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The premium travel credit card market just got a little more crowded with the leaked details of a new premium card, the U.S. Bank Altitude™ Reserve Visa Infinite® Card. The card is aimed squarely to compete with The Platinum Card® from American Express, the Chase Sapphire Reserve®, and the Citi Prestige® Card. The new card will be a VISA Infinite card and brings a whole slew of perks and benefits.
Signup Bonus
The card comes with a 50,000-points sign up bonus after spending $4,500 on eligible purchases, in your first 90 days. The card doesn't come cheap, with an annual fee of $400. In addition, every authorized user will set you back $75 annually. You can redeem points against the annual fee; it will cost 35,000 points to offset the annual fee.
Earning and Burning with the Altitude Reserve
The Altitude Reserve earns 3X points on all mobile wallet purchases, both in store as well as eligible online and in-app purchases. It will also earn you 3X points on all travel purchases, although it does exclude those made with Online Travel Agencies. All other transactions earn 1X points. Points will have a value of 1.5¢, meaning at 3x you're getting a 4.5% return towards travel!
Perhaps even better than the high earn rates on the card, is the value when redeeming points. U.S. Bank recently introduced Real Time Mobile Rewards, which allows you to redeem points at 1.5¢ per point towards travel no matter where you made the purchase. No going through special portals or jumping hoops to redeem your points, simply purchase the best deal you can find, from any qualifying merchant, and you can redeem your points against the charge at 1.5¢ per piece. That is an awesome deal!
Card Benefits & Perks
As a VISA Infinite card, it comes with an extensive array of perks and benefits, including:
- 12 free GOGO inflight Wi-Fi passes
- $325 in Annual Travel Credits; these reset every calendar year and are applied automatically as statement credits on eligible charges
- Priority Pass Select Membership with a waived enrollment fee for one card member per account. It includes 4 free lounge visits and 4 free guest passes. After the 4 visits, members will be charged per visit
- $100 statement credit on TSA PreCheck to Global Entry enrollment fees (once every 4 years)
- $30 off and 15% discount on your first ride with GroundLink Black Car Service
- Use your points for flight time and aircraft upgrades at NetJets Private Aviation
- 30% discount on Silvercar Rentals, which are two days or longer. You need to pay for your rental with your Altitude Reserve Card
- $60 off and Pre-sales access to the James Beard Celebrity Chef Tour
- $25 food and beverage credit, as well as free continental breakfast and room upgrades, at hotels which are part of the Visa Infinite Luxury Hotel Collection
- Relais & Chateaux Boutique Luxury Hotels benefits after two nights, including accelerated access to the Club 5C program. Club 5C benefits include room upgrades and free continental breakfast at 120 properties. The benefits also include invitations to exceptional cultural and culinary events.
Insurance Coverage
Unfortunately, typically overlooked, the Altitude Reserve will provide great travel insurance and protection including:
- Car rental Primary Collision Damage Waiver
- Up to $500 per ticket for Trip Delay Reimbursement. Delay must be at least 6 hours or require an overnight stay
- Up to $2,000 for Trip Cancellation/Interruption, when a trip is interrupted or canceled for a covered reason
- Up to $3,000 for Lost Luggage Reimbursement, if your checked baggage or carry-on or their contents are lost, due to theft or misplacement by the carrier.
- Up to $50,000 per year and $10,000 per claim Purchase Protection. The insurance covers items eligible items purchased with the Altitude Reserve Card for the first 90 days. Items will be reimbursed, repaired or replaced.
Overall
This is great news for the Premium credit card market — more competition with a different angle. The introduction of 3X earning on mobile wallet transaction could offer a huge advantage and bring a whole slew of small everyday purchases into your overall points tally. Although it remains to be seen whether all in-store mobile wallet purchases will be eligible or not. On the other hand, the card is not as generous with travel purchases as the Amex Platinum, which offers 5X points on hotels and airlines.
Source link: Frequent Miler
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Mobile wallet purchases are the future of in-store credit card purchases, so we may see this being a valuable perk.
Interesting. Is the Flexperks rewards program very good? I see that you can redeem those points for cruises as well as hotels and airfare.
4 lounge visits per year? I can use that many on a single trip…
Competition is always great! Let’s hope for more in the future….
You left out a pretty key bit of info – the value of the “currency”.
🙁 1.5 cents each!
How do the points work? Will there be some sort of purchase portal, akin to the Chase UR system? Can I transfer points to certain airline partners?
We’re not 100% sure has everything hasn’t been officially posted, but it appears to be something like a purchase portal is what we can expect. We’ll also likely see no transfer partners.
Ok – so the bonus is around $750 in travel credits if it is like Flexperks? But maybe add in the travel credits and subtract the annual fee – then this is just an ok card
Not enough lounge access for me. I’ll go for the Amex Platinum instead.
