Is 1.5x Redemption on Altitude Reserve Going Away?

Since more or less day one, I have said that U.S. Bank’s Altitude Reserve is really good. It is one of the few cards (2021, 2022) that have year after year continued to be on a small list of “daily driver cards”. This reminds me that a 2023 version of my “daily driver cards” is due but you can bet Altitude Reserve will be on it. A 1.5x redemption on top of 3x on mobile payment helps and so does the repetitive 10,000 yearly retention offer.

We have always known that 3x on mobile payment when combined with 1.5x redemption lead to an effective 4.5% cashback. Nowadays more locations accept mobile payment than ever but a few years back the likes of Samsung and LG could be used as mobile payment anywhere the card could be swiped. This means, Altitude Reserve, for a very long time, has been a 4.5% cashback card on the right hand.

All of this may change per speculation on FlyerTalk. This speculation is based on the U.S. Bank removing 1.5x for Real-Time Rewards (RTR) travel purchases. To my knowledge, this is the FlyerTalk post that spotted the removal of the description of 1.5x RTR. A follow-up post brings up that 1.5x RTR is not mentioned on the Altitude Reserve landing (application) page either.

Closing Thoughts

I think this card has been too good to be true for too long. I think the big catalyst for this change will be the fact that more places are accepting mobile payments than ever. Of course, it doesn’t help that no other bank has made higher redemption as easy as U.S. Bank has with RTR (if you are not familiar with RTR then check out this “how to enroll” post from U.S. Bank). Several other banks are okay with giving higher redemption per point if you book through their portal (this is of course because they likely are getting a kickback when people make reservations through their portal). As speculated in the above-mentioned FlyerTalk thread, it is likely that 1.5x redemption through the travel portal may continue to exist.