topic Re: Elan Max Cash Preferred cards in Credit Cards

Elan Max Cash Preferred cards

g8tor89 — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 14:08:37 GMT

So I noticed when looking for cards to give cash back on utlilities that there is a series of credit cards which basically are all the same rewards system (and underwriters? not sure) from Elan Financial Services. Various banks and credit unions (Harborstone, gateway, etc) all called the "Max Cash Preferred" cards. This also seems to be the case for the US Bank Cash+ Visa. So I have some questions

1. US bank and Elan seem to be closely linked from what I could gather snooping around the net. US bank denied me because I had just apped for the State Farm visa to get cash back on my car insurance and they gave me a 9K limit, and the denial stated that they had extended the maximum amount of credit they were willing to extend at that time on the SF card. Since elan and US Bank seem to be linked - does this make any elan card a no go as well? I seemed to meet all other underwriting requirements as that was the only reason given.

2. Are there any data points for what elan/the issuing bank is looking for? Like Chase's 5/24 rule?

3. Is there any bank that's "the easiest" to get this type of card through? Or do they all have the same underwriting requirements

Re: Elan Max Cash Preferred cards

Anonymous — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 14:28:20 GMT

Very recent thread on this, with more links to the older stuff

Elan Max Cash Preferred - Master List of Banks/Cre... - myFICO® Forums - 6523458

Basically, Elan is owned by US Bank, so not just a close relationship. In general, you don't need a relationship with any of the FI who issue the card. The only advantage is if you want to deposit the rewards in a bank account (rather than statement credit), you will need an account at that institution. Underwriting is really through Elan, so same requirements for all.

As noted in that thread, there now seem to be a few exceptions, where to apply for the card at institution X, you need an account there. Still seems to be very unusual though

Re: Elan Max Cash Preferred cards

DakotaM — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 14:33:55 GMT

Elan is generally more generous than US Bank. US Bank likes no more than 1/12, though they sometimes approve people with more new accounts, so it isn't a hard rule. Elan is more lenient in that regard. As far as I know, Elan manages all the cards, so they all have the same underwriting requirements.

Re: Elan Max Cash Preferred cards

g8tor89 — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 14:56:28 GMT

Thanks! I guess that leaves just 2 questions

1. Is Elan's "pool" of credit treated different from US Bank's? Because as noted above, US Bank denied my app for the Cash+ and the reason given was they had extended the maximum amount credit they were willing to extend with the 9K State Farm visa (Which was majorly disappointing considering I don't need NEARLY that much to pay my car insurance, Im not going to use it for anything else and US bank doesnt do credit reallocations or product changes from co-branded cards)

2. What credit bureau does Elan pull? The reason I ask is because my "backup" was my original plan until I discovered the Elan CBP cards: The BMO Harris Cash back card (5% on streaming) + The Venmo credit card (3% back on utlities) both pull TU which I only have 2 inquiries on. Trying to determine which app to pull the triggers on first.

Re: Elan Max Cash Preferred cards

DakotaM — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 15:06:40 GMT

@g8tor89 wrote:
Thanks! I guess that leaves just 2 questions
1. Is Elan's "pool" of credit treated different from US Bank's? Because as noted above, US Bank denied my app for the Cash+ and the reason given was they had extended the maximum amount credit they were willing to extend with the 9K State Farm visa (Which was majorly disappointing considering I don't need NEARLY that much to pay my car insurance, Im not going to use it for anything else and US bank doesnt do credit reallocations or product changes from co-branded cards)

2. What credit bureau does Elan pull? The reason I ask is because my "backup" was my original plan until I discovered the Elan CBP cards: The BMO Harris Cash back card (5% on streaming) + The Venmo credit card (3% back on utlities) both pull TU which I only have 2 inquiries on. Trying to determine which app to pull the triggers on first.

They pulled Experian for me and I'm afraid I don't know the answer to #1.

Re: Elan Max Cash Preferred cards

BronzeTrader — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 15:31:24 GMT

I have this Elan card and two US Bank Cash+ cards from family. The Elan card is really bad to use. I have stopped using it.

It has a totally separate web site. Its interface is just bad and hard to use. Everything there is different.

I use a payment processor to pay utility bills to avoid payment fees. US Bank cards have no problem. But Elan card does not recognize the payment as utility. That defeats the whole purpose of having this Elan card.

A mistake on my part, not knowning all fact of the Elan cards. In the same group of bad cards of Apple, Target and Best Buy cards.

