May/June Spending Promo
 

Sometime in May I received a promo e-mail from U.S.Bank offering 2500 Bonus Flexpoints for spending a total of $500 before June 30th. I did the spend but haven't seen the bonus points. Is anybody else in the same boat?

In my experience US Bank opts to postpone point posts until 90 days after the promotion wraps up. 4Q15 I completed a 3 mo. promo to receive 3,000 points after spending $500. 3,500+ points posted to my FlexPerks account on the 3rd of March, 2016.

So.. it's a year later and I've been billed the annual fee for this card (due tomorrow), which I signed up for with the promise of a $49 Relationship Bonus to cover the annual fee. It was not credited on the bill, so I called customer service, who transferred me to the rewards center (who I doubt was going to be able to help me) so I hung up after being on hold for a while. I then read the fine print on the back of the offer they sent last year which had the offer, and I see that it says it will be credited in the following month after you get billed the annual fee. So basically I have to trust them to credit it and pay the annual fee (and possibly have no recourse to get it back if they refuse the credit and I want to cancel the card, made worse by US Bank's terrible customer service). I don't see anything about the bonus in the card agreement that I was sent when I received the card.

Has anyone who signed up with the Relationship Bonus offer actually received it? If so, did you have any wording in the card agreement?

I just called to CS on both the credit card and banking side. All indications are that the annual fee will not be credited after all. I'm inclined to just close the account at this point and just reapply for one of their newer products to get the bonus points.

CS denied knowledge of the relationship bonus last year when I got the offer as well. Knowing how terrible their CS was and that I might have to fight this, I saved the entire mailing and put it in the envelope with the card materials when I received it.

I still have points from the Olympics promotion that I'm carrying on my card. They're actually on a card in my wife's name that did not have the relationship bonus offer (but had a better signup bonus) and is due for an annual fee next month so I will be cancelling that one and was planning to move the points over to this one.

I should probably just cash out the points rather than holding them to use on a plane ticket and be done with this card. But let's see if the relationship bonus posts this month. I probably should have fought this battle with them last year when I got the card without any mention of the relationship bonus in the agreement.

Just a quick question: can you book one-way or multi-city tickets with FlexPerks points?

I just cancelled the card and will apply for the visa under their current olympic promotion. I just know that it would be long fight with small chance of success. Plus, the olympic + current bonus make this a potential $600+ return for $2K spent. I also get another year without the annual fee. Lets see if they approve me.

Had you cashed out all of your points?

Yeah, I cashed out. The only points left I moved to my wife's card (her fee is not up until November). Funny thing is that I convinced her to apply and then get the bank account under the premise that she would not have to pay the annual fee.

I applied for this card last week and got the message that it is pending decision and haven't heard anything back yet. Should I call the recon line or just for a letter or email?

Retention
 

Had my $49 fee hit. the best they could do was 1000 points. Since I still have points to redeem, I took the offer. Last year they gave me the $49 back.

Yes, the type of ticket doesn't matter, as long as it can be booked on the special Flexperks travel portal.

You can call the recon line and the automated service will give you the status without having to talk to a representative. I would check as I was able to confirm approval that way in about 3-4 days. USB can take longer though if you don't have an existing relationship with them.

So, my wife's account (which was not opened with the loyalty bonus) has its annual fee due this month. I plan to cancel that one, so I just tried to transfer her points (47,201, some of them transferred in from an earlier card that I cancelled) to my card, which I am still hoping to get the annual fee reimbursed on. When I did so, it told me "This request cannot be completed because your account has reached its annual Points Transfer limit." WHAT???

I am so fed up with these clowns that I am considering just cashing out my points and closing all of the accounts. Of course if the US gets lots of medals, I could let greed get the best of me and be convinced to apply again.

Update -- I looked in the program terms and found this. The limit is 20k per year. Wonderful.

The amount of FlexPoints that you may transfer is limited to 20,000 FlexPoints in a calendar year. The amount of FlexPoints that you may accept as a transfer into your Account is limited to 20,000 FlexPoints in a calendar year. All transfers are final. You may not cancel a transfer request; you may only (if available) initiate a new transfer request back to the original account in order to reverse a transfer request.

Wow, that is one piece of fine print I hadn't seen. That is good to know. I just got the visa under the olympic promo as I couldn't resist once I started seeing the US raking in the medals :D. I now see that I will run into the transfer limit when I want to close my wife's account later this year.

One strategy that I can think of is try to convert my wife's account to the no fee version. That way I can run out the year and get a fresh 20K transfer at the beginning of 2017. In your case that still doesn't get you all the way, but perhaps it can help.