A credit card that allows you to customize your rewards is more advantageous than other conventional credit cards. There’s a card from Bank of America. In this Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards review, I’ll list all of its features, rewards, and requirements so you can decide if it is the right credit card for you.
The Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards is a credit card that is different from standard credit cards. This card allows you to customize your rewards by selecting a bonus category from a list of options such as online shopping, travel, gas, furnishings, home improvement, and drugstores.
If you use this BA credit card, you can earn 3% cashback on one category that you choose per quarter. You can also earn 2% cashback at wholesale clubs and grocery stores and 1% on all types of purchases.
Read on to learn more about the Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards credit card, its benefits, earning rates, requirements, and pros and cons.
About the Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards Credit Card
The thing that distinguishes the Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards credit card from its rivals is its feature that allows you to choose one of six 3% cashback bonus categories, but it also lets you swap your choice once a month.
This is very helpful for your daily purchases and long-term spending, especially if you consider that you can take advantage of the ongoing 2% cash back rate at wholesale clubs and grocery stores.
Notable Features
Here are the other notable features of this customized credit card:
1. Customize Your Rewards
Most credit cards on the market today do not offer a $0 annual fee. But this credit card of Bank of America does. It also allows you to customize your rewards by selecting a bonus category from the available list of options. These options include gas, furnishings, home improvement, groceries, travel, dining, and online shopping.
Normally, without loyalty bonuses, the rewards rates of most credit cards are very modest. But with the credit cards of Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards, there are plenty of good bonus categories, allowing you to earn or save more money.
2. Higher Earning Rates
This is the credit card that you need if you are looking for a card that has a higher reward rate than the conventional flat-rate cashback of 1.5% of most cards. Its rate is more consistent on a month per month basis than the 5% rotating category card.
However, there is a drawback with this BA customized credit card, especially if you are a big spender. The 3% and 2% categories share the same cap of $2,500 spending limit on joint purchases every quarter before dropping to 1% cashback. But this downside can be mitigated by its other benefits.
3. Sign Up Bonus
Aside from its zero annual fees, this customized credit card offers a sign-up bonus of $200 in the form of online cash rewards. You can earn this bonus after spending at least $1,000 in purchases within the first 90 days or 3 months of opening your account.
4. Ongoing Rewards/Earning Rates
The reward structure of this customized credit card is relatively involved. It has the following rates of cash-backs.
- 3% cash back on any category that you choose and 2% cash back on your wholesale clubs and grocery purchases for the first $2,500 of a combination of bonus category (grocery and wholesale club) spending every quarter. After you reach that limit, you will get 1% cash back on all your other purchases.
- 1% cash back on all other purchases.
5. Choose Categories
There are six options or categories that you can choose from in your customized credit card purchases:
- Travel
- Online shopping
- Gas
- Dining
- Home improvement and furnishings
- Drugstores
You are allowed to change your chosen category once a month. If you don’t exercise your option, the default of 3% cashback will go to gas, as per the regulation of the card issuer. Your chosen option will be honored every month if you don’t change it.
6. Reasonable Requirements
To qualify for its customized cash rewards credit card, the primary requirement of Bank of America is for you to have a good to excellent credit score. According to their definition, your credit score should be between 670 and 850.
Bank of America does not charge any annual fee to enjoy the use of this credit card. It charges a 0% interest rate as its introductory APR (annual percentage rate) for 15 billing cycles on balance transfers and purchases. After that, the ongoing APRs will be 13.99% to 23.99% variable APR.
Benefits of the Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards Credit Card
You can get many benefits if you use the Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards Credit Card. Some of these benefits may not be available with other credit cards.
What are these benefits?
1. Choose Your Own Rewards
Choosing the kind of rewards you will get is definitely one of the biggest advantages of the Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards credit card. This card allows you to choose your own bonus categories and not just settle with the card issuer sets.
But that’s not all. They even allow you to change your chosen option once a month. That will really give you great flexibility in your spending. No other credit card offers this advantageous feature to their clients.
2. Extensive Online Shopping Options
The online shopping category of this customize credit card is also extensive. It includes the most popular online shopping sites of today. They are the following:
- Walmart.com
- Amazon.com
- Target.com
- Macys.com
- Apple.com
- Bestbuy.com
- Groupon.com
3. Wide-Ranging Dining and Home Improvement Category
You have plenty of options in this credit card’s dining category. Your options are not just limited to sit-down food joints. The options include a wide variety of eating places, such as the following:
- Cocktail lounges,
- Drinking places,
- Nightclubs,
- Fast-food restaurants,
- Taverns,
- Bars, and many others.
That means these would include McDonald’s, GrubHub, Starbucks, and other similar food joints. On the other end of the scale, you can also use this customized credit card to eat classy food in fine dining restaurants and sip spirited drinks at spunky night joints.
