topic Re: Very Good News For US Bank Cash + card members from April 2013 in Credit Cards

Very Good News For US Bank Cash + card members from April 2013

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 03:24:51 GMT

Many of members of Cash + were sad about US bank bill pay going away from 1 st April 2013.

There is a silver lining to those changes.

Here is what you do to know from your online account to find out how the changes can will help you more than what you expected.

1) Select "Download Transaction Data" from left hand menu. You can download last 3 months of credit card data.

2) Select Excel option and open the excel file.

3) Look at column titled "Memo". The last four digits in this field is MCC- Merchant category code which decides whether your merchant is 5% cash back or not.

4) All the transactions which had MCC of any of 4812, 4814 or 4899 will continue to be eligible for 5% cash back from 1st Apr 2013 under cell phone category.

5) When I checked my transactions and find that Dish Network, Comcast, AT&T internet will all continue to qualify for 5% category under New category - Cell Phone.

Bottom line is Cell phone category is a must for most of us to be continued.

Please share your data for which additional merchants you find under above 3 categories from 1 Apr 2013

Re: Very Good News For US Bank Cash + card members from April 2013

JonStur — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 03:33:30 GMT

Yea, I'm still bummed about my elec, gas and water bills, car note, etc. These things added up very quickly. But alas, beggars cant be choosers I guess..

Re: Very Good News For US Bank Cash + card members from April 2013

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 03:38:16 GMT

I agree. We lost bill pay big time. Lost home and car insurance as well in addition to utilities

However, we were expecting cell phones only but it is good to know that internet and satellite TV bill will be covered as well from 1 April 2013.

Which part of the half glass you look at matters in such case.

Re: Very Good News For US Bank Cash + card members from April 2013

ztnjpv — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 03:50:31 GMT

Still bummed. I have the Chase Ink for that stuff/

Electric, gas, water, insurance?? Gone. Big money for me. :-(

Re: Very Good News For US Bank Cash + card members from April 2013

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 05:35:32 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Many of members of Cash + were sad about US bank bill pay going away from 1 st April 2013.

There is a silver lining to those changes.

Here is what you do to know from your online account to find out how the changes can will help you more than what you expected.

1) Select "Download Transaction Data" from left hand menu. You can download last 3 months of credit card data.

2) Select Excel option and open the excel file.

3) Look at column titled "Memo". The last four digits in this field is MCC- Merchant category code which decides whether your merchant is 5% cash back or not.

4) All the transactions which had MCC of any of 4812, 4814 or 4899 will continue to be eligible for 5% cash back from 1st Apr 2013 under cell phone category.

5) When I checked my transactions and find that Dish Network, Comcast, AT&T internet will all continue to qualify for 5% category under New category - Cell Phone.

Bottom line is Cell phone category is a must for most of us to be continued.

Please share your data for which additional merchants you find under above 3 categories from 1 Apr 2013

That is better news. Where did you find out the which MCCs will be covered? From a rep? Couldn't see it on the site.

Re: Very Good News For US Bank Cash + card members from April 2013

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 12:20:35 GMT

It doesn't answer the question of which MCC codes fall into which Cash+ category, but here's the list of MCC codes:

http://usa.visa.com/download/corporate/resources/mcc_booklet.pdf

Re: Very Good News For US Bank Cash + card members from April 2013

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 16:20:54 GMT

how did you find out some internet/TV utilities might qualigy also-i'd understand if they called the category "telecommunications" but they said straight up cell phones. I can see if they fall under 4812 and 4814, but how are you certain 4899 will qualify too?

Re: Very Good News For US Bank Cash + card members from April 2013

Anonymous — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 06:35:05 GMT

OP, didn't see a response! How did you find this out? Need to know if the info is good...

Re: Very Good News For US Bank Cash + card members from April 2013

Anonymous — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 19:51:38 GMT

I sent U.S. Bank an email requesting clarification and received this response:

We received your inquiry regarding which merchant category codes cell phone companies fall under. Unfortunately, U.S. Bank does not have the ability to control how a merchant chooses to classify their business and therefore reserves the right to determine which purchases qualify for allowance. Currently, the MCC/SIC codes are the following for Cell Phones: 4812, 4814, 4899. Transactions that are classified outside of these codes will not receive a 5% cash back bonus, however they will still receive 1% cash back.

Re: Very Good News For US Bank Cash + card members from April 2013

Quips — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 20:27:08 GMT

When I downloaded my transactions - Direct TV, Comcast and Verizon Internet /home phone were under 4899. Verizon Wireless was 4814. That is good news if that continues as I wasn't expecting Direct TV to be included with cell phones. Although 1 peculiar thing showed up - my Jan transaction for Verizon Wireless showed up as 4899 - but in Feb it showed up as 4814 - so hopefully they don't mess with the merchant codes.

Re: Very Good News For US Bank Cash + card members from April 2013

flowfaster — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 20:28:57 GMT

I have comcast and that seems to qualify. OF COURSE I JUST PREPAID my cable for the rest of the year. LOL I can't win. Good news though.

