Somehow the RTR points of my US Bank AR do not like to get redeemed. I received SMS text and replied with "REDEEM" (the phone number is VoIP to be sure that I receive text and they receive the reply). After a week, there was no sign of redeeming any points and the points are still sitting there. I called US Bank and they submitted a ticket to do their research and manually redeem the points. After a week, it is not resolved yet and they say that it would take 3-4 weeks.
Does anyone have prior experience to fix the issues with redeeming points? Why does US Bank require 3-4 weeks to simply redeem points, which should take maximum 3-4 biz days but not weeks?
Fico8: EX~EQ~TU~840 (12 month goal~850).
Might not be what you want to hear, but banks generally do not like VoIP numbers at all these days. I used to use Google Voice and really liked it but started having major issues with almost all banks a few years ago. Lots and lots of tickets and calls and such to resolve issues. Eventually just stopped using Google Voice and ported my number out, no more problems. Had issues with USAA, US Bank, and I think Chase.
Not sure what is going on in your situation, but I had similar issues where things just wouldn't work right with my VoIP number and it took forever to figure out that might be the problem, and all the issues I was having were resolved when I stopped using a VoIP number. Customer service could never really explain what was happening until one asked if it was VoIP and it all made sense.
My RTR are practically instant, definitely not weeks.
@digitek wrote:Might not be what you want to hear, but banks generally do not like VoIP numbers at all these days. I used to use Google Voice and really liked it but started having major issues with almost all banks a few years ago. Lots and lots of tickets and calls and such to resolve issues. Eventually just stopped using Google Voice and ported my number out, no more problems. Had issues with USAA, US Bank, and I think Chase.
Not sure what is going on in your situation, but I had similar issues where things just wouldn't work right with my VoIP number and it took forever to figure out that might be the problem, and all the issues I was having were resolved when I stopped using a VoIP number. Customer service could never really explain what was happening until one asked if it was VoIP and it all made sense.
My RTR are practically instant, definitely not weeks.
US Bank is a weird one in terms of redeeming points, due to too many issues with not receiving SMS and also not redeeming points. If somebody can redeem the points without hassle, he has done a great job.
When I use my VZ mobile number, several times it does not receive SMS to redeem RTR points. To fix the issue, several people recommend to use a VoIP number, since it receives SMS all the time. The VoIP number is only to redeem points. I use my real mobile number for the US Bank accounts.
The times I've redeemed points via RTR I've been able to immediately log into the app and the credit offsetting the charge is already there, literally a minute or so later.
I admit I always hold my breath until I see that it worked (I tend to let my points accumulate for a year or so, then redeem all at once for a hotel room) but I guess I've been lucky. IMO it's lousy that U.S. Bank isn't able to do a manual redemption at the 1.5 rate (for a travel charge) when something does inevitably go wrong, but I've learned to live with the odds. 
We're all spitballing a bit here, but I agree that it's likely an issue with the VoIP number. It seems like it shouldn't matter for something as mundane as rewards redemption (we're not talking security in this case) but apparently it does. 
Finally after around 10 days of waiting, the points got redeemed manually by the US Bank customer service 
While the card has an excellent rewarding structure, dealing with such issues to redeem points might be frustraiting for some people.
Somehow, it looks like US Bank likes to research any issue via tickets (phone only, since there is no secure message option) and instead of giving the customers what they want in typically 1-2 business days, they seem to prefer to investigate deeply the issue.
They are simply very slow in fixing any issue and the only communication method is by phone or letter. The good news is that they provide the points that they promised
It is strange that they are still using the "old-school" ways of working, while there are plenty of tools like Ai to manage daily tasks, investigate issues, and customer services.
I guess, for Connect, there is no difference between the ways that you redeem points (1 cpp for travel, CB, GC).
For AR, we get 3x points when we do in-store purchase using digital wallet. Afterward, when we redeem points by RTR and only for a travel purpose, we get a boost of 1.5x. So, the AR card effectively becomes a 4.5% CB card.
The issue comes with the difficulties to redeem the RTR points by SMS and their poor management. So, it can do lots of messes in customer's planning especially for travels. For redeeming points, I do prefer to use it only for refundable tickets that address a flight in the next 6 months to have sufficient room to cancel the ticket, if I want to, in case that US Bank does not want to redeem the RTR points with the promised rate of 1.5x.