US Bank Makes Major Changes to Smartly Card: Capped Earnings, More Restrictions

The launch of the U.S. Bank Smartly™ Visa Signature^® Card was met with plenty of excitement, thanks to its ability to earn up to an industry-leading 4% cash-back on all purchases with a $0 annual fee.

Now, less than 6 months after its initial launch, U.S. Bank has made some sweeping changes to the card that make it a shell of its former self and, frankly, no longer worth considering.

U.S. Bank Smartly Card Changes

As a refresher, here is how the cash-back earnings on the U.S. Bank Smartly card worked previously.

All cardholders could 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 according to the following structure:

• 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

Further, your average daily combined qualifying balances could come from various accounts, including checking and savings accounts, money market accounts, CDs, IRAs, and more.

Now as of April 14, 2025, here’s what the card will offer moving forward:

• Previously, you needed a $5,000 combined average balance in order to qualify for the 2.5% rewards; now, that has been increased to $10,000.
• The older version of the card used a combined balance calculation on a 90-day average; now, that has been changed to a 30-day average.
• Previously, there were no spending limits on how much cash-back you could earn; now, your cash-back rewards on the 2.5%, 3%, and 4% rates are limited to $10,000 in spend per billing cycle, and all spending beyond that will earn 2% cash-back.
• The new version of the card now excludes tax payments, business-to-business purchases, insurance, education/tuition, third-party bill payments, and direct-selling gift card sites from earning boosted cash-back rewards. These purchases will earn a maximum of 2% back.
• Lastly, only checking account balances will count toward the bonus rewards tiers. Funds that you have in your savings and brokerage accounts with U.S. Bank will no longer qualify.

That last point drastically limits the usefulness of the U.S. Bank Smartly card going forward. It makes little sense to keep $50,000, or even $100,000+, in a checking account earning a paltry interest rate just to earn 3% or 4% cash-back on up to $10,000 in purchases each month.

Final Thoughts

If there is a silver lining, it is that those who already have the card can continue taking advantage of its older and better benefits — though that could change at any moment.

To be fair to U.S. Bank, you could argue that the card was overly generous at its launch and therefore unsustainable, but now it seems it has swung the pendulum too far in the other direction.