New U.S. Bank Shopper Cash Rewards Card: Up to 6% Back – NerdWallet

U.S. Bank is set to launch a new cash-back credit card that offers industry-leading rewards rates at some of the largest and most popular retailers in the world, including Walmart, Target and Amazon.

The U.S. Bank Shopper Cash Rewards Visa Signature Card will earn the following rewards:

• 6% back on up to $1,500 in combined eligible purchases per quarter, at two retailers of your choice (from a list of more than 20).

• 3% back on up to $1,500 in eligible purchases every quarter in a single “everyday” spending category that you choose (including gas and EV charging stations, bills/home utilities, or wholesale clubs).

• 1.5% back on all other qualifying purchases.

• 5.5% back on reservations for hotels and prepaid car rentals when you book through the U.S. Bank Rewards Center.

To qualify for the card’s 6% and 3% rates, you’ll have to enroll in your chosen categories every quarter; otherwise, you’ll earn only the base rate of 1.5%.

U.S. Bank’s website for the card doesn’t note the specific launch date, or whether there’s a sign-up bonus or an annual fee. But for comparison’s sake, the Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express has a similarly high rewards rate and offers a $0 intro annual fee for the first year, then $95. (Terms apply; see rates and fees.)

The headlining feature of the U.S. Bank Shopper Cash Rewards Visa Signature Card is its eye-popping 6% cash-back rate, which you can earn at a long list of popular merchants, including:

The ability to earn a rate that high on such marquee brands is unique. Even on some of the best co-branded store credit cards from those retailers, reward rates tend to top out at about 5%.

In fact, the U.S. Bank Shopper Cash Rewards card is a worthy rival of the aforementioned Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express, which has been a long-running favorite credit card for groceries, thanks to its 6% cash back at U.S. supermarkets on up to $6,000 in spending per year. Terms apply.

But American Express notably excludes big-box retailers like Walmart and Target from the U.S. supermarket category, even though many people get groceries from those superstores. (Walmart is the biggest grocery seller in the country.) If you do most of your grocery shopping at those kinds of stores, the U.S. Bank Shopper Cash Rewards card may be the perfect fit.

Another strength of the card is that it’s highly customizable, so it doesn’t just have to be for grocery-getters. For example, timing a big home improvement purchase when you selected Home Depot as a quarterly bonus category would also help you maximize rewards.

If you maxed out the card’s 6% rate every quarter, you’d snag $360 in cash back per year, and that’s not taking into account the card’s other reward categories.

The card’s customization ability, though, comes at a cost, as it requires some upkeep to maximize.

As noted, you must remember to select your bonus categories every quarter, but you’ll also have to keep in mind the card’s reward caps. The 6% rate is capped at $1,500 in spending per quarter across combined purchases at the two retailers you selected; after that, you’ll earn only 1.5% back in those categories for the quarter.

A 1.5% rate is still higher than what a lot of rewards credit cards offer on non-bonus-category “other spending,” but it’s also a far cry from 6%. And you might instead appreciate the competing Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express, which has only an annual cap, not a quarterly one.

The 3% bonus category on the U.S. Bank Shopper Cash Rewards card is also capped at $1,500 in quarterly spending, but you get to choose only one of those categories per quarter. Any quarterly spending in those categories beyond that cap earns only 1.5% back.

Oh, and there’s another rewards tier for eligible travel spending you might do through U.S. Bank’s Rewards Center.

That’s a lot of tiers, rates, caps and rules to keep track of. But if you’re willing to put in the work, the U.S. Bank Shopper Cash Rewards card can be lucrative indeed.