US Bank Club Carlson Free Night Bonus Nerf and Annual Fee Refund

[Sky WIzard]

Just wanted to share my experience. I was super pissed about the changes to the 1 night free term, having 4 cards between me and my SO and having just payed over $300 in AF 3 months ago pretty much entirely for this perk.

I called and received almost no help from the reps, so I filed a complaint with the CFPB and got a call back a couple days later. She offered me 7500 points but would not refund the AFs. About a week later I got a letter stating if I call her and close the accounts, they would refund AFs. So I did just that today. Existing reservations that used the free night bonus still stand, even after closing.

Just wanted to share as an FYI incase anyone else is as disappointed in this change as I am.

 

[FlyingExplorer]

Thanks for sharing!

I'm currently leaning towards keeping at least the business card open, if not all.

Keeping the business card open means 40k points for $60. There are lots of properties where that is a great value. The status benefits are icing on the caeke.

Of course, if you can get a refund now and then get the card again later, that it always hard to beat but tough to rely on with US Bank.

 

[Voyaging Doc]

I had a long very frustrating conversation with USBank yesterday. Mind you, this was my 4th call to unblock my card for transactions anywhere from $120 to $1000 with a real estate management company and target. $1 has literally been the largest charge USBank has accepted. This is my first ever account with the bank. Each time they say they unblock it and to go ahead and make the charge. Each time the transaction is declined. I finally spoke to the Fraud dept supervisor and she said no matter how many unblocks I do there just isn't enough of a record for "Visa" to allow the transactions and that i need to make a number of small transactions to start a history going. This had me very angry so I politely asked a transfer to CS supervisor for the card.

When I signed up for the card they still had the misleading advertising for the free night award redemption and literally the next day the announcement was released. I waited 2 weeks and got all the other mail associated with the approval, but not the card itself. In all the other mail they had failed to list my "Address 2" line from my app so I presumed that was why my card got lost in the mail. I called and asked them to fix this error and so they cancelled that card and resent another. I requested expedited shipping but they told me it would be $40 (or more if I wanted it that Saturday). I asked to see if the supervisor could reverse the fee and they said no. So now I am literally stuck with a card that arrived late very close to the end of my first billing cycle and I am unable to put any reasonable amount of charges to make the minimum spend to earn enough points to redeem for the 2nd night free redemption. After the long conversation with the CS supervisor she said I can give you 7500 points + if you cancel the card by June 1 your AF will be refunded. The 7500 points is not worth my hard pull. Do you think I should suck up the AF and keep the card? It's certainly not one I would be motivated to generate a lot of spend on...

I'd love to file a CFPB complaint but if in the end it only leads the same 7500 + AF refund (if cancelled) then it's a waste of time