Has U.S. Bank abandoned the idea of adding transfer partners?

As was recently reported by Doctor of Credit, U.S. Bank has removed the banner promising that transfer partners would be “coming soon” from its Rewards Center. In my 2026 predictions, I said that I didn’t think U.S. Bank would actually launch transfer partners as they promised about a year ago. It doesn’t sound like this is likely to happen anytime soon, so I think my prediction is unfortunately going to be correct.

Almost ten months ago, U.S. Bank announced a slew of changes that would come to the Altitude Reserve Card as of December 2025. One of the changes promised was that U.S. Bank would be launching the ability to transfer your Altitude Reserve points to airline and hotel partners. At the time, I had some excitement over the potential for a U.S. Bank transferable currency system; however, when the changes began in December 2025, U.S. Bank failed to launch a transfer partner program, instead putting up a banner in the rewards center saying that transfer partners would be coming soon.

As weeks continued onward, I became far less optimistic for the future of a U.S. Bank transfer partner program. In fact, in my 2026 predictions, I predicted that U.S. Bank would not end up launching a transfer partner program. I based that prediction on the fact that they announced the launch of a transfer partner program more than four months in advance of the date they were set to launch, and surely they had been considering it for longer than that, and yet they failed to launch it in time for the December 14th, 2026 changes. That made it immediately feel like they were overly optimistic/ambitious about launching a transfer partner program.

At this point, they’ve removed the banner promising that transfer partners would be coming soon, which certainly makes it seem like they no longer intend to offer a transfer partner program. That’s really disappointing! I personally held Altitude Reserve points expecting a transfer partner program, and now I’ve wish I had redeemed them at 1.5 cents per point while I was still able to do that, or that I had downgraded the Altitude Reserve Card for a pro-rated annual fee refund. As a customer, it certainly feels like U.S. Bank over-promised and has not delivered. My annual fee will be coming up very soon on my Altitude Reserve card, and I can’t imagine keeping it open given U.S. Bank’s lack of ability to follow through on what they promised.

Maybe U.S. Bank is doing me a favor, though, as I’m pretty interested in picking up an Altitude Connect card, since that card has no annual fee and offers four annual Priority Pass Lounge visits (which can be restaurants), and it also offers a repeatable GigSky benefit that’ll really come in handy for our travels. I will probably soon product change to that card because I don’t think U.S. Bank is going to make their transfer partner program happen. An eagle-eyed reader at Doctor of Credit did find a mention of a coming Transfer Partner Program deep within the terms of the reward system, though I think it’s more likely that that was an artifact that failed to be scrubbed than it is an Easter egg hinting at a Transfer Partner Program yet to come.

I suppose it’s possible that U.S. Bank has simply recognized the fact that May 2026 is not representative of “soon” as measured from December 14, 2025, and that they do intend to live up to what they promised, albeit on a slower timeline than promised. I don’t think it’s going to happen, but I hope that I’m wrong for all of the people who held on to an Altitude Reserve card expecting the transfer partner program that U.S. Bank promised.

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