Bank Of America Premium Rewards Card Review: Up To 2.625% Back, With A Catch

With airlines having largely devalued their frequent flyer programs over the years, there’s more value than ever before in getting a great cash back card. And the Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card has the potential to be the single most lucrative cash back credit card out there for everyday spending, as you can earn up to 2.625% cash back on all purchases. That’s virtually unheard of, though there are some significant hoops to jump through. This post is my in-depth Bank of America Premium Rewards Card review, so let’s take a look at everything you need to know about the card. Link: Learn more about the Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card with 60K bonus points Bank of America Premium Rewards Card summary & key detailsBank of America Premium Rewards Card bonus, eligibility, & feesPremium Rewards Card 60K bonus points offerPremium Rewards Card bonus eligibility & rulesPremium Rewards Card annual fee & authorized user feeBank of America Premium Rewards Card points earning structurePremium Rewards Card no foreign transaction feesBank of America Premium Rewards Card points redemptionsBank of America Premium Rewards Card benefits & creditsPremium Rewards Card $100 airline incidental creditPremium Rewards Card TSA PreCheck or Global Entry creditPremium Rewards Card Visa Signature Luxury Hotel CollectionPremium Rewards Card travel protectionsPremium Rewards Card purchase protectionBofA Rewards program bonus rewardsBofA Rewards program tiers & bonusesBofA Rewards program eligible balanceIs the Bank of America Premium Rewards Card worth it?How does the Bank of America Premium Rewards Elite compare?Bank of America Premium Rewards vs. Chase Sapphire Preferred comparisonBank of America Premium Rewards vs. Citi Strata Premier comparisonBank of America Premium Rewards vs. Capital One Venture comparisonBank of America Premium Rewards Card FAQsBottom line Bank of America Premium Rewards Card summary & key details Before I get into the Bank of America Premium Rewards Card review, let me summarize the basics of the card, including the welcome bonus, annual fee, rewards structure, and perks. Let me again emphasize that this card might just seem ordinary at first, so you’ll want to read on to the section about the BofA Rewards program: Bank of America Premium Rewards Card annual fee: $95 Bank of America Premium Rewards Card welcome offer: 60,000 points after spending $4,000 in purchases in the first 90 days of account opening Bank of America Premium Rewards Card points earning rate: 2x points on travel and dining, 1.5x points on all other purchases Bank of America Premium Rewards Card statement credits: Up to $100 in airline incidental statement credits annually, up to $100 in credits for TSA PreCheck or Global Entry application fees every four years Bank of America Premium Rewards Card travel and purchase protections: Trip delay reimbursement, trip cancellation/interruption coverage, baggage delay insurance, lost luggage reimbursement, emergency evacuation and transportation coverage, rental car insurance, purchase protection, extended warranty protection, return protection Bank of America Premium Rewards Card foreign transaction fees: None Best for: Bank of America customers who qualify for a higher BofA Rewards tier, and anyone who prefers simple cash back over transferring points to travel partners Here are my thoughts on the Bank of America Premium Rewards Card’s pros and cons: Premium Rewards Card prosPremium Rewards Card consUnrivaled return on everyday spending if you qualify for the highest tier of the BofA Rewards programYou’ll need a combined average balance of $1,000,000 or more to earn the highest bonus rewards through BofA Rewards$100 annual airline incidental credit effectively cancels out the annual feePoints are worth 1.0 cent each and can’t be redeemed with travel partnersIncludes valuable travel coverage Bank of America Premium Rewards Card bonus, eligibility, & fees When applying for credit cards, the welcome bonus, eligibility requirements, and fees, are major factors that consumers consider, so let’s look at those details for the Bank of America Premium Rewards Card. Then we’ll get into the BofA Rewards™ program, which is what transforms this card from ordinary to extraordinary. Premium Rewards Card 60K bonus points offer The Bank of America Premium Rewards Card is offering a best-ever welcome bonus of 60,000 points after spending $4,000 within the first 90 days. This has been the standard offer for a while, but we haven’t seen a publicly available offer that’s better than that, to the best of my knowledge, as we previously saw a bonus of 50,000 points. Points on this card can be redeemed for 1.0 cent each, meaning the bonus is worth $600 cash