Bank of America Premium Rewards Credit Card Review: 60,000-Point Bonus Offer With a Reasonable Annual Fee

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Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card

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• Our Rating 4/5 How our ratings work
• APR20.24% - 27.24% Variable APR on purchases
• Annual Fee$95
• Bonus Offer 60,000Points More Info

  Receive 60,000 online bonus points - a $600 value - after you make at least $4,000 in purchases in the first 90 days of account opening. Dollar Equivalent: $600 (60,000 Points * 0.01 base)

For a de facto cash-back card, the potential earnings can be quite impressive, especially if you already have a relationship with Bank of America. It's a solid option that combines benefits and a reasonable annual fee.

Ideal Travel Card for Existing Bank of America Customers

The Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card is a nice option that combines benefits and a reasonable annual fee of only $95. You might think of it as a mid-tier rewards card.

Travelers can easily take advantage of some key perks that more than make up for the cost. The $100 annual airline incidental statement credit alone offsets the annual fee, and additional perks like the TSA PreCheck® and Global Entry credit sweeten the offer.

But if you travel frequently, there are other cards that offer a more robust set of perks. Just be prepared to pay a larger annual fee if luxury travel cards, such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, are more your speed.

Sign-Up Bonus

New cardholders can take advantage of the opportunity to earn 60,000 bonus points. Those reward points add up to a sizable $600 value that you can redeem for cash rewards, travel or gift cards.

The card’s sign-up bonus is one of its most attractive features. It’s not the biggest credit card bonus you can find online, but it’s respectable in relation to the card’s low annual fee.

To qualify for the sign-up bonus, you need to make a minimum of $4,000 in purchases within the first 90 days from account opening. If you don’t spend an average of $1,333 per month on credit cards, you might want to wait until you need to make some large purchases before you apply.

Bank of America stipulates that the sign-up bonus is a one-time offer. It’s only available to new cardholders and not to those converting an existing credit card account.

Once you earn your bonus points, it may take between eight and 12 weeks before they post to your rewards balance.

Annual Fee

When you open a Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card, be prepared to pay the card’s $95 annual fee every year the account remains open. The fee is affordable compared with many other rewards credit cards. But, since it’s not a no-annual-fee card, you should still make sure you’ll use the card’s benefits enough to offset the cost.

Rewards Rate

When you use your Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card for purchases, you can earn unlimited points and later redeem them for cash rewards, travel or gift cards. The card issuer assigns points in one of two ways, based on the type of purchase you make.

• Travel and dining purchases earn unlimited 2 points for each dollar you spend.
• All other eligible purchases earn unlimited 1.5 points for each dollar you spend.

If you purchase food or drinks (dine-in or takeout) at restaurants, fast food, bars or taverns, these transactions should qualify for the 2-points-per-dollar rewards rate. Travel purchases include purchases from airlines, hotels, car rental companies, cruise lines, toll operators, amusement parks and more.

Note: Some transactions will not earn you points. These may include balance transfers, cash advances and fraudulent transactions. You won’t earn points on the fees or interest you pay on your account either.

Card Benefits

The Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card offers several attractive benefits for a card with such a low annual fee.

Airline Incidental Statement Credit

Each year, you can qualify for a $100 statement credit for airline incidental fees. Travel purchases that are eligible for the credit include:

• Seat upgrades
• Checked baggage fees
• In-flight entertainment
• Ticket change or cancellation fees
• Onboard drinks or food
• Airport lounge fees (with eligible airline carriers)

You can’t use the travel credit for ticket purchases, mileage or airline points purchases, gift cards, duty-free purchases, mileage point transfer fees, award tickets and any fees from airline alliance partners. Also, if you make travel purchases with Allegiant Air, Sprint Airlines or Sun Country Airlines, they won’t help you qualify for the credit.

If you do make a qualifying purchase, expect to wait between 2-3 weeks for your travel credit. So, be sure to pay your bill if it's due before the credit hits your account to avoid any late payment fees or negative credit reporting.

Tip: The airline incidental statement credit runs from calendar year to calendar year. Depending on when you open your account, you could potentially redeem two statement credits within a short period of time. This strategy can help you pack in more value on the front end when you open a new account.

TSA PreCheck®/Global Entry Statement Credit

Once every four years you’re eligible for an Airport Security Statement Credit on your account. It’s worth up to $100 for TSA PreCheck® or Global Entry fees. You must use your Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card to pay for the application fees to receive the credit.

Expect eligible statement credits to take between 2-3 weeks to process. Be sure to keep up with any payments that come due before the credit hits your account.

Free FICO® Score

As a primary cardholder, you can view a free copy of your FICO® Score (assuming you have a credit score available to see).

Contactless Chip Technology

Use your security-chip enabled card to make a purchase with the convenience of a simple tap.

