I largely agree with you. I'm surprised more people haven't caught on to how lucrative this program is. And, to add to your points, Visa is accepted more widely than AMEX, which gives even greater opportunities to earn points. I also really like that I earn elite-qualifying miles on award travel as well, because it's treated as a revenue ticket. One time, I redeemed just 30,000 FlexPerks for a roundtrip coach PIT-CDG during a Delta PIT promotion. I got double MQMs plus a 25,000 mile bonus. Ahh, those were the days.

Other than the drawback with the tier structure, which I can deal with, the other disadvantage is reward redemptions only make sense for coach travel. Because the points required are based on the actual retail price of the ticket, international first/business seats can take many more points than would be required under airline mileage programs, so AMEX gets the nod there with the ability to transfer points into airline FF miles.

How do you get that opportunity?

Maybe someone can help me with a Flexperks question. (Sorry if this is answered, but I searched the thread and did not find the answer. This thread has become unwieldy.)

My wife and I want to travel soon. If we were to book two tickets at, say $480 each, for $960 total, would Flexperks charge us 50,000 points (since the total is 960) or 60,000 points (since each ticket, if purchase individually, would require 30,000 points)?

I appreciate the help.

I think the redemptions are calculated on a per-ticket basis, so 60k points. You can use their "test drive" feature to make sure before you purchase, though.

Perhaps "opportunity" was the wrong word. More "it is possible". If you use 20,000 points to get a $399.99 ticket, then you've pretty much doubled the value of the points. But you're not always going to get an $x99.99 ticket, so you'll never quite get double value.

If you do a dummy booking it will quote you the points necessary per person (unfortunately so) :)

You've just described some major drawbacks, but you seem to not have analyzed them thoroughly.

You have several categories listed as 2% earn, but as you state it's not 2% on all those, it's just 2% on whichever one you spend the most in a month. Well, if you can't shift your gas and groceries spend around from month to month (and who can?) if you end up spending almost equal on each of those catogories, then your net on those categories is going to be much closer to just 1% than 2%. Only if your spend each month is mostly in just one of those three categories do you get closer to to 2%. And how much of your spend is in those categories anyway?

Next, depending on your travel patterns, it can be quite some time between times when you need to buy a ticket that is under $400 but not too far under $400. It's not a good deal as you noted if your ticket is $401. But it's also not a good deal if your ticket is $280. I can sometimes go years between buying tickets that fall in the "just under $400" range.

So a big negative for this card is just how complicated it is it make it work. Gosh, it seems even more complicated than rotating categories! With rotating categories, you know all the categories ahead of time, because it's not "whichever one your spend is highest" (which may change at the last minute!). With a Venture card, it's always at least 2% earning in a very simple way (and more flexible, since you can also redeem for previously purchased travel, and it's all travel, including hotels, etc, not just airfare that you can redeem for). And it's a simpler multiplier on earning in a sense there, since the way you get more than 2% is through their online mall.

Now, if the quirks match your specific needs, great. But that just doesn't happen for a great number of people, so for the average person, a simpler card like Venture or Freedom may work better. (And there are so many simpler cards out there, that puts Flexperks way down on the most lists.)

Finaly, you have to remember the history of this card. It used to be the Northwest Airlines WorldPerks card, which simply earned miles in a real airline mileage program. But US Bank was not able to get another (domestic) airline's business after Northwest merged into Delta (and stayed with Delta's Amex card), so "in desparation" US Bank came up with its own program, trying to keep former WorldPerks cardmembers from all jumping ship. So it was aimed at them, not at the general public. (How well it aimed at them is another story, but the point is, it was not designed as a card for the general public as much as a card to convert WorldPerks card owners to after WorldPerks went poof.)

Exactly !
And since my membership started some 2½ years ago after the unfortunate demise of the above mentioned Worldperks card, I've used this card only occasionally and it sat actually mostly forgotten in my wallet, all the while accruing quietly and to my pleasant surprise, I discovered. I guess the initial enrollment bonus helped somewhat.

What a thrill to find out that you actually accrued 40+K miles (enough for another free ticket) on a free ticket of 40K points ! :D

This is indeed a great card to focus one type of spending on (either groceries or airline tickets) plus non-bonus spending. With $24k/year spend the card is free. If you are a WN flyer you can call in and buy a last-minute ticket that is just under $400. These become TTF in the name of the passenger, valid for 1 year.