Although it looks like it will have some good benefits, there seem to be some things that are much more restrictive than other cards of this caliber.
Do I understand that the priority pass membership only includes 4 visits to their lounges, then you are charged per visit? If so, that is really substandard. Airport lounge access is something that is used very often by those who get these cards.
It will be interesting to see the card launch. From what I have read so far, this card does not seem competitive at all.
That is indeed the case — but I wonder, how many people use lounge access more than 4x/year?
Anyone that takes a single round trip flight can use the lounge 4-6 times. Departing airport and connecting airport on the way out and same on the way back is 4. If I also stop by the lounge after landing that’s 6 total lounge visits. 6 may be a bit much for most people but 4 would be very common, who doesn’t stop by the lounge before departing and while on a 1-2 hour layover?
I’m flying to Denver today, connecting in Chicago. I used the lounge at my origin and in Chicago. I’ll do the same on the way home. That would be the entire free lounge access benefit!
That would certainly be a deal breaker for me.
How hard is it to qualify for this card?
We don’t know at this point, especially as it hasn’t launched. However, being a Visa Infinite card it is a top-tier product that will likely only be available to those with the best credit history.
Will this be included in the 5/24 rule?
This card will most definitely count against a 5/24 total but whether or not you are over/under 5/24 will not have an impact on your ability to be approved for this card.
So far I’m not blown away. Would have liked 100k signup especially given the mystery surrounding what the points will do.
You know what? I have to say, over the last several years, I found myself becoming more and more a devotee of Chase cc’s. Then, out comes the Chase Sapphire Reserve, which I find is just one honey of a card and program. The CSR really has cemented me to feeling extremely comfortable with a Chase premium product. US Bank, in my book, is going to have to throw a lot more at me to wean me away from CSR.
My thoughts exactly. The reserve card seems to have slightly better benefits.
As someone that enjoys redeeming points for premium cabin travel, cards that are linked to (or perhaps more appropriately: chained to) fixed value rewards programs are always a disappointment to me. Even if it was possible to earn the 3x points bonus on every purchase, one would still have to spend well over $100,000 on the Altitude card to accumulate enough points for one $5,000-valued J ticket. This product is a non-starter for me without airline transfer partners.
It’s great to see new premium card competition.
I dunno….it seems like it has some sweet perks, but is it really enough to compete with the CSR? If they had a list of transfer partners that was competitive with Chase’s, maybe, but failing that I just can’t see any reason why I would opt for this card over the CSR.
hope this card works out. lots of promise.
Seems like an interesting competitor in the premium credit card game. We will have to see how well it stands up against the competition.
The digital wallet side is better, keeps it all in one place. The lounge passes and points appear to a good incentive to take this offer up.
Very interesting card, I hadn’t seen this one yet. Thanks.
With no options to transfer points to airline/hotel programs, I don’t see much value of this card.
The more I learn about the card the more disappointed I get…
Its perks are similar to CSR, but nothing that makes the card stand out imo. Im def not considering this card.
Was excited about this card but not sure if the perks are worth the annual fee.
Sadly, as someone with an iPhone, the mobile wallet feature isn’t as appealing to me since most stores don’t allow it. Hopefully in the near future it’ll be much more useful
All these high annual fee credit cards price me out. Maybe it’s a way to ensure profitability in spite of deadbeats who never carry a balance.
Not worth considering until they add points transfer partners.
But regarding digital wallet, once you load your card in are you making purchases with the actual card so you keep your credit card benefits like extended warranties?
Yes, you are making purchases with the actual card so any/all benefits apply.
50000 seems low to CSR’s bonus of 100K… just saying 🙂
It’s great that US Bank is launching this card. I hope more banks release high end cards to increase competition.
Perks are decent, 3x on mobile wallet is cool, but I don’t really see their points as valuable. Only a $75 effective fee though, may check it out.
Always nice to see more competition to the industry! It’s a good start, but a work in progress.
Definitely welcome more competition in this segment. Who’s next?
US credit card promotions are way better than Canada…
The 3x earning with mobile is way too intriguing with this card to ignore it.
Be Aware of the Extra hidden fees.
I got the card about a month, and charged above 4500 on it the first month. among the charges were two cruises ticket. when the statement came, they didn’t apply the 325 credit. I called US Bank. they claim the charges went though as something else. I let that flight since i knew i was going to charge 325 before the year ends in another travel. Today I booked a flight to Chicago with the awarded 50k points. I made a mistake on one date and immediately call the bank. with less than 24 hours, the airline will have cancel or change my flight without penalty. US Bank charged me 30 dollars for their conscience service. Absolutely ridiculous, when Im paying 400 for a premium card.