Re: Very Good News For US Bank Cash + card members from April 2013

Anonymous — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 00:40:51 GMT

OK, so it sounds official. Really wonder why they don't call it Telecommunications though. I hope it's not to give them wiggle room to later reject non-wireless providers if there is still too much spend in this category.

I got Verizon to stop my One-bill (where landline and wireless appear on the same bill) as this is billed from Verizon Communications rather than Verizon Wireless, and produce a separate wireless bill. Sounds like I didn't need to!

Re: Very Good News For US Bank Cash + card members from April 2013

Anonymous — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 01:59:52 GMT

My Verizon Wireless bill was also 4899 ("Cable, Satellite, and Other Pay Television and Radio") in January and February, then 4814 ("Telecommunication Services") in March.

My local phone company (a co-op) is 4812 ("Telecommunication Equipment and Telephone Sales") . Frontier (my landline) is 4814. And TiVo is 4899.

Bookstores is:

5192 (Books, Periodicals, and Newspapers)

5735 (Record Stores)

5942 (Book Stores) (Both Amazon and Amazon Marketplace)

Department Stores: 5311

Electronics: (5732) (BestBuy, BestBuy.com via Paypal, Fry's, Newegg, Geeks.com)

Re: Very Good News For US Bank Cash + card members from April 2013

darkpearl — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 20:37:23 GMT

Does anyone know about Netflix or Tivo? Great news thanks for sharing, insurance is the best bill pay though.

Re: Very Good News For US Bank Cash + card members from April 2013

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 12:50:25 GMT

Update: I chose the cell phone category for Q2, and paid my normal Verizon bills. They posted 4/2, with MCC 04899 (as usual). They apparently did NOT get the bonus, just the 1%. Anyone had success with this?

Re: Very Good News For US Bank Cash + card members from April 2013

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 12:58:32 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
My Verizon Wireless bill was also 4899 ("Cable, Satellite, and Other Pay Television and Radio") in January and February, then 4814 ("Telecommunication Services") in March.
My local phone company (a co-op) is 4812 ("Telecommunication Equipment and Telephone Sales") . Frontier (my landline) is 4814. And TiVo is 4899.

Bookstores is:
5192 (Books, Periodicals, and Newspapers)
5735 (Record Stores)
5942 (Book Stores) (Both Amazon and Amazon Marketplace)

Department Stores: 5311

Electronics: (5732) (BestBuy, BestBuy.com via Paypal, Fry's, Newegg, Geeks.com)

Does this mean that anything sold from Amazon or Amazon Marketplace qualifies for 5%?

Re: Very Good News For US Bank Cash + card members from April 2013

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 13:00:28 GMT

5% for Amazon?!

Is this going to stay?

If so I am definitely applying in August!!

Re: Very Good News For US Bank Cash + card members from April 2013

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 13:01:56 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
My Verizon Wireless bill was also 4899 ("Cable, Satellite, and Other Pay Television and Radio") in January and February, then 4814 ("Telecommunication Services") in March.
My local phone company (a co-op) is 4812 ("Telecommunication Equipment and Telephone Sales") . Frontier (my landline) is 4814. And TiVo is 4899.

Bookstores is:
5192 (Books, Periodicals, and Newspapers)
5735 (Record Stores)
5942 (Book Stores) (Both Amazon and Amazon Marketplace)

Department Stores: 5311

Electronics: (5732) (BestBuy, BestBuy.com via Paypal, Fry's, Newegg, Geeks.com)

Does this mean that anything sold from Amazon or Amazon Marketplace qualifies for 5%?

There are some threads on that, but basically someone needs to try. They officially list Amazon Kindle as the example, which gets the Record Store MCC. But obviously for other book stores they need the 5922, so they would have to implement special code to restrict Amazon to Kindle stuff. They might or might not have done this, hence the need for a test.

But my Verizon test contradicts what the OP was told, so we just don't know.

Re: Very Good News For US Bank Cash + card members from April 2013 - NOT about Amazon

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:09:31 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Update: I chose the cell phone category for Q2, and paid my normal Verizon bills. They posted 4/2, with MCC 04899 (as usual). They apparently did NOT get the bonus, just the 1%. Anyone had success with this?

So US Bank responded to my query, looks like it really is restricted to cell stuff.

We understand your concern regarding the 5% rebate for your cell phone purchases, [first name as personal touch!]. Our records indicate the transaction to Verizon is categorized as "Cable, Satellite, and Other Paye TV/ Radio". Therefore these transactions did not qualify for the 5% rebate.

Re: Very Good News For US Bank Cash + card members from April 2013 - NOT about Amazon

Open123 — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:16:12 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Update: I chose the cell phone category for Q2, and paid my normal Verizon bills. They posted 4/2, with MCC 04899 (as usual). They apparently did NOT get the bonus, just the 1%. Anyone had success with this?
So US Bank responded to my query, looks like it really is restricted to cell stuff.

We understand your concern regarding the 5% rebate for your cell phone purchases, [first name as personal touch!]. Our records indicate the transaction to Verizon is categorized as "Cable, Satellite, and Other Paye TV/ Radio". Therefore these transactions did not qualify for the 5% rebate.

Hm, puts a new meaning in "narrowly" defining a term.