Bank of America Preferred Rewards

I am fairly certain you won’t be involuntarily converted. I am above the limits and have not been.

For those who don’t believe me there are ways to stay below it. I suggest large charitable donation (my favorite is to the Foundation for Metabolic Cancer Therapies).

I would also suggest just PayPaling the excess to me, but I suspect that would appear self serving.

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A nice benefit is that if you get the BOA Premium Rewards card (and have Platinum Honors status)you can earn 2.6% on everything, and 3.5% on travel and dining.

There is a $95 annual fee, but it is waived in the first year. I suspect that if you choose not to keep this card, you could product exchange for another, such as the Travel Rewards card for 2.625% on every thing.

BOA now has limits on how frequently they will let you get new cards so you may wish to plan ahead.

There is a new rule from Bank of America whereby they’ll only approve you for at most
two cards per rolling 2 months, three cards per rolling 12 months, and four cards per rolling 24 months. Let’s call this the ‘2/3/4 rule‘.
from New Bank of America '2/3/4 Rule' for Credit Card Approvals [Confirmed] - Doctor Of Credit

Thus, if you are just trying to get Preferred status you need to think as to which cards will go with it, and in what order.
I suggest a Cash Rewards early (I like the Komen since it gets a little for breast cancer research in addition) since they do not give you the bonus until you request the rewards. Hence use this for grocery, gasoline (if no other card gives better rewards), but do not request a reward until in the highest status you expect to reach.

This new Premium Rewards Card appear very attractive just for the bonus reward. This would use up your two cards per rolling 2 months.

If you do not wish to pay the fee to keep the card, try to convert to a Travel Rewards card, or apply for a new one (this gets a bonus, but blocks you from any new BOA cards for another year). After 2 years I would consider the AAA card to transfer points from a Travel card to if you do not have enough travel expenses to easily redeem them.

Here are more details on the Premium Rewards Card:

"50,000 bonus points - a $500 value - after you make at least $3,000 in purchases in the first 90 days of account opening

Get up to $200 in travel statement credit rewards

Get up to a $100 Airline Incidental Statement Credit annually for qualifying purchases such as seat upgrades, baggage fees, in-flight services, and airline lounge fees - automatically applied to your card statement

Get up to $100 Airport Security Statement Credit towards TSA Pre✓ ® or Global Entry Application fee, every four years

If you’re a Bank of America® Preferred Rewards client, you can enjoy 25% - 75% rewards bonus on every purchase. That means you could earn up to 3.5 points per $1 on travel and dining purchases and up to 2.62 points per $1 on all other purchases"

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Thanks for sharing. So for someone who has absolutely nothing with Bank of America now but has $100k in another savings account, is the correct approach to
a) open a money market account with BOA
b) transfer $100k into it
c) open the premium rewards card?

Do the $100 in airline credits apply on a calendar year or card year? Since I get stuck with baggage fees of at least that amount every year, that would at least offset the $95 annual fee and then the rest would be for the 2.6-3.5% back.

Well, that 100k in savings could be earning a 1.5% interest as of today (see Best Savings Accounts for January 2023 | Bankrate for savings rates) - are you willing to pay an effective annual fee of $1,500 for this card?

It would be better to move an IRA with $100k into BoA/ML instead of parking cash.

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I think we may be misinterpreting the “Wealth Management” category. I periodically receives calls from Merrill advisors and after the usual pleasantries they usually get down to business on two different subjects:
1: Do I have more assets elsewhere that I can bring over to Merrill and if so they have a small cash bonus to entice me to do so.
2: They have a wealth management service where their “experts” will handle my portfolio for me for a “small” fee. In the sales call I received a week ago it was explained that they would automatically invest my portfolio for me and continually rebalance it between low-cost funds based on their “expertise.”

In regards to wealth management I was told the funds typically had an expense ratio of ~0.1% and that Merrill charged a fee of ~0.4% to do this. Although I might be off on these numbers since I want to say the total cost was more than 0.5%. After explaining I wasn’t really interested in that and enjoyed managing my own portfolio, the rep countered that some of their clients like to sign up for wealth management for one of their stock accounts and then save money by mimicking what they see in that account in their other Merrill accounts (where they’d avoid the 0.4% fee).