back, which is quite good. Premium Rewards Card bonus eligibility & rules Per the terms of the application, the Bank of America Premium Rewards Card welcome bonus may not be available if you currently have this card, or have had the card in the past 24 months. However, you should be eligible for the bonus if you’ve had any other Bank of America card. There’s no specific published credit score you need to get approved for the card. Personally I’d hope to have a score that’s in the “excellent” range, or at least close to it. I’d hope for a score of 700+, though people with lower scores have been approved, and people with higher scores have been rejected, as it’s only one of many factors that impacts card approval. Redeem your points toward a luxury hotel stay The Bank of America Premium Rewards Card has a $95 annual fee, which isn’t waived for the first year. You can add authorized users to the card at no extra cost, so that their spending can earn you rewards. This puts the annual fee in line with many other mid-range credit cards, including the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (learn more), Citi Strata Premier® Card (learn more), and Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card (learn more). Personally I think the annual fee is easy to justify from the $100 airline credit alone. Bank of America Premium Rewards Card points earning structure The Bank of America Premium Rewards Card offers 2x points on travel and dining, and 1.5x points on all other purchases. Since points can be redeemed for 1.0 cent each, that means the card offers 1.5-2% cash back. On the surface that’s not too exciting, since there are some other cash back cards that offer the equivalent of 2% back on all purchases. But as I’ll discuss below, the BofA Rewards program can increase your rewards by up to 75%, putting this card in a league of its own. I should mention that Bank of America has one of the broadest definitions of “travel” of any card, so that is something that’s awesome. In addition to things like flights, hotels, rental cars, etc., it also includes attractions like amusement parks, museums, and zoos, as well as transportation, like buses, parking garages, taxis, tolls, trains, and more. Earn 2x points on travel purchases with the card Premium Rewards Card no foreign transaction fees The Bank of America Premium Rewards Card has no foreign transaction fees, so it’s a great card to use for purchases abroad, especially since the card offers 2x points on travel purchases worldwide. Bank of America Premium Rewards Card points redemptions As I mentioned above, the Bank of America Premium Rewards Card offers points that can be redeemed for 1.0 cent each. How does that work in practice? When your points balance is 2,500 or higher, you can choose from a variety of ways to redeem your points at that rate, including: A statement credit An electronic deposit into a Bank of America checking or savings account A contribution to an eligible Cash Management Account with Merrill Wealth Management or Merrill, or College 529 savings account held at Merrill You can also redeem your points for gift cards or for travel booked through Bank of America’s portal. However, there’s not much reason to redeem that way, when you can just get a statement credit instead, as that eliminates unnecessary complexity. Points on the card also don’t expire, as long as the account remains in good standing. Points can be easily redeemed online by logging in to your BofA account and selecting the “Rewards” tab, or you can call 800.434.8313. Use cash back for purchases you couldn’t otherwise redeem points for Bank of America Premium Rewards Card benefits & credits Despite its reasonable annual fee, the Bank of America Premium Rewards Card offers a fair number of benefits, including an airline incidental credit that can easily offset the annual fee, plus some valuable travel protection. Let’s cover those details. Premium Rewards Card $100 airline incidental credit One of the easiest ways to justify the $95 annual fee on the Bank of America Premium Rewards Card is with the card’s annual $100 airline incidental credit. What qualifies for the airline fee credit? This includes purchases made on domestic-originated flights on certain US airlines, including for the following: Preferred seating upgrades, ticket change/cancellation fees, checked baggage fees, in-flight entertainment, onboard food and beverage charges, and airport lounge fees affiliated with eligible airline carriers Meanwhile, the terms state that the following doesn’t qualify for this credit: Airline ticket purchases, mileage point purchases, mileage point transfer fees, gift cards, duty-free purchases, award tickets and fees incurred with airline alliance partners do not qualify You have to use your card to pay eligible incidental fee transactions, and