Taking a page from Free-quent Flyer with his “Do This Now” series, if you don’t have a US Bank Checking account you should open one now. I mentioned in the past that if you are thinking about being a US Bank customer, you should open up a checking account. A friendly reader also left this comment:
The Gold Checking account trick appears to be true. I mysteriously got my AF refunded last month after PCing to the Amex product. I guess the CC and gold checking acct cancel each other’s fees!
So we have confirmation – Gold Checking + Flexperks American Express knocks each other out from the fees.
Why You Should Do It Now?
Doctor Of Credit lets us know that there’s a bank bonus for signing up, $125 and free points to opening up the account when you fund the checking account, up to $500. My assumption is that any credit card used will be coded as a purchase only because American Express is accepted. But you should also consult this resource on Doctor of Credit.
I actually opened my account a little over a week ago because I couldn’t wait for the bonus and my Flexperks anniversary is coming up and wanted the systems to sync so I would be properly refunded come August. I’ll have to chat with a representative to see if I can get the bonus match. To play it safe, I funded with my US Bank Flexperks card and it came as a purchase. If I were to do it all over again, I would have used my American Express Business Platinum card for $500 in spend for the 20kchallenge, but maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t because I see this comment on Doctor of Credit that a reader was charged a cash advance. There was a conflicting report about SPG on Fatwallet being charged as a purchase and both are American Express issued cards, so it’s a tough call with little data.
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