But I’m getting off on a bit of a tangent here… My point was that I think the reason you no longer qualify for 100 free trades is that if you have them upgrade you to Wealth Management that’s an account Merrill is managing for you so (since you’re no longer trading yourself) trade commissions are a moot point.

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Generally you want to qualify via a Merrill account, such as an IRA or regular brokerage. You probably could find a reasonable safe asset to hold in the brokerage account, such as a short term bond fund.

If comfortable with risk, it could be invested in exchange traded funds or stocks. Notice they have offers for bringing in new funds for brokerage. Shoot to have total exceed $100,000 to get bigger bonus.

“Assets of $20,000 to $49,999 in cash and/or securities receive $100; for $50,000-$99,999 receive $150; for $100,000-$199,999 receive $250; for $200,000 or more receive $600. You must have the qualifying balance 90 days after funding.”

You might open the Premium rewards card, and probably a Cash Reward card (for high returns on gasoline, but do not cash out until you get the highest status).
You could open both now since getting them does not depend on our status with BOA.

However, if you not plan on keeping the Premium Rewards card but for a year, you might wait until you get your highest status, so that you get the maximum reward rate for a full year.

Then open a checking or saving account, and plan on keeping low balances in one, unless for reasons of location or otherwise you plan to use them a lot. Look out for fees on these accounts before you qualify for Preferred status. Possibly a saving will have lower fees.

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Here is some information on the business version of Preferred Rewards.

Yes, the $100 airline incidental statement credit is per calendar year. I opened up the card in Dec, purchased a $100 American Airlines gift card from the AA website in Dec then again in Jan and received $200 in statement credit. I then sold the gift cards for around $185 cash.

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I was just at AAA today for some other things, but the nice rep showed me the AAA card. It is one of the few cards with no annual fee and no foreign transaction fee. I think the strongest contenders in this area are:
Barclay Arrival (not Arrival+, after downgrading). This one has chip/pin
Capital One Quicksilver
Capital One Savor
I don’t think Discover It is that strong in this space - acceptance is too low in many international spots. In Japan, sure, it is JCB compatible, but not that many places take cards anyhow, and most that do also take V/MC. I used to prefer my Aviator Red the most: back then the grandfathered 10k a year AAdvantage points for $89 AMF made this a “negative AMF” card for me, but I closed it when that benefit went away and the AMF went up to $95.

The AAA card:

  • 3x points on eligible travel & AAA spending (including AAA auto repair shop)
  • 2x points on gas, grocery, drugstore, and warehouse (e.g. this might be one of the strongest cards for Costco outside of the Altitude Reserve with its 3x points when using Apple Pay)
  • 1x point for anything else.

For now, the points are worth a cent when taken as cash, or 1.1 cents when taken as AAA repair shop vouchers. Rep also showed me a 50k point → $700 Hertz gift certificate redemption option.
$150 when spending $750 in 3 months bonus. Issued by BofA

www.aaa.com/creditcard reference MCASEY (rep was nice, so I’m adding her ref).

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One of the biggest advantages of the AAA card is that the minimum redemption for cash at 1 cent per point is low ($50 I believe). On many other cards, it takes more. $500 in points for the BOA Travel rewards cards.
Points can be transferred between cards (including some points labeled in other ways tht appear hard to use). I place much spending on BOA Travel cards. This happens when there are no other cards that return more (often tuition, taxes, and charitable donations). These cards can yield 2.625% for those with Platinum Honor status on ordinary spending. The points are transferred to the AAA card for utilization, usually for redemption for cash.

A question I have is whether it is worth redeeming for AAA certificates for repairs. Are regular users of AAA car shops competitive in price, and do you have to be a AAA member to use them for this. Anyone with significant experience with such shops.

I got targeted for a $200 bonus for spending $1k with the MLB card, does the 75% multiplier still apply to the bonus? That’s will be pretty sweet.