Re: Elan Max Cash Preferred cards

ocheosa — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:59:14 GMT

@BronzeTrader wrote:
I have this Elan card and two US Bank Cash+ cards from family. The Elan card is really bad to use. I have stopped using it.

It has a totally separate web site. Its interface is just bad and hard to use. Everything there is different.

I use a payment processor to pay utility bills to avoid payment fees. US Bank cards have no problem. But Elan card does not recognize the payment as utility. That defeats the whole purpose of having this Elan card.

A mistake on my part, not knowning all fact of the Elan cards. In the same group of bad cards of Apple, Target and Best Buy cards.

NJ - Elan pulled TU on all my apps, 2 personal cards an 1 business.

I have two Elan MCP cards and love them, so much so I'm going after a third later. The cashback opportunity, for me, is incredible. As recommended on the forum (link below), I use Paypal Billpay to pay utilities and avoid service fees. I have not had any problems with the payments not being recognized as utilities and earning the 5% cashback. So guess it's a YEMV.

If you're on Paypal maybe try that system?

Link to the thread:

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Personal-Finance/PayPal-Bill-Pay-Credit-Card-Rewards/td-p/6506586

Re: Elan Max Cash Preferred cards

coldfusion — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:49:59 GMT

@g8tor89 wrote:
Thanks! I guess that leaves just 2 questions
1. Is Elan's "pool" of credit treated different from US Bank's? Because as noted above, US Bank denied my app for the Cash+ and the reason given was they had extended the maximum amount credit they were willing to extend with the 9K State Farm visa (Which was majorly disappointing considering I don't need NEARLY that much to pay my car insurance, Im not going to use it for anything else and US bank doesnt do credit reallocations or product changes from co-branded cards)

2. What credit bureau does Elan pull? The reason I ask is because my "backup" was my original plan until I discovered the Elan CBP cards: The BMO Harris Cash back card (5% on streaming) + The Venmo credit card (3% back on utlities) both pull TU which I only have 2 inquiries on. Trying to determine which app to pull the triggers on first.

I'll start with your 2nd question.

It's a YMMV as to which CRA would get pulled but one of the determining factors appears to be your state of residence. The thread https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/General-Credit-Topics/Which-Report-Will-They-Pull-Part-2/td-p/6379773 includes crowdsourced data points for Elan applications broken down by state and CRA.

As for the pool of credit I don't know the answer but we did have a former member at one point report being told that the same team of US Bank underwriters evaluates and renders decisionc for both US Bank and Elan applications Take that as you may.

Re: Elan Max Cash Preferred cards

JNA1 — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 01:33:05 GMT

We have 3 Elan MCP cards that earn us around $1000 per year in cash back, so we love them. The is Elan app is definitely not most high tech app we have, but it works and the cash rewards portion is pretty good.

My only real complaint with the Elan app is that make you do a manual log about every 6 or 8 weeks. It's a little annoying, but not enough to call it bad.

Re: Elan Max Cash Preferred cards

BronzeTrader — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 01:53:52 GMT

@ocheosa wrote:
@BronzeTrader wrote:
I have this Elan card and two US Bank Cash+ cards from family. The Elan card is really bad to use. I have stopped using it.

It has a totally separate web site. Its interface is just bad and hard to use. Everything there is different.

I use a payment processor to pay utility bills to avoid payment fees. US Bank cards have no problem. But Elan card does not recognize the payment as utility. That defeats the whole purpose of having this Elan card.

A mistake on my part, not knowning all fact of the Elan cards. In the same group of bad cards of Apple, Target and Best Buy cards.

NJ - Elan pulled TU on all my apps, 2 personal cards an 1 business.

I have two Elan MCP cards and love them, so much so I'm going after a third later. The cashback opportunity, for me, is incredible. As recommended on the forum (link below), I use Paypal Billpay to pay utilities and avoid service fees. I have not had any problems with the payments not being recognized as utilities and earning the 5% cashback. So guess it's a YEMV.

If you're on Paypal maybe try that system?

Link to the thread:
https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Personal-Finance/PayPal-Bill-Pay-Credit-Card-Rewards/td-p/6506586

That is exactly the problem. My Elan Max cash card does not like the Paypal layer. So it does not recognize it as utility payments. I'm not going to contact Elan about it. My Cash+ cards have no such issues.

If I do not use Paypal, I pay like $2 or $4 fee for each payment. Before, I slip one month and pay two bills together. No interest charged.

