Tag: US Bank

How to request reopening a US Bank credit card

Here’s a quick guide on how to request the reopening of a US Bank credit card that either you closed or was closed due to inactivity. Sorry, don’t think this helps if your card was closed because you got banned. 😅

Unlike other banks, US Bank is a little more old school and requires a written request to reopen a closed account. Here is what you need:

  1. Reopening may require a credit inquiry, but the account would be reopened with the same card number and same credit line, so it’s not considered a new account on your credit report, in case you are worried about 5/24.
  2. On your written request, include the following:
    1. Sentence requesting the reopening of your account.
    2. Account number (credit card number).
    3. Individual annual income.
    4. Other sources of annual income you would like to report.
    5. Monthly housing payment.
    6. For the above, rent or own?
    7. Signature, name, and date.
    Mail or Fax to:
    • Cardmember Service
    • PO Box 6361
    • Fargo, ND 58125-6361
    • FAX: 1-800-670-4834

    Pro-Tip: You can take your document to any US Bank branch and they will fax it to the number for you for free. If you would like to do it from home and don’t have a fax machine, I love using HelloFax (5 free fax pages when you sign up with my link). It’s simple and fast! Just don’t select the option to send it in high quality/color, because this sends them a fax containing a link to the document rather than faxing them the document itself. Continue reading →

Something that might hold up your US Bank FlexPerks application (or other US Bank applications)

EDIT: The referral link for the US Bank FlexPerks does NOT give the full Olympic bonus. We’re really sorry to anyone who applied through our link–if it makes you feel better, we also applied using a referral link and will not be getting the promo bonus either. Be sure to use the normal application link to qualify for the promotion.

I applied for the US Bank FlexPerks Travel Rewards card the other day. Now the Olympics is over, the bonus is 34,800 points (20,000 is the standard bonus, plus 14,800 for the medals Team USA won), which is a great offer.

I saw a section in the application from the referral page asking me for an Alternate Mailing Address. Since I usually put my billing address as my parents’ place, I thought it would be convenient if my card could just be mailed to my mailing address.

As expected I wasn’t approved instantly, but received a pending message. I checked the online application status page a few days later, where it said I had no pending applications. Huh? So I called their automated application status phone number at 877-625-5249 where it said I could not be approved at this time. Bummer.

But wait! I got this letter in the mail a few days later:

I called in to ask what was going on, and apparently because my mailing address was different than my billing address, they needed to verify that I actually applied for the card. I did the verification over the phone and supposedly the application will be processed again the next day. Hopefully this won’t result in another hard pull!

So most likely if you’ve never used that alternate mailing address before, US Bank will hold up your credit card applications. Something to keep in mind in the future.

Confirmed: Fidelity Visa is a Flexperks card…with a catch

A lot of hoopla has been made over the fate of the Fidelity Amex card, whose portfolio was bought by Elan Financial Services (a US Bank subsidiary), with the cards being reissued as Visas. In particular, many wondered and speculated that the card would earn (or be convertible to) Flexpoints, US Bank’s pseudo-fixed value rewards currency. Doctor of Credit has a great explanation of them here, but I’ve included the award chart for reference:

A few posts, including one from Project Endpoint and one on Reddit, claim to have confirmed the card as a Flexperks-earning card. Having finally converted over from my Amex, I can confirm this is true, with one major caveat:

Points earned with the Fidelity Visa card can be redeemed for travel through the online rewards portal as if they were each worth 0.5 Flexperks.

So it’s the same chart, but with all the values doubled. Let’s run a few searches.

Looking for a one-way, we see flights with prices all less than $400. On the original Flexperks chart, these would cost 20,000 points each.

However, running the search on Elan’s portal, we see the price is 40,000.

Obviously, that isn’t proof in itself, so I decided to see if I could find flights on the margins of the award tiers to see if/how the prices changed. Doing the same search, but for round-trip, non-stops on American, we see flights ranging from $562 to $660. These would straddle the 30,000 ($400.01-$600) and 40,000 ($600.01-$800) price bands on the Flexperks chart.

Sure enough, we see a cutoff at the same point, but the prices are 2x — 60,000 and 80,000 respectively.

Given that the Fidelity (Elan) Visa doesn’t have any bonus categories, and the value of Flexperks are capped at 2 cents (and usually less than that), it doesn’t actually make any sense to treat this card as anything but a 2% cash back card, since you can’t get any better value than 1 cent per point through the travel portal.

Bummer.

The one silver lining is that the points transfer screen still loads properly, so once my balance becomes non-zero, I’ll give it a go and see how many points wind up on the other side. It would be a silly loophole for them to transfer 1:1, so if it works, you might not hear from me about it 😉

Spending bonus for US Bank Cash+

Wow, so many spending offers pouring in for the holidays!

From November 1 through December 31, 2015, earn up to $20 per month in statement credits, by spending up to $1500 per month. See tiers below (photo of letter that came in the mail today):

(not sure if that promotion code is unique to me or not)

Remember that you chose two 5% cashback categories that are capped at $1500 per quarter, so I would definitely hit that spend first for an additional $20 bonus. I’m not convinced that going for the second $1500 is entirely worth it though!

Social Media Auto Publish Powered By : XYZScripts.com