Preferred Rewards: Multiply Your Points

The standard rewards-earning potential on this card is decent, but not exciting. However, if you keep a sizable amount of funds in a Bank of America account or a Merrill investment account, the rewards rate increases. You become a Preferred Rewards member.

As a Preferred Rewards Member, you receive a credit card rewards bonus based on the balance of your Bank of America deposit and/or Merrill investment accounts.

Here's how the tiers work:

• Gold: Get 25% more cash back when you have at least $20,000 in combined balances.
• Platinum: Get 50% more cash back when you have at least $50,000 in combined balances.
• Platinum Honors: Get 75% more cash back when you have at least $100,000 in combined balances.

The rewards potential for someone with a $100k+ balance in their Bank of America and/or Merrill investment accounts is huge. If you qualify for the Platinum Honors rewards bonus, for example, you can earn 75% more points on every purchase. That means you could earn up to 3.5 points for every $1 spent on travel and dining purchases.

The points you can earn on your Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card increase to the following:

• 2.5-3.5 points for each dollar you spend on travel and dining purchases
• 1.87-2.625 points for each dollar you spend on all other eligible purchases

For a card that can essentially work like a cash-back credit card (more on that below), you’ll be hard-pressed to find any other offer that can compete.

Redeeming Points

Once you have at least 2,500 points in your rewards account, you can redeem your earnings in a few ways.

Cash Rewards

Your points are worth $0.01 each when you redeem them. So, the 2,500 minimum you need to cash out your points is worth $25.

Bank of America will send you cash rewards through any of the following methods:

• Statement Credit
• Electronic account deposit (Bank of America checking or savings accounts)
• Credit to a qualifying cash management account or 529 with Merrill

Travel Center

You can also redeem points through the Bank of America Travel Center. The Travel Center gives you access to make purchases at over 200,000 hotels and resorts and more than 200 airlines. You can use your points for gift card purchases, if you prefer.

Expiration

In general, the points you earn using your Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card don't expire. But if you or the card issuer closes your account, any unredeemed points would likely be lost unless the card issuer makes a rare exception.

Fees

You shouldn’t look at the perks a rewards credit card offers without also considering its costs and interest rates. While the Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card does not charge a foreign transaction fee on international purchases, it does carry other fees such as balance transfer fees. Here are some of the costs to consider if you decide to open a Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card.

Annual Fee

The annual fee for the Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card is $95 per year.

Foreign Transaction Fee

The card does not charge foreign transfer fees on purchases made outside of the United States.

Balance Transfer Fee

You may be able to transfer balances from other credit cards to the Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card. If you opt to take advantage of this feature, you'll pay 4% of the amount of each transaction.

Drawbacks

The Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card has a lot to offer. Yet there are a few card features that are less desirable.

No points transferring allowed. The card doesn’t let you transfer points to travel partners. That makes it simpler to redeem the rewards you earn, but it also limits the value of your points to a maximum of $0.01 each.

There’s an annual fee. The Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card comes with a $95 annual fee. That’s a modest cost compared with several other rewards credit cards on the market. Annual-fee credit cards can be a great value in some situations. However, these cards aren’t one-size-fits-all. Always make sure the features of an annual-fee card make sense for your lifestyle.

Don’t spend much on travel or dining purchases? Are you worried you won't use the card’s benefits or rewards? In either of these cases, you may want to search for a different rewards credit card.

Key benefits are travel related. Two of the key benefits that come with the Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card are travel related. Namely, the card features a $100 per year travel statement credit for airline incidental fees and a statement credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck® that you can redeem once every four years. Both of these perks are nice. But if you’re not a frequent airline traveler, you might not get much use out of them. Keep these factors in mind when deciding whether this card can give you enough bang for its cost.

You can earn higher rewards with other cards. A number of other credit cards give you higher rewards on your spending. Some of these alternative rewards cards come with higher annual fees than the Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card. Others don't. For example, the Citi Double Cash® Card has no annual fee and gives 2% cash-back rewards on all purchases.

Is the Bank of America® Premium Rewards® Credit Card Right for You?

Do you have Bank of America deposit accounts or Merrill investment accounts? If so, you may want to strongly consider opening a Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card. If your collective balances in those accounts make you eligible for a Relationship Bonus, you could multiply the points you earn with the card by as much as 75%.

For a de facto cash-back card, the potential earnings become quite impressive in this scenario. On the other hand, if you don’t keep a sizable amount of funds in a Bank of America deposit account or Merrill investment account, this strategy won’t work for you.

If you’re looking for a card with killer benefits (Lyft credits, Uber credits, higher rewards in select categories, and so on), the Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card may not be right for you either. It’s not difficult to find a number of credit cards with perks that outshine this card. Yet you might pay more than five times the annual fee to tap into some of those more luxurious benefits.

In the end, you have to weigh the pros and cons above. These factors should help you determine if the Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card deserves a place in your credit card line up.