US Bank is a bit difficult to deal with sometimes. They have active fraud prevention and alerts are easily triggered. For instance by making purchases on 2 different cards from the same account in different cities. I had to limit my use because of that, it was not possible to prevent that by having that noted in the account. They also have trouble processing refunds on closed accounts. But these are minor issues for great value and good customer service.

I appreciate your thoughts about matching specific needs. I personally don't care about gas rebates, since my wife and I spend a total of about $100 a month on gas. Groceries are a bigger deal, and a regular expense. And our air purchases are spiky, say $1k-$2k twice a year. So a card that always gives me 2x points on groceries except for the two months when I get 2x points for big airfare spend seems like a great deal.

I also think this program works better for people who live in cities with higher fares. Being located near Denver I can't remember the last time I paid more than $300 for a domestic flight, so there aren't many good uses for Flex points here. However, we're moving to a smaller town this summer far from a major airport, so tickets in the high $300s and $500s will become the norm.

I know this goes against everything FTers stand for, but what if you were to settle down with one card? Wouldn't the FlexPerks Travel card be a pretty good one?

I like this card precisely because it is simple. I don't want a wallet full of cards and have to remember, for example, to use a Freedom card for groceries in spring, but only until I've spent $1,500. And with the double flex points, you can get a better average return rate than the Venture Card's (or many others') 2%. Then you bank your points until a suitable fare comes along. So the redemption is not at all flexible, but as long as you're patient you get hard-to-beat value.

Let me inject a data point from the higher fare cities of which you speak.

I see what you're trying to say about living in a city with higher fares, but I think it's just the opposite.

I've moved from one city with high fares (MEM) to another (HSV) and I've been sitting on 40k+ flex points for over two years. Every time my family takes a trip I try to use them, and every time I can't bring myself to do it.

Tickets for us are typically around $420-$450 a seat. The only time they seem to dip below that is when a fare-war erupts, such as when AirTran initiated service out of HSV. When that happened many fares fell to ~$250 a ticket. In both cases I wound up not using my FlexPoints because the value is far below what it could be.

Maybe my data represents the extreme case, as I'm citing two of the most expensive airports in the country. But, in my case, these FlexPoints have been hard to use, bottom line.

USBank could make one simple change to this program and have it be an instant, overnight smash: allow a pay with points AND cash option.

I currently have a Travelocity card with a similar reward tier to FlexPerks, where 20k points = $400 credit. If the ticket I want is over $400, no big deal -- just pay the difference in cash. A $450 ticket costs me 20k points and $50 cash. If USBank would just adopt that model, I'd pick up the FlexPerks card as my everyday card and never look back. As it is, I'm constantly looking for better cards.

Ah, but what's going to happen when AirTran exits HSV this August (without Southwest picking it up)? Could your fares rise even higher (but enough to make FlexPerks possibly more useful again, or just enough to hurt a bit more)?

(Southwest of course assumes that if you want low fares, you'll hike over to BHM or BNA for them, and why serve yet another small airport in between those two cities. The remaining airlines assume that the city is worth serving but only as long as people will pay extra to have the convenience of flying in/out of the closeby airport instead of one a couple hours away.)

And, btw, for that reason, I don't think you're at one of the two most expensive airports in the country. If fares are in the low $400s, it may be because other options are only a couple hours away. Find someplace in the country where there are no "major enough" airports for LCC competition within several hours around, and I think you'll find even high fares.

It looks like HSV and MEM are the #2 and #3 most expensive airports, out of the top 100 busiest airports in the US. I'm sure if you go to smaller airports you can find higher fares, but I don't think anyone bothers tabulating that data.

So I haven't tested this out yet. Because I was traveling internationally in early February I took my FlexPerks card out of my wallet and instead used a card with no foreign transaction fee (Chase Sapphire Preferred). It wasn't until I was about to purchase the Delta gift card that I realized it must be purchased with the FlexPerks card. Aaargh! So I'l try it some time in the future and report back.

I've only recently become aware of the reward structure of this card, but it seems like the Flexperks card could be paired well with the Travelocity Amex. You could, for example, put all your gas spending on the Flexperks and all your groceries on the Travelocity amex. You'd end up getting 4% for each category, and then 2% on all your other spending.

There seems like there'd also be synergy in redeeming. For tickets over $400, redeem your Travelocity points because each travelocity point is worth $0.02 when optimally redeemed in increments of 20,000 points for $400. For tickets slightly under $400, it sounds like the Flexperks produces a 1 point=$0.02 redemption rate.

Note: as several people have mentioned in the Travelocity thread, their customer service is terrible and they have recently been having problems with their online redemption mechanism. that might be fixed now. it's unclear.