BoA Premium Rewards Elite Credit Card Review (2023.6 Update: 75k Offer)

     2023-06-06     2023-06-06 4 Comments

BoA

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Bank of America Premium Rewards Elite Credit Card Review

2023.6 Update: The new offer is 75k. This is the highest offer on this card.

Application Link

Benefits

  1. 75k offer: earn 75,000 points after spending $5,000 in first 90 days. This is the highest offer on this card.
  2. The points can be redeemed towards statement credit or deposited into BoA Checking/Savings account at 1:1 ratio. You can also redeem them in BoA travel portal and get a 20% off, so in this way the points could be worth 1.25 cents/point. Therefore the 75k signup bonus is worth about $937.5.
  3. Earning 2x points per dollar spent on travel and dining, earn 1.5x points elsewhere.
  4. BoA Preferred Rewards program: If you have checking/savings/brokerage account in BoA or Merrill Edge, you can earn additional points based on the amount of asset. Earn additional 25% rewards if you are in Gold tier ($20k or more in balance); 50% if Platinum tier ($50k or more in balance); 75% if Platinum Honors tier ($100k or more in balance).
  5. $300 Airline Incidental Credit: get up to $300 per calendar year in Airline Incidental Statement Credits for qualifying purchases like seat upgrades, baggage fees, in-flight services and airline lounge fees.
  6. $150 Lifestyle Credit: get up to $150 per calendar year in statement credits for lifestyle conveniences, including streaming services, food delivery, fitness subscriptions and rideshare services.
  7. Priority Pass Select (PPS) airport lounge access.
  8. $100 credit toward TSA Pre or Global Entry.
  9. No foreign transaction fee.

Disadvantages

  1. $550 annual fee, not waived first year.

Recommended Application Time

  1. We recommend you apply for this card after you have a credit history of at least one year.
  2. [New] 2/3/4 Rule: BoA will only approve you for at most: 2 cards per rolling 2 months; 3 cards per rolling 12 months; and 4 cards per rolling 24 months. Because their IT system hasn’t been fully updated yet, you may not get declined because of this rule. Instead, you may get approved at first, and then the account will be closed because of “approved in error”.
  3. [New] This card will not be available to you if you currently have or have had the card in the preceding 24 month period.

Summary

This card is like an upgraded version of BoA Premium Rewards. They even have the same earning structure. This card comes with a hefty $550 annual fee. Even if you can use up all the $300 airline incidental credit and $150 lifestyle credit, you still have to pay $100, basically only for the PPS cards. If you use the points towards travel via BoA travel portal, then the points value becomes 1.25 cents/point, then the spending rewards is decent. But there are obviously limitations (compared to redeeming for statement credit) if you redeem the points in this way. All in all, in my opinion, there are other competitive premium cards, therefore I don’t think this one is worth holding for long term. It is only suitable to have it for a year if/when you have accumulated a lot of BoA points.

Related Credit Cards

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After Applying

  • Click here to check BoA application status.
  • BoA reconsideration backdoor number: 877-383-0120 or 866-811-4108. It seems that the number is changing. Please inform us at once if it fails. The representatives here can get in touch with decision-makers directly.

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