If you have to really fly out of HSV, yes. But you're about 2 hours one way to BNA (Nashville) and 2 hours the other way to BHM (Birmingham), both of which have WN (Southwest) either if you want to fly it (paid or on RR 2.0 points earned quickly with on-the-ground partners) or just enjoy its competitive pressure on fares on the majors.

I'm not sure if MEM is as close to better-priced airports the way HSV is.

And, btw, two hours is what a one-hour drive to any airport in SoCal turns into if there's any traffic at all. While there tends to be little traffic on AL/TN interstates between these cities. So it takes about as much time, at least outside of winter, to go to BNA for a flight as it takes many people in SoCal to get to any "local" airport if they can't leave in the "middle of the night" [the only time traffic is almost gauranateed good]. SNA and LAX are only 50 miles apart, but many people who live in Orange County refuse to go to LAX because it can be hours away when they need to fly. And thus, because you're in a low-traffic part of the country, you may have a wider range of airport choices within two hours of you than many people in a dense metro area that techinically has two or three airports all in that metro area!

Using Flexpoints with SWA question.
 

Has anybody used their Flexperks points to purchase a Southwest ticket?

My thought was to use the points to buy a fully refundable ticket for $993.20 (Chicago to Los Angeles one way in business select and the other in anytime) and then cancel it. From SWA "If you cancel your flight, you are eligible to receive 100% of your ticket value as a refund to your original form of payment." I am just not sure what would show as the original form of payment. It would be great to get the cash back.

Any thoughts?

Don't do this. The "original form of payment" is a credit card used by FlexPerks to purchase the tickets. If the ticket is refunded, US Bank -- not you -- gets the money back.

Got the EMV Card
 

Recently applied for the FlexPerks card and was pleasantly surprised to receive the version with the EMV chip in the mail yesterday. As others have mentioned, it is chip-and-signature, not chip-and-pin, but I'm excited to try it out during an upcoming trip to Canada.

I was deciding to get an US Bank FlexPerks card because it has a relatively good program, it has EMV Chip-and-Signature for international transaction and it also has the VISA PayWave feature for simple purchases at 7-Elevens and the like. Three way purchases FTW, or so I thought.

But today I just read a speech given by an US Bancorp exec:

Four Key Takeaways from the SEAA

I can take this as two ways:

1. We don't care if your card gets hit with fraud, that's your problem that we're better off not dealing with it because it's too small for us to justify the expense.

2. We don't care if you want a more secure EMV card because it's too expensive for us to issue them and it doesn't justify the expense to do so.

After this, I don't want to do business with a bank that considers a cardholder as an "expense" rather than a valued customer. :td:

There are other companies out there that issues EMV cards that are better suited for travelers. I'd rather go with a credit union like Andrews FCU which considers me as a part of their own instead of an "expense" to issue a chipped card.

When they write "justify the expense" they mean relative to the amount of fraud. The claim I've read in the past is that fraud is not as prevalent or expensive in the US as in certain other countries, so the chip card is not cost effective.

The underlying tone still is disturbing. Fraud is fraud, small or large, over here or abroad, especially when it occurs on a personal level.

They're basically saying fraud prevention technologies such as chip cards are an "expense" that they "hate" and see no value to do so. I hardly call this being customer friendly or understanding how stressful fraud can be from a customer's perspective. :td:

With such a tone, why would I put any faith in dealing with US Bank if I happened to become a victim of fraud then?

I think you're misreading this. US Bank has the same type of "zero liability guarantees" that other issuers have. Whatever their faults, they don't seem to have a particular reputation for jerking people around on fraud claims, particularly not small ones.

My reading of this executive's comments is merely, "We don't spend enough on fraudulent transactions to justify the extra expense of putting an EMV chip in every card." Their motivation for doing so lies elsewhere, likely the demands of overseas travelers and the knowledge that someday, every payment card in the US will likely have an EMV chip.

Remember, they were one of the first big issuers to do a broad-based roll-out of EMV. There are plenty of justifiable criticisms of US Bank and their practices, but I don't think this is one of them.