The same can be said with this card’s Home Improvement category. You have a wide variety of retailers to choose from. Your choices range from Williams-Sonoma to Ace Hardware. They also include other home improvement and repair services such as plumbing, landscapes, air conditioning services, florists, antique shops, and many more.
4. No Minimum Redemption Requirements
Another great advantage of this customized credit card is that it has no minimum redemption requirement for one-time cash reward redemption. But for other redemption options, it still sets a limit of $25 minimum redemption.
5. Several Ways to Redeem Cash Back
There are also several ways you can redeem your cash backs for your Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards credit card. They can be redeemed in the following ways:
- A check
- A statement credit
- A direct deposit into a Bank of America savings or checking account
- A contribution to an eligible Merrill 529 account
6. Loyalty Bonuses
Bank of America rewards its loyal account holders, and one of the ways they do it is through the Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards credit card. This credit card’s reward rates are not really that remarkable compared with other zero annual fee credit cards.
Bank of America Preferred Rewards Program
However, if you qualify for their Bank of America Preferred Rewards program, you will get substantial reward rates. Higher reward rates are possible for cardholders who are eligible for this rewards program.
Your earnings can range from 25% to 75% more on your credit card rewards in this program. You will qualify for this rewards program if your combined balances in Bank of America and Merrill are more than a certain threshold.
For instance, if your combined account balances in Bank of America and Merrill surpass the $100,000 mark, you will qualify for the 75% boost in rewards.
So, instead of the typical 3% cashback on your choice of category, you will be earning 5.25% cashback instead of your spending. The amount you save is generally more than what you will earn in other zero annual fee credit cards.
7. Additional Benefits
Here are some more benefits of having a Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards credit card:
- Overdraft protection
- Free monthly FICO score free
- Trip interruption insurance
- Online and mobile banking
- Chip-enabled card
- Extended warranty and purchase protection
- Paperless statements
Again, how is the Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards Credit Card different from standard credit cards? The Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards Credit Card is unique since it enables you to customize rewards from various categories, including online shopping, travel, gas, furnishings, home improvement, and drugstores.
Rewards Earning Details –
Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards Credit CardBasically, the rewards earning of this customized credit card of Bank of America is just like any other cashback program. Every cashback reward is worth 1 cent per 1% earned. So, a 3% category purchase will earn you 3 cents per dollar.
Earn 3% Cashback on Any Category
You can earn 3% cashback on any category of your choice. The categories are already outlined somewhere in the first part of this article. In addition, you will need a minimum of $25 to redeem for automatic direct deposits into your Bank of America account or in an eligible Merrill 529 account.
Change Category Once a Month
You are also allowed to change your category once a month. Bank of America is very liberal in allowing you to define your retail categories. For example, you can earn premium rewards for dining in food joints and restaurants and in establishments that sell drinks such as cocktail lounges, taverns, discos, nightclubs, and bars.
However, purchases in superstores like Target and Walmart are not eligible for the 2% cash back rewards, just like most credit cards. But you can earn higher rates if you will use this card for your purchases in wholesale clubs and grocery stores.
At the 3% and 2% tiers of this credit card, there is a combined cap of $2,500 per quarter. On all other purchases, you will earn 1%.
BOA Customized Cash Rewards Credit Card Requirements
You can qualify for a Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards credit card if your credit score is good to excellent. That means your score should be between 670 and 850. Bank requires no annual fee of America to enjoy the benefits of this card.
Other requirements that you need to know are the following:
- Intro purchase APR – 0% for 15 statement closing dates
- Intro balance transfer APR – 0% for 15 statement closing dates
- Regular APR – 13.99% to 23.99%
- Balance transfer fee – either $10 or 3% of the transfer amount, whichever is greater
- Foreign transaction fee – 3%
Note: The intro APR of this customized credit card will give you enough room to make it a practical balance transfer card. In addition, the regular interest that follows after is quite low. The rate is actually below the average credit card interest rate of today.
Pros and Cons of the Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards Credit Card
You also need to know the pros and cons of this customized credit card to be in a better position to know if this card is right for you:
Pros
- No annual fee
- Generous cash back rewards
- Can swap 3% categories per month
- Bonus offer that can be easily earned for new card holders
- Considerable investment or bank-account balances that allows for additional cash back bonuses
- Relatively generous introductory 0% APR
Cons
- Spending caps of $2,500 on earnings on premium rewards per quarter
- Purchases at multiple-category stores are not eligible for grocery rewards
- For those who have excellent credit scores, are big spenders and who are willing to pay the annual fee, there are other credit cards that offer higher rewards
- Redemption options are bit complicated
Conclusion: Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards
The Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards is a credit card that is unlike ordinary credit cards. It lets you customize the rewards you want to get.
You can do this by choosing a bonus category from a list of options that include travel, online shopping, drugstores, home improvement, gas, and furnishings. You are also allowed to change your chosen category each month.
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