Rapid Travel Chai

Effective February 15, 2016 US Bank dropped the annual FlexPerks transfer limit from 120,000 to 20,000 (each of sending and receiving).

They didn’t mention what appears to be new fraud prevention measures.

Grant and I had reason to exchange points, I needing some for an immediate booking. He sent them before the 2/15 change. The process is simple, just enter a FlexPerks number and transfer.

The process apparently is too simple, creating opportunity for fraud. In March when it came time to send points back, I got a mysterious error message: “Results exceed maximum number of records.”

My thoughts ranged from general system error to somehow the system thinking I had exceeded my transfer limit. The only points in the prior year transferred were that transfer of less than 3,000.

I called in and typical for US Bank, after a long hold I got a series of agents not familiar with the issue or the FlexPerks program. Finally I got through to someone in the know who said there have been many fraud issues with FlexPerks transfers, with the implication that online transfers are being shut off with this cryptic message. I have not tried again in April to see if this has improved.

They were willing to do the transfer over the phone provided that I gave Grant’s credit card number. Huh? Make things more secure by having people give out their full credit card numbers?

I went through that esoteric discussion for a while. Then they relented, saying that since I had Grant’s name, address, FlexPerks account number, and that we had previously had a transfer, they would do it without his credit card number.

Here are the current steps for a FlexPerks transfer:

1. Try the website to see if it works. You’ll need the FlexPerks account number of the recipient.
2. If that fails, call FlexPerks to request a transfer. Provide the recipient’s name, address, FlexPerks account number, and probably also credit card number.

Readers, have you had any post 2/15 experiences with FlexPerks transfers?