US Bank has not been on the radar much for travel bloggers due to their lackluster offerings. The primary card people use is the Club Carlson card for the valuable “last night free” benefit, which is going away soon. A card to consider, however, is the US Bank FlexPerks card for tickets you’d otherwise need to purchase.
In This Post
What are FlexPerks?
FlexPerks are similar to currency, and can be used to “purchase” airline tickets through US Bank’s FlexPerks portal. You earn FlexPerks through spending on the US Bank FlexPerks credit cards:
- US Bank FlexPerks Travel Rewards Visa Signature
- US Bank FlexPerks Travel Rewards American Express
- US Bank FlexPerks Travel Rewards Select+ American Express
- US Bank FlexPerks Business Edge Travel Rewards
I would appreciate it if you used my FlexPerks number as a referral, so that I may earn 5,000 FlexPerks for sharing the qualities of this card. Please email me using our contact page or send me a Tweet or message me on Facebook!
Turbocharge your FlexPerks earnings
You can get additional FlexPerks points without needing to register or doing anything special — just shop and pay bills like you normally do.
With the Visa Signature version of the card, you will earn double points on:
- gas, grocery or airline travel purchases, whichever you spend the most on during each monthly billing cycle
- most cell phone purchases, including monthly bills, accessories and Internet charges
With the American Express version, you will earn double points on:
- restaurants
- gas, grocery or airline travel purchases, whichever you spend the most on during each monthly billing cycle
- most cell phone purchases, including monthly bills, accessories and Internet charges
And BOTH cards earn TRIPLE POINTS for qualifying charitable contributions. Since it is tax time, have this be a reminder, this is the card you should use when contributing money to charities using a credit card.
The Signature Visa and American Express cards earn 1 FlexPerks point on all other purchases.
The Select+ version of the card earns 1 FlexPerks point on all purchases, with no bonus categories.
What can you redeem FlexPerks for?
Although I don’t recommend it, you can redeem FlexPerks for cash. Per the website, “You may redeem as few as 5,000 of your FlexPoints for a statement credit of $50.00. FlexPoints can only be redeemed in incremental values of $50.00.”
There are also plenty of categories of products that you can redeem for, but across all companies, these have proven to be a poor redemption value for points programs… often worse than redeeming for cash or statement credits.
For example, the Kate Spade Metro Classic watch in the image above for 21,600 points can be found on Amazon for $185, which is a redemption value of $0.00856 per point.
Your best bet is to redeem for flights that are at the high end of the value chart.
How to redeem FlexPerks for flights, hotels, and travel packages?
Essentially FlexPerks can be very valuable if you redeem towards the high-end of the tiers. I recently redeemed points for flights to St Maarten for this summer.
You can redeem FlexPerks for travel on over 150 domestic and international airlines, or choose from over 70,000 worldwide hotel options. You can even book a flight and hotel together to save even more!
When I booked my St Maarten tickets, I booked one-way flights so that I could use the points already in my account now (before prices changed), then I booked the return flight when the bonus points arrived from my new card.
The flight was 20,000 FlexPerks or it would have been $246 on JetBlue. So, this is on the lower end of redemption values at $0.0123 per point.
Just remember the formula for redeeming FlexPerks — 20,000 can be redeemed for flights up to $400 in value, 30k for $401 to $600, 40k for $601 to $800, etc.
The fallacy of their program is when you get a ticket priced at just over the threshold. A ticket for $425 would be the same 30,000 FlexPerks points as a $600 ticket would, which reduces your return considerably. Although, I have heard that some people have been able to call in to make the reservation and pay the difference, if it is a small amount.
You can earn frequent flier miles on your award travel
The best thing about using FlexPerks for airplane travel… other than not having to pay for a flight… is that because the ticket was “purchased” from the airline, you will receive frequent flier miles for your flight.
How maximize earnings?
I only use this card when I buy from the grocery store, so that way all of my grocery purchases earn 2x points, which effectively doubles my redemption value. So, the example above would have actually been a $0.0246 redemption, which is pretty good value.
Additionally, I buy gift cards from the grocery store for purchases I will make at other stores, which do not receive category bonuses… like Domino’s, Kohl’s, Amazon, etc.
If you plan perfectly, you can earn up to 4% per $1 spent by loading up only on bonus categories and “buying” tickets at the top each of the range.
Also, if you spend $24,000 on the card each year, you will receive 3,500 bonus points each year, which can be redeemed for your annual fee or towards other reward choices.
$25 airline allowance included
When you redeem points for award travel, you can receive up to $25 rebated back to your account when you spend using your FlexPerks card on baggage fees, in-flight treats, and more.
Conclusion
If you think that the US Bank FlexPerks card deserves a slot in your wallet or points’ travel strategy, please reach out to me and use my referral code so that we both can enjoy more amazing travel!
