Bank of America Cash Rewards 3% category

[Anonymous]

The option just showed up on desktop for me today.

The confirmation said I may change it again on 2/1 (which does not correlate with my statement cut date).

Additionally, in regards to the 10% bonus: "[Y]our relationship is rewarded sooner - your customer bonus will now be awarded when you make a purchase, and doesn't depend on how or when you redeem." I got a bonus 10% of my current rewards balance available to redeem.

[yfan]

These are actually all pretty welcome changes for me. I have set my 3% category to dining for now, which will technically give me 3.3% on dining as opposed to the Citi Costco's 3%. My other problem with the Citi Costco is that Citi refuses to raise my limit on it, so I am cool leaving it for just gas. The redemption minimum didn't really bother me too much, but I do appreciate BofA getting rid of it. So my top category cards are now:

Travel: 6% flights, 10% hotels using the Orbitz+ Orbitz Visa rewards structure.

Rotating: 5% Discover.

Gas: 4% Citi Costco Visa.

Dining: 3.3% BofA Cash Rewards.

Others: Citi Double Cash @ 2% or Amex Cash Magnet @ 1.5% (larger items, or when I feel like there might be a customer service case in a purchase in the future, I want Amex on my side).

[csryang]

A great change! I am wondering about a few things here. I already have an existing Cash Rewards card.

1) I am wondering if I can product change another BOA card into a second Cash Rewards card?

2) If having two Cash Rewards cards is possible, would it be risky later possibly getting the card closed by BOA due to them being the same card? I am asking for DPs for those having two of the same cards and still have not gotten card closed by BOA.

3) If having two Cash Rewards cards is possible, would I get to choose different 3% categories on each Cash Rewards card? Would the quarterly limit on cash back per account holder or per card? I found conflicting DPs on reddit so wondering what you guys think! 

[Anonymous]

I think you can get more than one. I don't know if you can get two "BoA Cash Rewards", but they do have a whole bunch of equivalent "co-branded" cards, like a WWF one, and for different sports teams. I got one of these co-branded cards so it would be a Visa instead of a Mastercard, since I use the Cash Rewards at Costco (2% on warehouse club bumps up to 3.5% with 75% preferred rewards). 

So I think you could probably get one of these co-branded cards and have the BoA one at the same time. They have exactly the same rewards structure including the 3% and I believe you can set each one differntly.

Another way is if you are married, get your spouse to get the card and then make each other an AU. That you can do for sure. 

I'm thinking about it but I'm in the garden until probably October. Then that's exactly what I'll do - I have a cobranded one now and I'll get the regular one at that point. I can see BoA offering it to me on their offers page. **bleep** garden!

[JustBPatient]

I was looking at the categories this morning, neat twist!  Does anyone know if BOA has done away with the 10% relationship bonus when you redeem your reward dollars?

[Anonymous]

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@JustBPatient wrote:

I was looking at the categories this morning, neat twist!  Does anyone know if BOA has done away with the 10% relationship bonus when you redeem your reward dollars?

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It gets added automatically now rather than at redemption.

[JustBPatient]

I dont follow, if I put in 40 dollars for redemption then shouldn't the value into my checking account be $44.00?  What am I missing?

[Anonymous]

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@JustBPatient wrote:

I dont follow, if I put in 40 dollars for redemption then shouldn't the value into my checking account be $44.00?  What am I missing?

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It used to add the additional 10% when you redeemed, so for example if you had a $100 transaction in the 3% category, you'd get $3.00 added to the rewards balance and when you redeemed you'd get an extra $0.30 relationship bonus tacked onto it.  Now you'll get the whole $3.30 in the rewards balance once the transaction clears (to be redeemed when the statement cuts without minimum anymore).

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know how to check progress against the $2500/quarter limit on the 2% and 3% categories? The card reverts to 1% after.

I have set this card to "dining" now and I fully expect that along with my Costco purchases I will blow past the $2500/quarter limit, so obviously at that point I should switch my spending to a different card. 

But how to tell when that happens? And what do they consider "a quarter"? Is it January 1 to March 31? Is it from my January statement date to my March statement date? Or from when? 

On their site I can only see how much I spent in each category per month, I can't see anything breaking it down by quarter.

[Anonymous]

Just got the US Pride version! Instant approval.

3% online - YES!

$150 SUB - YES!

Sweet card - YES!

BOA - YES!

Another great foundation card IMO