No credit card required
Browse credit cards from a variety of issuers to see if there's a better card for you.
@Anonymous wrote:
Would love some clarification from those in the know about the relationship bonus on these two cards. The Premium Rewards card is often referred to as an upgraded Travel Rewards but I've noticed that while the Travel Rewards card receives a 10% bonus just for having a checking account with BOA, the Premium Rewards page makes no reference to this. The only customer bonus referenced for the Premium Rewards card requires being at Preferred Rewards status. So, for those of you that have the card, does the Premium Rewards card receive the 10% checking account bonus? If it doesn't, for someone not at Preferred Rewards tier it seems it would make more sense to use the Travel Rewards card for non bonus spend.
*Edited to remove stuff I was wrong about.*
Premium is an "upgraded" version because of the extra travel/dining rewards, TSA/GE credit, and an airline extras credit that exceeds the AF by $5.
Most Bank of America® branded consumer credit cards (such as the Cash Rewards, Travel Rewards, and Premium Rewards® credit cards) are eligible to receive the Preferred Rewards bonus, as long as the card account is open and in good standing. If your credit card receives the 10% customer bonus, the Preferred Rewards bonus will replace the 10% customer bonus.
Cards not eligible for the rewards bonus:
This list is subject to change without prior notice.
I have both cards. They both get the 10% bonus. For both if you then qualify for Preferred Rewards you get that instead of the 10%. It doesn't stack--you start earning 25% instead of 10%.
The biggest differences is in the way you get your cash back. With the PR card you just get cash deposited into your bank account. With the TR you have to "redeem" travel points by ticking off things on your statement that counted as travel--but since it's defined so loosely, and includes everything from Uber to Parking to restaurants, there's always something there you can credit, and then you get cash back in your bank account, so it's basically cash back with a hoop you have to jump through.
The Premium Rewards card has an annual fee but it's easy to wipe that out: the $100 for airline incidentals (in flight food, entertainment, bag fees, etc.) is more than the annual fee by itself.
One thing to consider is pairing either of them with the BoA CashBack card with is a no-AF card. Especially if you were looking for dining, you could pick dining as your 3.3% category on cash back card and use travel at 1.6% for all else. It would only make sense to go to the premium card in that case if you were going to blow past the $2500/quarter limit on the 2% and 3% categories on the CashBack card. Also note you can get a co-branded Visa version of the CashBack card if, like me, you wanted to use it at Costco in the 2.2% category. Note these grow with preferred rewards too--it can be a 5.25% back on dining card and 3.5% back at Costco, at which point you might find you want two of them (the $2500/quarter thing starts to be a real limit for groceries+dining for me).
BoA does let you re-use a hard pull so if you apped the TR or PR card, you could follow up with an app for the cashback a few days later without getting hit with a second HP (but you do get a second new account, so it's not totally "free" to your credit score.)
The Premium card doesn't offer the 10% bonus. The Cash and Travel cards do. They seem to be downplaying the feature recently. On the revamp of the Cash card, the 10% bonus still exists, but it is only mentioned on buried portions of the site. For the Premium I see no mention of it anywhere at all.
It basically will come down to your travel and dining spend. The base earn rate on the Travel and Premium is the same. If your travel and dining spend is sufficient that the increased rewards will cover the AF, then the Premium is worth it.
@kdm31091 wrote:The Premium card doesn't offer the 10% bonus. The Cash and Travel cards do. They seem to be downplaying the feature recently. On the revamp of the Cash card, the 10% bonus still exists, but it is only mentioned on buried portions of the site. For the Premium I see no mention of it anywhere at all.
It basically will come down to your travel and dining spend. The base earn rate on the Travel and Premium is the same. If your travel and dining spend is sufficient that the increased rewards will cover the AF, then the Premium is worth it.
+1
The PR card benefits preferred rewards clients the most.
@Anonymous wrote:
The PR card benefits preferred rewards clients the most.
Seems like that's the direction BofA is heading. They want your retirement account too, not just your checking account, and they'll reward you accordingly.