But the fact of the matter is that there are a lot of people out there who don t need international

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I ll be honest, I ve always turned my nose at fixed-value award programs because they limit the maximum value you can get out of the program. What s the fun in getting city of los angeles office of finance a single measly cent per point? Fixed-value programs make traveling in expensive first class cabins, like my recent  Cathay Pacific trip , nearly impossible since the redemptions are tied to the cost of the ticket- so a $10,000 trip would cost a million points. No thanks.
But the fact of the matter is that there are a lot of people out there who don t need international first class tickets city of los angeles office of finance or simply don t have the time or flexibility to make award tickets work. Yes, my Cathay flight was amazing , but what would have happened if I had 4 kids to also bring with me on that flight? city of los angeles office of finance Fat chance I d have been able to get us all in the first class cabin at the saver level pricing.
I m also coming around to fixed-value programs because I ve been redeeming a lot of miles lately and I ve started to fall behind on my elite status since award tickets don t qualify city of los angeles office of finance for elite miles. I d love to have a nice stash of points to be used to purchase airfare so I don t end up at a lower elite level. I m ready to get a fixed value card and recently learned about the US Bank Flexperks Signature Visa , which will be a part of my next round of credit card applications and I ll be digging into the program more once I m a member.
city of los angeles office of finance FlexPerks is the proprietary points program of US Bank, just like Ultimate Rewards is to Chase, however the main downside is that you can t transfer the points to any travel city of los angeles office of finance partner. You can only redeem the points for travel and gift cards, though I d love to see US Bank add in transfer partners since they currently issue the co-brand cards for Aeromexico, Taca, LAN, and Korean airlines so all three alliances would be covered.
I actually used to be a US Bank customer when they issued the Northwest city of los angeles office of finance credit cards (which went away with the Delta merger), but after my Northwest card went by the wayside and they enrolled me in FlexPerks instead, I canceled the card because I was most focused on building up airline miles and credit card points with Chase and Amex. I never paid much attention to the program, but after researching city of los angeles office of finance it s actually a decent program for those looking to redeem for any flight and earn elite status. (Or those who have simply maxed out on all of the good offers with Chase, Amex and Citi and need something new!)
Get 15,000 bonus FlexPoints after the first $500 in net purchases in the first 90 days. (The current public offer is just for 10,000 points.) To my knowledge city of los angeles office of finance 15,000 is about the best it gets since US Bank doesn t seem to run huge sign-up bonuses.
Earn 3,500 bonus FlexPoints each year when you spend $24,000 in Net Purchases. You can redeem these FlexPoints for your annual fee or combine them with other FlexPoints for travel or many other rewards
If you are a Platinum banking customer of US Bank ($18 a month or $25,000 in account balances) you earn a 50% bonus on all base points and an additional .5 points on all bonus categories (so charitable spending earns 3.5 points per dollar).
In addition, the card has a SmartChip, which would be great for travel abroad, however , there is a 2-3% foreign transaction fee on the card, so I would not use this card abroad or for any foreign transactions. Check out this post for the best no foreign transaction fee cards. Cardholders also get travel accident insurance for up to $1 million, Silver-level membership in a travel booking service called Aficionado Club, and up to a 25% discount on National Car Rental reservations plus a free rental day coupon.
You can use your points to redeem for any available airfare at any time with no blackout dates. However, it more closely resembles Canada’s RBC Avion points where you redeem a certain amount of points on tickets up to certain dollar-value tiers, vs Capital One and Citi that give you 1 cent per point. You would also earn Elite Qualifying Miles as well as redeemable miles when redeeming FlexPoints.
So the most value you can get out of any of your points is 2 cents each if you push right up against the upper limit of airfare in each increment with the worst being 1.33 cents each if you are at the lower end of those price brackets- city of los angeles office of finance still much more  generous than most programs that only give 1- 1.25 cents per point. If you earn on average 2 points per dollar spent (not hard if you are a Platinum checking customer can spend in bonus categories) and you maximize your redemptions, city of los angeles office of finance you could be getting 4% back on all of your spend (double the Venture), which is extremely competitive even compared to Chase/Amex since you are earning miles all along the way.