I still have a Cash Rewards, a Travel Rewards and a Merrill+ from before. Not sure what I would ever use the Merrill+ for. I think I only used it for the signup bonus.

I thought the Travel Rewards card could only redeemed for cash back against travel purchases. If I understand correctly, it soudns like I could open up the BofA AAA card and transfer points from the Travel Rewards card to AAA to redeem for cash?

Consider converting the Merrill to a cash back card, or another card. A Komen card (breast cancer) or another charity has same benefits as a Cash Rewards card (and gets a little for the charity). You can designate different categories if you have two Cash Rewards type cards.

With a AAA card you can move points from the travel reward card to it and get better redemptions.

My guess is that the multiplier will not apply to anything stated in dollars.

Yeah I already have a Cash Rewards and i have the MLB coming (which is a variant of Cash Rewards), so if I can convert the Merrill I can have 3 of them. The last time that I applied for Cash Rewards, the multiplier applied to the bonus for that card, but it didn’t apply to the bonus for the Travel Rewards.

How long ago was that?

  1. The multiplier applying to bonus was documented in the thread at FWF.

Here’s the language from a footer in a 2016 email:

2 Enrolled clients with eligible credit cards can receive the Preferred Rewards Bonus in one of two ways: 1) For BankAmericard Cash Rewards™ credit cards, the Preferred Rewards Bonus will be applied when you redeem cash rewards into a Bank of America® checking or savings account or an eligible Merrill Lynch Cash Management Account®. For example, if you redeem $100 in cash rewards, we will add $25, $50 or $75 to your redemption amount, based on your tier when you redeem. Redemptions for a statement credit or personal check will not receive the Preferred Rewards Bonus. 2) For all other eligible credit cards (such as BankAmericard Travel Rewards®), the Preferred Rewards Bonus will be added to the base rewards you earn with each purchase.

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Has anyone else noticed the Preferred Rewards bonus has changed on the AAA card? It now applies to the base points and category bonus whereas before, it only applied to the base points. It makes the category rewards now 5.25% for travel and 3.5% for grocery stores, gas stations, and drug stores if you are Preferred Honors. The change seemed to have happened in April.

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If that is true the AAA card is suddenly best in class and worth getting!

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I guess this might be the best thread for this, didn’t see it elsewhere. Changes are afoot with the BofA / Merrill tie-in Preferred Rewards, and they bode well.

The fine print suggests that the top tiers for rewards point bonuses may be expanded to include two additional high end levels. Those with under $1M will stay in the Platinum Honors level, while those with more will be Diamond or Diamond Honors and (hopefully) better CC perks as well.

The new program will be expanded by adding two new tiers for clients with a qualifying balance of $1,000,000 or more.

I got some mail from them advertising the upcoming changes -

This is the current state, TBD on what the marketing geniuses at BofA may come up with.

Certain credit cards are eligible to receive the Preferred Rewards or Preferred Rewards for Wealth Management bonus. Enrolled Preferred Rewards members can receive a Preferred Rewards bonus of 25% for the Gold tier, 50% for the Platinum tier, or 75% for the Platinum Honors tier based on their Program tier and type of card and Preferred Rewards for Wealth Management clients can receive a bonus of 75% based on their enrollment and type of card.

Merrill isn’t one of my bigger brokerages, but that could change.

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Do they combine balances in accounts of spouses to calculate the tiers?

I just contacted them to verify that the existing platinum (current top-level) rewards would not be reduced by the ‘realignment’ and from what I was told it would not be – that is, the current 75% bonus for account valuations from $100k up to $1M, and the travel credits would not be changed. The representative with whom I spoke confirmed that they would not be. The additional benefits on the higher levels will apparently be communicated via the broker directly (maybe airline lounges or something - but that is just a total guess on my part) but since I don’t have a million dollars in assets with them, I don’t mind. I feel the current tier is among the best out there and wanted to check that they would not be reducing that, and apparently that is the case - if the person I spoke to was correct.

Just another data point.

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