Lol. US Bank essentially sacrificed their flagship Altitude Reserve (Infinite Visa) to drive attention toward the Smartly card. And now—less than six months later—they’ve nerfed the Smartly card too. That’s two flagship products devalued in under half a year.
Good luck retaining existing customers or acquiring new ones at this point.
Some lessons just aren’t taught in business schools. You’d think someone over there would grasp the basics of customer retention, sustainable incentives, and long-term brand trust.
Fico8: EX~EQ~TU~840 (12 month goal~850).
@bs1234 wrote:But I think @Kforce was more remarking on just the "X% back!!!!" being really < X. And in the case of new Smartly, << X
Yeah, I agree that his commentary was more focused on the marketing rather than the actual usefulness of the card. I guess I just don't see AmEx in particular falsely advertising their cards. They make it very clear that there is an annual fee which is waived for a year and that their top category is capped. I don't feel like they are hiding anything in the small print.
I am all for transparency and honesty in advertising, but we as consumer also have a responsibility to think critically and do the maths. That's kind of what this thread is all about: you all saw the change in Smartly, crunched the numbers, and are drawing some conclusions.
@xenon3030 wrote:Lol. US Bank essentially sacrificed their flagship Altitude Reserve (Infinite Visa) to drive attention toward the Smartly card. And now—less than six months later—they’ve nerfed the Smartly card too. That’s two flagship products devalued in under half a year.
Good luck retaining existing customers or acquiring new ones at this point.
Some lessons just aren’t taught in business schools. You’d think someone over there would grasp the basics of customer retention, sustainable incentives, and long-term brand trust.
I mean... all those people who understand that went to work elsewhere. Since US Bank failed to give them incentives to stay 😜
AU - 
Biz - 
Sock - 
Chopping Block - 
@Gregory1776 wrote:
Annual fee Eraser:
This is excluding the offers since July.
Never bought from any of those, in 70+ years.
But I do know they love to push coupons for a lot of over priced places. 
@Anonymous wrote:
@Gregory1776 wrote:Completely dogging on USbank. 😂 @Anonymous
Haa. What's not to dog about the nerf? I think I will quote @AskPatient1281
@AskPatient1281 wrote:The level of incompetence, of mismanagement, required to achieve this - to
(a) nerf a product less than six months after its launch, and
(b) to design a new finance product that is so bad, so absurd, that it is actually laughable - is absurd.
^^^^ This
Part (b) is what I find hard to fathom.
It would become an almost worthless card, with no new applications with the rewards tied to the "Smartly - Savings", but to the "Checking". I think someone wrote the instructions wrong and this went from the board room to the end and management never noticed. Never have I seen such a absurd financial requirement, and I am old and been around a long time. 
@NoMoreE46 wrote:Supposedly, the Smartly (v1.1) card is made of plastic and no longer metal
.
Hoping to find out soon if this Nerf aspect is also true.
@CreditMagic7 wrote:Here's a good one.
As a souvenir i still have the (long closed now) heavy metal Smartly card laying on my desk.
You should take the hard hit for the team.
On top of gutting two flagship products in under six months, US Bank still doesn’t offer competitive alternatives.
Take the Cash+ card — the category options are sparse and limited. To use it effectively, you’d either need to juggle multiple Cash+ cards or layer in a few Elan Max cards to patch the gaps. Otherwise, it’s mostly only useful for a handful of utility bill payments per month (assuming it tracks those payments correctly — which isn’t always a given 
).