Booking travel is easy too through the FlexPerks Rewards travel site, which is powered by Travelocity so it should find pretty much the standard best deals out there, or by calling the booking center city of los angeles office of finance at 888-229-8864. Cardholders must make the booking themselves, though the tickets can be purchased in anyone’s name.
You can also redeem city of los angeles office of finance points for hotels and car rental gift cards at a rate of 1 point per cent in 5,000-point increments for which you get gift certificates to use at chains like Hyatt, Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, Avis, Budget, Hertz, Carnival Cruise Lines and Royal Caribbean.
Points are also redeemable for merchandise from shops like Apple, Sony, Bose, Canon and Dell, and gift cards from places city of los angeles office of finance like Amazon, Best Buy, Gap, Macy’s, Office Depot and Starbucks, or even just cash-back statement credits at 1 cent per point in increments of 5,000 points.
Note that FlexPoints expire 5 years after the end of the quarter in which they were earned, so no keeping your points alive simply by continuing to use the card. You’ve eventually got to use your points within that 5-year limit.
As always, fixed-rate points like these generally aren’t the best idea for travelers who want to redeem their points city of los angeles office of finance for international first and business class flights, though if you took advantage of the recent sub $2,000 business class flights to Europe, you could have scored them with 100,000 points city of los angeles office of finance and still earned elite status! Nor is this the card for people looking for airline or hotel-specific perks like with a co-branded card (though that $25 incidental credit per airline ticket booked with rewards would cover checked bags or onboard snacks, so that’s a perk).
Rather this card would be good for people who need to be able to book any flight- especially families whose school schedules aren t flexible enough to work around peak award travel periods and who need multiple tickets on the same exact flight. For example, if you want to fly to Hawaii in coach on a $600 ticket, you can use 30,000 points per ticket and you d earn miles and book as many tickets are available at that price vs. trying to finagle saver award tickets which start at 35,000 with most airlines and are heavily capacity controlled. This scenario works different based on your travel destination, cost of the tickets and what class of service you travel, but these programs can take the hassle out of using rewards points and allow you to earn miles on top of the redemption.
This card also makes a lot of sense for people who are US Bank Platinum checking customers and who also spend a lot of money in charitable donations as well as gas, groceries or airfare. While the Capital One Venture card gives two points per dollar on all purchases, the points are worth 1 cent a piece. city of los angeles office of finance If you can max out on the 2x and 3x WorldPerks spend categories and then redeem for up to 2 cents per point, you can come out way ahead (plus you get all the other perks like $25 reimbursements and Visa Signature and Smartchip benefits). Overall, depending on your habits, this is potentially the best fixed value travel card on the market right now.
Disclaimer: The responses below are not provided or commissioned city of los angeles office of finance by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
Actually, no. This card pays much less than most others. In fact the card that pays the most, the visa black card, I ve never marketed once. So your thought on me marketing the card based on a high payout just isn t true.
-Accruing points for paying bills US Bank issues an EFT through their internet banking to the biller, so there aren t any issues of having billers city of los angeles office of finance turn down payments via credit cards. Flex Perks far outweighs the points program my debit/checking account is linked to.
I ve booked 3 award tickets through the Flex Perks Reward Center and had no issues. It uses Travelocity as its engine and sorts results with an indication of what the RT Price will be, which includes all taxes and fees. You highlighted the one flaw with the tiered reward values. Last month I wanted to book a flight to Mexico. The ticket value was only $415, but I would have had to shell out 30,000 points.
The statement credit is a nice bonus especially since all US Bank looks for are airline purchases on the day of travel. I typically just purchase the option to double or triple my PQMs when I get to the airport. The credit takes a while, but hey free miles.
The online account management leaves some things to be desired. My biggest issue is that purchases often take weeks to post. There s no pending transaction list and sometimes I have to wait for new billing periods for all my purchases to show up online. This was most annoying during the 0% APR introductory period, as I was using the card heavily city of los angeles office of finance and wasn t ever quite sure what I needed to pay off each month.
With the puny signup bonus, a family of four would need $120k in spending (or $60k on grocery) to get those 4 Hawaii tic