeem 10,000 TYP for a $100 check payable to either one.

So 5% cash back in other words.