statement credits will post to your account within seven days. There’s no registration or airline designation requirement. Anecdotally I’ve seen pretty positive reports with being able to use this perk. Use your airline fee credit to purchase a lounge day pass Premium Rewards Card TSA PreCheck or Global Entry credit The Bank of America Premium Rewards Card also offers a TSA PreCheck or Global Entry fee credit once every four years. Just charge the eligible fee of up to $100 to your card, and you’ll automatically be reimbursed. You can even use this for someone else, as many cards offer these credits nowadays. Premium Rewards Card Visa Signature Luxury Hotel Collection The Bank of America Premium Rewards Card gives you access to the Visa Signature Luxury Hotel Collection, which offers extra perks at select luxury hotels. These benefits include an upgrade subject to availability, complimentary breakfast, late check-out subject to availability, complimentary Wi-Fi, and a food & beverage credit. Admittedly there are lots of programs offering extra hotel perks nowadays, so I wouldn’t place too much value on this. Receive extra perks at select luxury hotels with the card Premium Rewards Card travel protections The Bank of America Premium Rewards Card also comes with a generous set of travel insurance perks. Hopefully you’ll never need to use them — and you’ll need to pay for eligible travel using the card for them to kick in — but they provide some nice peace of mind for travelers. Trip delay reimbursement: Up to $500 per ticket for you and eligible family members when a covered trip is delayed for more than 12 hours Trip cancellation/interruption insurance: Up to $2,500 for non-refundable passenger fares if your trip is canceled or cut short for a covered reason such as sickness Baggage delay coverage: Up to $100 per day for up to five days when your bags are delayed or misdirected by a common carrier for more than six hours Lost luggage reimbursement: Coverage for your luggage and its contents if they’re lost or stolen Travel and emergency assistance services: Help coordinating medical, legal, and other services when you’re traveling Emergency evacuation and transportation coverage: Medical services and transportation coverage if you or an immediate family member is injured or becomes sick on a trip that requires emergency care Rental car insurance: Secondary rental car coverage that kicks in after your primary car insurance Get secondary rental car coverage with the card Premium Rewards Card purchase protection The Bank of America Premium Rewards Card has some purchase protection benefits, too. As with the travel coverage, you’ll need to use this card as payment in order to receive coverage for a given purchase. Purchase protection: Repair, replacement, or reimbursement for an eligible item if it’s stolen or damaged within 90 days of purchase Extended warranty: Doubles the time period of the manufacturers’ warranty on eligible items, up to one additional year Return protection: Reimbursement for the cost of an eligible item if you’re dissatisfied with the item within 90 days of the purchase and the retailer won’t accept the return BofA Rewards program bonus rewards This is where the Bank of America Premium Rewards Card goes from average to incredible. As mentioned above, ordinarily, this card earns rewards worth 1.5-2% back, though you can do significantly better than that in conjunction with this program, making this a best-in-class card. BofA Rewards program tiers & bonuses Bank of America has the BofA Rewards program, which has tiers based on your combined balance with Bank of America. Here are the tiers, the balances required to earn them, and the bonus points you earn on your credit card rewards for each tier: TierCombined balance requiredCredit card rewards bonusMemberNo minimum10% — 2.2x points on travel, 1.65x points on other spendingPreferred Plus$30,000+25% — 2.5x points on travel, 1.875x points on other spendingPreferred Honors$100,000+50% — 3x points on travel, 2.25x points on other spendingPremier$1,000,000+75% — 3.5x points on travel, 2.625x points on other spending Balances are based on the three month combined average daily balance across eligible Bank of America deposit accounts and Merrill investment accounts (same as under the old Preferred Rewards structure). Put another way, if you have the Bank of America Premium Rewards Card and belong to the Premier tier, you’re earning: 3.5% on dining and travel 2.625% on non-bonused spending That’s an unrivaled return on everyday spending! For example, you could pay your taxes by credit card for a fee of 1.75% and earn 2.625% rewards, which gives you a 0.875% return on your tax payments. This is extremely generous, as Bank of America presumably loses money on most transactions. BofA Rewards program eligible