Re: Elan Max Cash Preferred cards

Anonymous — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 02:03:33 GMT

@BronzeTrader wrote:
That is exactly the problem. My Elan Max cash card does not like the Paypal layer. So it does not recognize it as utility payments. I'm not going to contact Elan about it. My Cash+ cards have no such issues.

If I do not use Paypal, I pay like $2 or $4 fee for each payment. Before, I slip one month and pay two bills together. No interest charged.

@BronzeTrader , thanks for this! Just went to check mine, which I use for Internet. In December, the payment via paypal bill pay earned 5%, this month, only 1%. I will wait to the statement to verify the bonus will not post.... Now to make sure it still works for Cash+

Re: Elan Max Cash Preferred cards

coldfusion — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 03:30:37 GMT

@JNA1 wrote:
We have 3 Elan MCP cards that earn us around $1000 per year in cash back, so we love them. The is Elan app is definitely not most high tech app we have, but it works and the cash rewards portion is pretty good.

My only real complaint with the Elan app is that make you do a manual log about every 6 or 8 weeks. It's a little annoying, but not enough to call it bad.

Anyone accustomed to the typical smallish credit union's online portal would pretty much feel right at home with the Elan website. It's functional but doesn't have a whole lot else going for it.

Re: Elan Max Cash Preferred cards

Anonymous — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 15:09:31 GMT

While Elan's website is bare bones it works. More than I can say for US Bank or Citi Bank! Love my cards but Citi scares me as sometimes it flickers and jumps around after I log in one to three times.

Did not know the Rewards were another oar in the water.

Glad it is all coming out in this thread! Not read it any where else!

Re: Elan Max Cash Preferred cards

BronzeTrader — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 13:11:44 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@BronzeTrader wrote:
That is exactly the problem. My Elan Max cash card does not like the Paypal layer. So it does not recognize it as utility payments. I'm not going to contact Elan about it. My Cash+ cards have no such issues.

If I do not use Paypal, I pay like $2 or $4 fee for each payment. Before, I slip one month and pay two bills together. No interest charged.

@BronzeTrader , thanks for this! Just went to check mine, which I use for Internet. In December, the payment via paypal bill pay earned 5%, this month, only 1%. I will wait to the statement to verify the bonus will not post.... Now to make sure it still works for Cash+

Here is what I get. ConEd is clearly utility. And its transaction clearly states it is utility. But Elan gave me 1% on it. I'm going to call them this time to dispute it. But I do not like to call them every time this happens. It is annoying.

Re: Elan Max Cash Preferred cards

BronzeTrader — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 13:33:55 GMT

I do not know how you guys love this card so much. It is a total bear to me.

So Elan gave me 1% on my $118.42 ConEd charge. That is 4% or $4.72 short. I called the phone number on the back of the card. That is Elan. They say they only service the card and have nothing to do with earning reward. I have to call the bank who "issued" the card.

So I called the new number. It has a totally new phone menu. And the phone calls dropped repeatedly. This is not worth the $4.72 they came up short.

So there are 3 companies involved with this card:

1. Elan/US Bank who processes the transactions.

2. Your bank who "issued" you the card. They produces the statement and calculate the rewards

3. Reward mangement company. You can redeem the rewards as cash, gift card and more.

It is a big mess if something goes wrong. I still do not know whom to call with my $4.72 missing rewards.

I'll stay away from those cards. Not worth the trouble.

Re: Elan Max Cash Preferred cards

Anonymous — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 13:42:02 GMT

@BronzeTrader wrote:
I do not know how you guys love this card so much. It is a total bear to me.

So Elan gave me 1% on my $118.42 ConEd charge. That is 4% or $4.72 short. I called the phone number on the back of the card. That is Elan. They say they only service the card and have nothing to do with earning reward. I have to call the bank who "issued" the card.

So I called the new number. It has a totally new phone menu. And the phone calls dropped repeatedly. This is not worth the $4.72 they came up short.

So there are 3 companies involved with this card:

1. Elan/US Bank who processes the transactions.
2. Your bank who "issued" you the card. They produces the statement and calculate the rewards
3. Reward mangement company. You can redeem the rewards as cash, gift card and more.

It is a big mess if something goes wrong. I still do not know whom to call with my $4.72 missing rewards.

I'll stay away from those cards. Not worth the trouble.

This is the first I have heard that the bank "issues" the card in any meaningful sense, and produce the statement and calculate the reward? I thought the whole point was to outsource to Elan! Wonder if you were lied to.....