From how I read it, there is no other motivation. Why then use "As issuers, we hate chip cards.” :confused:

If it's about pondering the effectiveness of a chip card as a measure to prevent fraud in the US based on cost analysis, "As issuers, we question the effectiveness of chip cards" should have been a much better choice of words than outright "hate."

The word hate is a very powerful word, especially when it comes from a person representing a company giving a speech at a conference. It's not something that can be said lightly and anyone giving a speech at a conference should have the common sense to avoid using the term.

Even in the context of acknowledging the need for international travelers, the use of the phrase "we hate chip cards" can be construed as: “we really don’t want to issue them, but we have to in consideration for international travelers. Honestly however, we really wish we could just say kiss off to them because its only an added expense that we're better off not dealing with them in the first place.”

I understand the word "hate" could've been a gaffe that might have taken out of context. But the underlying tone does make me think twice of doing business with US Bank for now. There are other banks and credit unions out there that offer chip cards with a much friendlier tone. :eek:

All the more reason why I am disappointed that such a remark would come from a person representing US Bank. It practically like dissing your own product! You know, be a bit more positive and encouraging on the technology that you've incorporated onto your own card line up? :eek:

My Mother has been getting some pretty nice FreeMonee offers, $4 here, $5 there. She just received a $25 Williams Sonoma offer. She said that she did not need anything from Williams Sonoma - I told her that she needed to go to the mall and purchase a $25 gift card!

I get what you're saying -- I really do -- but I think you're reading too much into this statement. I would estimate that 99.9% of USBank's customers never use their card out of the country. Clearly they don't think the chips are going to save them money on fraudulent transactions, a position that can be robustly supported with evidence (see: Global Payments, Inc.). Basically they feel like their spending $100 to save $10, a situation that lots of people will "hate".

3X Charitable Giving "Final?" Outcome
 

So it's been almost 3 months since I called US Bank FlexPerks to get my charitable giving bonus points figured out. Here is the final outcome:
1. You do not have to go through the Visa Giving Gateway to get your bonus points
2. You get one point for the dollar amount and 2 additional as bonus
3. The CSR I worked with escalated the issue a couple of levels and was told that there is a clause on the website giving them an "out" to not award the bonus points. It basically says it is at their discretion to award or not to award the bonus points. She agreed with me that is HORRIBLE customer service (and misleading) and it caused her to escalate it even more to get an answer and hopefully get it fixed.
4. A couple of days ago I was awarded 18,150 points for about a year's worth of charitable giving bonus points I hadn't yet received. YIPPEE!
5. My remaining question is, "Now what?" Is the problem fixed so that I will get my bonus points each month? Or will I have to call the CSR and have her award me the points (that would be a real hassle). I have called and left a voice mail asking this question. So this may not be the "final" outcome after all!

I had always received 3X on charitable charges, however, my last statement only posted 1x points. Looks like they are not consistent about it.

As for redemptions, they used to be good - every 10k points = $200 starting redemption at 20k. However, recently, I tried to redeem 80k on a $1600 ticket, it shows up as needing 100k or 150k. I checked travelocity, the ticket price is only $1600. Although USbank says their search engine is from travelocity, it looks like it is shady there.

I might just cash it out as cash instead.

The one good advantage is - you can transfer all your points to another person's account before cancelling the card.

I don't think that FlexPerks offers an 80,000-point redemption for $1,600 of travel. I believe it skips from a 70,000 point redemption for $1,400 of travel to a 100,000 point redemption for $2,000 of travel. The same is true for non-existing redemptions at 60,000 and 90,000 points, not to mention the gaps above 100,000 points.

Assuming that to be the case, the problem isn't with FlexPerks gaming the Travelocity pricing, it's with FlexPerks not offering a redemption table without signficant gaps.

ExitRowAisle
A Dissatisfied 2nd Class Starwood Platinum Member

50% platinum package bonus question
 

As mentioned previously, if you have a platinum package account with US Bank, you get a 50% flexperks bonus for spending on the card. My question is whether the 2X bonus categories receive 2.5X (50% bonus on the "base" points) or 3X total points (50% bonus on total points). Similarly, would the 3X points for charitable donations become 3.5X or 4.5X with the platinum package?