balance Obviously having to deposit $1,000,000 with a bank is a significant hurdle. Even if you have a vault like Scrooge McDuck sitting around, you might not want to park it somewhere just to get elevated credit card rewards. However, I think it’s worth highlighting how much flexibility you have with that balance requirement. The balance is determined based on your qualifying Bank of America deposit accounts and/or your qualifying investment accounts with Merrill. Eligible accounts include IRAs, so rolling over an old 401(k) could be an interesting option for some to help meet the higher thresholds (though of course check with your own financial advisors to determine if this makes sense for your situation). Obviously, these are significant balances, though I’d note that you have some highly flexible options as to what qualifies toward these amounts, including being able to trade your own stocks, for example. Is the Bank of America Premium Rewards Card worth it? On the surface, the Bank of America Premium Rewards Card is a pretty average card with a nice welcome bonus and decent rewards structure. However, combining it with the BofA Rewards program potentially puts this card into a league of its own. Being able to earn 2.625% cash back on your everyday spending is something that’s not offered by any other credit card. This card most definitely won’t be for everyone, but for those who either have assets with Bank of America or have the option of moving assets to Bank of America, this card is incredible. I find the business case for this to be fascinating. It’s one thing for a card to have generous bonus categories, but I imagine Bank of America is losing money on every transaction here for top tier customers and is using this card primarily to get people to increase their banking relationship with them. The card’s return on spending is potentially unrivaled How does the Bank of America Premium Rewards Elite compare? It’s worth noting that there’s also the Bank of America Premium Rewards Elite Card, which is the more premium version of the Bank of America Premium Rewards Card. The cards actually have virtually identical rewards structures, and the card also offers a Global Entry or TSA PreCheck credit. The difference is that the Elite version of the card has a $550 annual fee, but it offers up to $300 per year in statement credits for airline incidental fees (rather than a $100 credit), and also offers up to $150 per year in statement credits for qualifying rideshare, food delivery, video streaming services, and fitness transactions. The card also offers a Priority Pass membership. Personally I don’t think the card is worth the incremental annual fee unless you specifically value the Priority Pass membership. So many premium cards offer that nowadays, so I have a hard time getting too excited there. This is a case where it’s worth sticking to the lower fee option. Bank of America Premium Rewards vs. Chase Sapphire Preferred comparison Besides both having a $95 annual fee and earning bonus rewards on dining and travel, the Bank of America Premium Rewards Card and the Chase Sapphire Preferred card are pretty different. While the Premium Rewards Card is especially valuable for BofA Rewards Premier tier members who want to earn a high return on everyday spending, the Sapphire Preferred earns the same amount of points no matter how much money you have parked with Chase. Its standout features include: The Chase Sapphire Preferred earns 3x points on dining as well as on gas stations, EV charging, vacation homes at select brands, and on top streaming services and online grocery orders. It also earns 5x points on Chase Travel, 2x points on all other travel, and 1x points on all other spending The Chase Sapphire Preferred earns Chase Ultimate Rewards points that you can transfer to airline and hotel partners, which routinely gets you more than 1.0 cent per point in value The Chase Sapphire Preferred comes with a $100 annual Chase Travel hotel credit and a Global Entry, TSA PreCheck, or NEXUS application fee credit Like the Premium Rewards Card, the Sapphire Preferred comes with strong travel protections. The better choice for you will come down to how you prefer to redeem your credit card points — and whether or not you can qualify for one of the higher tiers of BofA Rewards to earn a sizable bonus on rewards. Bank of America Premium Rewards vs. Citi Strata Premier comparison If you’re looking at other cards in the $95 annual fee range, the Citi Strata Premier is probably on your list of Bank of America Premium Rewards Card alternatives. Here are my favorite things about the card: The Citi Strata Premier has some of the most rewarding bonus categories for a card at this price point, including 3x points on air travel and non-Citi hotel purchases, and at restaurants, supermarkets, and