U.S. Bank Shopper Cash Rewards® Visa Signature® Card review: Best-in-class rewards, but lacking extras

If you want to stay in the U.S. Bank ecosystem, you could pair your Shopper Cash Rewards card with other U.S. Bank cards. The U.S. Bank Smartly™ Visa Signature® Card earns:

2 percent flat-rate cash back, plus another 2 percent on your first $10,000 in spending each billing cycle if you also have a U.S. Bank Smartly Savings account and qualifying balances in U.S. Bank Smartly® Checking or Safe Debit accounts.

This card can be your go-to for spending outside of the Shopper Cash Rewards card’s chosen retailers and bonus category for the quarter. And if you have qualifying balances with U.S. Bank — or move your money to the bank — then you can get a fantastic cash back rate on general spending.

The Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card is a popular cash back card because it gets 3 percent cash back in two categories that the U.S. Bank Shopper Cash Rewards card doesn’t really cover: dining and groceries (excluding superstores like Target and Walmart). You can set your Shopper Cash Rewards card’s chosen retailers to Target and Walmart and then use the Savor card for general grocery store and dining spending.

The Bank of America Customized Cash card is a solid alternative to the U.S. Bank Shopper Cash card because it offers a choice bonus category each calendar month for 3 percent cash back. These categories include:

• Home improvement

• Gas and electric vehicle charging stations

• Online shopping (including cable, streaming, internet and phone services)

• Dining

• Travel

• Drugstores

• Furnishings

Like the U.S. Bank card, these bonus categories have a spending cap — in this case, it's $2,500 per quarter before earnings drop to 1 percent. Although the Bank of America’s cap is higher, the earning rate is lower.

But the Bank of America Customized Cash packs more upfront value — it has a first-year earning bonus of an extra 3 percent for your choice category, bringing your total earning rate to 6 percent for the first year. Plus, it adds on an intro APR offer and has no annual fee.

I personally didn’t choose this card over the U.S. Bank card because I had negative experiences with Bank of America in the past. If I had positive experiences with the bank, I probably would’ve applied for this one instead.

Information about this Bank of America card was last updated on December 4, 2025.

If the U.S. Bank Shopper Cash card’s annual fee doesn’t bother you, but its list of retailers just doesn’t have what you need, consider the Amex Blue Cash Preferred. It has a similar annual fee structure, but earns:

• 6 percent cash back at U.S. supermarkets (on up to $6,000 in purchases per year, then 1 percent) and on select streaming subscriptions
• 3 percent cash back at U.S. gas stations and on eligible transit purchases
• 1 percent cash back on other purchases

These are more general spending categories that don’t restrict you to just two retailers per quarter.

The Blue Cash Preferred also offers plenty that the U.S. Bank Shopper Cash card doesn’t, including statement credits for certain purchases and a decent intro APR period for purchases and balance transfers. If you need a little extra something to justify an annual fee, the Blue Cash Preferred might have it.

The Shopper Cash Rewards Card doesn’t have many cardholder benefits outside of the cash back rates in different categories and access to U.S. Bank’s shopping portal. 

Some U.S. Bank cash back card rewards do expire 36 months after they are earned, but for the U.S. Bank Shopper Cash Rewards Card, cash back rewards don’t expire as long as your account is open and in good standing.

You can redeem your cash back rewards as a statement credit or deposit into an eligible U.S. Bank account. You can also redeem them for Real-Time Rewards or gift cards, but these options might not give you the best value.

The primary criteria for a rewards or cash back card’s rating is its rewards value. This includes the card’s average rewards rate, estimated annual rewards earnings, sign-up bonus value and reward redemption value.

To estimate a card’s average annual rewards earnings, we first calculate its average rewards rate based on how much it earns in different bonus categories and how closely its categories align with the average person’s spending habits, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The most recent BLS data estimates average total spending in 2023 was $77,280 per consumer. We then narrow our focus to which purchases are likely to be put on a credit card and earn rewards, subtracting expenditures like housing, vehicle purchases and education. This gives us a total “chargeable” annual spend of around $22,500.  

Some of the major spending categories that contribute towards the annual spend include:

• Groceries: $6,000
• Dining out: $3,900
• Entertainment: $2,500
• Gas: $2,400
• Apparel and services: $2,000

Using this data, we assign a weighting to each of a card’s bonus categories. For example, a card’s grocery rewards rate receives a 26 percent weighting based on how much of the average person’s budget is spent on groceries. We also estimate the redemption value of points or miles from various issuer, airline and hotel rewards programs.

This weighting and rewards valuation allows us to estimate a card’s average annual rewards earnings — how many points or miles you’d earn with a given card if your spending was about average and you used the card for all of your purchases, as well as what those points are worth. We also use point valuations to determine a card’s sign-up bonus value.

With these calculations complete, we assign each card a score based on how its average rewards earnings, sign-up bonus value, rewards rate and redemption value stack up against other rewards cards.

We also rate cards based on how much it costs to keep them in your wallet or carry a balance. 

To start, each rewards or cash back card is scored based on whether it offers an intro APR and how its ongoing APR compares to the rates available on other rewards or cash back cards. 

We also score each card based on how its annual fee influences its overall value. 

We consider a card’s annual fee in two ways — how it ranks relative to the fees you’ll find on other cards in the category and how it impacts a card’s overall rewards value. Cards with an annual fee will always be at a slight disadvantage in our scoring system since annual fees inherently cut into your rewards value, but if a card offers terrific value via its ongoing rewards and perks, it can earn a high score even if it carries a high annual fee. 

With this in mind, we rate a card based primarily on how its ongoing rewards value and ongoing perk value (such as annual credits or bonuses) stack up against other cards in the category when you subtract its annual fee.

We rate each card’s flexibility based on the restrictions it imposes on earning and redeeming rewards and factor this rating into a card’s overall score. 

Flexibility factors include whether a card only allows you to earn a high rewards rate on a small amount of spending or requires you to meet a certain earning threshold before you can redeem rewards. We also examine whether your points are worth less when you redeem for some options versus others and whether a card gives you the flexibility to transfer rewards to airline and hotel partners. 

We also score each card’s set of features — its perks and benefits — against five tiers of features to provide a rating. 

We break down these tiers as follows: 

• Tier 1 has less than standard card features (an ultra-streamlined card that offers basic utility and next to nothing in the way of ancillary benefits. 
• Tier 2 includes the benefits you’d expect on standard Visa or Mastercard credit cards, such as free access to your credit score, car rental insurance and $0 liability for fraudulent charges. 
• Tier 3 includes “prime card” or better-than-average card features like cellphone insurance, lost luggage insurance, concierge services and purchase protection. 
• Tier 4 includes luxury features such as airport lounge access, elite status with an airline or hotel and credits for expedited security screening membership programs. 
• Tier 5 includes the sort of exemplary benefits you’ll find on top-tier luxury cards, such as high-value travel credits, cardholder memberships and other unique and valuable perks.