Re: Elan Max Cash Preferred cards

BronzeTrader — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 14:06:30 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

This is the first I have heard that the bank "issues" the card in any meaningful sense, and produce the statement and calculate the reward? I thought the whole point was to outsource to Elan! Wonder if you were lied to.....

So basically the ABC bank "issues" the Mas Cash card to you and the card bears this ABC bank name. But this ABC bank really has nothing to do with daily operations.

The same with Fidelity Cash Reward card. It is issued by Elan too. But no one knows that it is an Elan card. It is managed at Fidelity side and you pay bill there. So it is a Fidelity card. But Elan hides behind that card and quietly services that card.

At least Fidelity interface is much nicer than the www.myaccountaccess.com interface.

And to OP's original question. I believe those Elan Max Cash cards were underwriten and "issued" by those smaller banks. Before I open this Elan card, I applied for the US Bank Cash+ card and was denied becuase I've opened xx/24 cards, just too many. When I applied for the Elan Max card, I received huge starting CL. This is my only card with this local bank. So I believe this card was originally issued by my local bank, not by Elan or US Bank.

Not sure if Synchrony and Comenity banks do the same way. I do not have any co-brand cards with them.

I'll just stick with my USB Cash+ cards. Much easier. I may get my own Cash+ card after I run over my recent inquiries.

Re: Elan Max Cash Preferred cards

ocheosa — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 14:20:20 GMT

@BronzeTrader wrote:
I do not know how you guys love this card so much. It is a total bear to me.

So Elan gave me 1% on my $118.42 ConEd charge. That is 4% or $4.72 short. I called the phone number on the back of the card. That is Elan. They say they only service the card and have nothing to do with earning reward. I have to call the bank who "issued" the card.

So I called the new number. It has a totally new phone menu. And the phone calls dropped repeatedly. This is not worth the $4.72 they came up short.

So there are 3 companies involved with this card:

1. Elan/US Bank who processes the transactions.
2. Your bank who "issued" you the card. They produces the statement and calculate the rewards
3. Reward mangement company. You can redeem the rewards as cash, gift card and more.

It is a big mess if something goes wrong. I still do not know whom to call with my $4.72 missing rewards.

I'll stay away from those cards. Not worth the trouble.

The number I was given and have called a few times is actually listed as the US Bank Rewards Center at 888-229-8864.

I'm beginning to wonder if it's the fin'l institution that your card is associated with but that shouldn't matter as Ive had the same rewards program experience with both my cards and they are two different banks (bank of CA and valley bank).

I had no issues getting through to the rewards center with questions, they are actually very helpful and personable. One lady did a ton of research for me on one of my first calls. I needed clarity on MCC numbers and what companies fell under a certain category. It was easy to find example listings but I needed to know specifics. The representative was awesome!

Re: Elan Max Cash Preferred cards

Bill77 — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 14:23:32 GMT

@BronzeTrader wrote:
I do not know how you guys love this card so much. It is a total bear to me.

So Elan gave me 1% on my $118.42 ConEd charge. That is 4% or $4.72 short. I called the phone number on the back of the card. That is Elan. They say they only service the card and have nothing to do with earning reward. I have to call the bank who "issued" the card.

So I called the new number. It has a totally new phone menu. And the phone calls dropped repeatedly. This is not worth the $4.72 they came up short.

So there are 3 companies involved with this card:

1. Elan/US Bank who processes the transactions.
2. Your bank who "issued" you the card. They produces the statement and calculate the rewards
3. Reward mangement company. You can redeem the rewards as cash, gift card and more.

It is a big mess if something goes wrong. I still do not know whom to call with my $4.72 missing rewards.

I'll stay away from those cards. Not worth the trouble.

Have you tried Cash+ and it works with ConEd?

Re: Elan Max Cash Preferred cards

Anonymous — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 14:26:50 GMT

@BronzeTrader wrote:

The same with Fidelity Cash Reward card. It is issued by Elan too. But no one knows that it is an Elan card. It is managed at Fidelity side and you pay bill there. So it is a Fidelity card. But Elan hides behind that card and quietly services that card.

At least Fidelity interface is much nicer than the www.myaccountaccess.com interface.

.

Fidelity is a special case as it was originally serviced by BoAs division (name escapes me) and the interface on Fidelity existed then. And, FWIW, if you enjoy fun, you CAN service the fidelity card on myaccountaccess.com