gas and EV charging stations. It also earns 10x points on qualifying Citi Travel bookings and 1x points on everything else The Citi Strata Premier pairs well with other Citi credit cards, such as the Citi Double Cash® Card (learn more), letting you earn a minimum of 2x points on all your spending The Citi Strata Premier has a $100 annual hotel benefit, good for $100 off a single hotel stay of $500 or more (excluding taxes and fees) booked through Citi Travel In my view, the Strata Premier has the Premium Rewards Card beat when it comes to the variety of its bonus spending categories, but the calculus could shift if you qualify for the Premier tier of BofA Rewards or even if you simply prefer redeeming points for cash back rather than through Citi’s transfer partners. Bank of America Premium Rewards vs. Capital One Venture comparison Speaking of cards with reasonable annual fees, it’s probably also worth comparing the Bank of America Premium Rewards Card to the Capital One Venture Rewards. The card also has a $95 annual fee, and has some things going for it. In particular, the Capital One Venture offers a minimum of 2x miles per dollar spent, all with no foreign transaction fees. While the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Citi Strata Premier are all about the bonus categories, the Capital One Venture is about offering a solid return on spending. Capital One miles can be redeemed for one cent each toward travel purchases, or they can be transferred to airline and hotel partners, typically at a 1:1 ratio. Which card is better will depend on which Bank of America banking tier you qualify for, and also how much value you can get from Capital One miles. Capital One miles potentially offer more outsized value than cash back Is the Bank of America Premium Rewards a metal card? No, the Bank of America Premium Rewards card isn’t a metal card. It’s made from your typical plastic. On the other hand, the more premium Bank of America® Premium Rewards® Elite Credit Card is a metal card. How do I redeem my Bank of America Premium Rewards credit card rewards? You can redeem points from the Bank of America Premium Rewards card for 1.0 cent apiece as a statement credit, an electronic deposit into a Bank of America checking or savings account, or as a contribution to an eligible Merrill account, including 529 accounts. You can also redeem for gift cards and purchases through BofA Travel. What are the benefits of having a Bank of America Premium Rewards credit card? The main benefits of having a Bank of America Premium Rewards card include earning up to 2.625% back on non-bonus spending and up to 3.5% back on dining and travel depending on your status in the BofA Rewards program, up to $100 in annual airline incidental credits, up to $100 every four years toward TSA PreCheck or Global Entry, and travel coverage when you pay for an eligible trip with the card. What credit score is needed to get approved for a Bank of America Premium Rewards Card? Bank of America doesn’t publish a specific credit score requirement for the Premium Rewards Card, but you’ll have the best chance of approval if your score is in the good range or higher. Aim for a score north of 700. Does the Bank of America Premium Rewards card have travel insurance? The Bank of America Premium Rewards Card offers several travel insurance benefits, including trip delay, cancellation, and interruption coverage along with insurance for baggage delays, lost luggage, and emergency evacuation and transportation. You’ll need to pay for trips with the Premium Rewards Card to be eligible for coverage. What triggers the Bank of America Premium Rewards $100 travel credit? The Bank of America Premium Rewards Card’s $100 annual airline incidental credit applies to qualifying airline purchases such as seat upgrades, baggage fees, in-flight services, and airline lounge fees, and is applied to your statement automatically. Bottom line The Bank of America Premium Rewards Card is an intriguing card. On the surface, it’s not that exciting — it has a decent bonus and decent rewards structure, with a reasonable annual fee that can be offset with an airline credit. However, what really makes this card valuable is if you have $1,000,000+ in assets with Bank of America, or can move them to Bank of America without much of an opportunity cost. In that case, you could be looking at a return of up to 2.625% on spending, which is industry leading. If you’re looking to earn cash back and have the ability to move around money in that way, then I highly recommend applying for the Bank of America Premium Rewards Card. Even for others, it can be worth picking up the card for the solid welcome bonus, and seeing how you like it. If you want to learn more about the Bank of America Premium Rewards Card or want to apply, follow this link.