New U.S. Bank Smartly Card Offers up to 4% Cash-Back, an Industry Best

When it comes to cash-back credit cards, the typical standard is 2% cash-back on all purchases. Some issuers, like Robinhood, have made waves lately by announcing a card that earns 3% cash-back on all purchases.

Now, U.S. Bank has blown that out of the water by releasing the new U.S. Bank Smartly™ Visa Signature^® Card, which allows you to earn industry-leading cash-back on all purchases, provided you qualify for the higher earning rates.

Let’s take a look at the details and how to boost your earning rates.

U.S. Bank Smartly Card Details

Here’s how the cash-back earnings on the U.S. Bank Smartly card works.

All cardholders earn unlimited 2% cash-back on all purchases, with the ability to boost this cash-back rate depending on the amount of deposits you hold with U.S. Bank at the following rates:

• Earn a 25% bonus, boosting your cash-back rate to 2.5% on all purchases, with a qualifying balance between $5,000 to $49,999
• Earn a 50% bonus, boosting your cash-back rate to 3% on all purchases, with a qualifying balance between $50,000 to $99,999
• Earn a 75% bonus, boosting your cash-back rate to 4% on all purchases, with a qualifying balance of $100,000 or more

Fortunately, U.S. Bank doesn’t require you to hold these total amounts in its Smartly^® Savings account, as your average daily combined qualifying balances can come from a combination of accounts, including checking and savings accounts, money market accounts, CDs, IRAs, and more. And you aren’t required to have any of these accounts to apply for the U.S. Bank Smartly card, though they’re obviously beneficial for cardholders.

For those familiar, the setup is nearly identical to the Bank of America Preferred Rewards program. However, the Bank of America Preferred Rewards program only allows you to earn up to 2.625% cash-back on all purchases with the Bank of America^® Unlimited Cash Rewards Credit Card for holding the same $100,000+ in combined assets with Bank of America.

One item to keep in mind is that, while you can earn up to 4% cash-back on all purchases with the U.S. Bank Smartly card, the cash-back you earn will only be redeemable at full value when redeemed as a deposit into an eligible U.S. Bank deposit account. This means that other redemption methods — like statement credits, gift cards, and travel — may have a reduced redemption rate. And while these earnings are provided as points, you can’t combine those points with any other U.S. Bank credit cards.

This is in stark contrast to the Robinhood Gold Card, which promises 3% cash-back but offers reduced redemption values when redeeming your rewards as cash-back via statement credit.

The U.S. Bank Smartly card does not charge an annual fee and offers an introductory 0% APR for the first 12 months.

Final Thoughts

The ability to earn an uncapped 4% cash-back on all purchases should help catapult this card to one of the top spots among cash-back cards, at least from an earnings perspective. Stay tuned for our full review of the card with even more details!