Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards Credit Card Review

 

Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards Credit Card Review

Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards Credit Card  It is a Mouthful Previously This Card Was Just Called Cash Rewards and It Looked Like This Because They Had Predetermined Their Three Percent in Two Percent Categories 

But Now They Are Allowing You to Choose Your Three Percent Category Hence the Customized Name So Really a Simple Card Design Refresh Would Be Enough Like Every Other Car That Had Category Refreshes in the Past Few Years but Anywho 

Its a Long Ridiculous Name but Rather Whether You Should Pick Up This Card I Decided to Pick This Up Myself a Few Months Back Because of Its Online Shopping Category Which is One of the Categories 

You Can Pick for Three Percent Though There Are Other Cars That Are Cropping Up With a Similar Three Percent Online Shopping Category Like Mx's Refresh Blue Cash Everyday Card Which Now Also Earns Three Percent Back on Online Retail Stores So I'll Take That All Into Consideration in 

So Let's Go Ahead and Get Started With the Pros So First of All This is a No-annual Fee Card So as Long as You Don't Keep a Balance You Don't Have to Pay Any Fees to Own This Card 

It Has a Very Easy to Get Sign Up Bonus Which Usually Ranges Between 150 to 200 Dollars After a Thousand Dollars of Spend Within the First 90 Days Which Was Also Posted to My Account Very Quickly Soon After I Hit That Minimum 

But the Highlight of This Card is Definitely the Three Percent Categories That You Can Choose From So There Are Five Total Categories That You Can Pick Each Month Including Online Shopping 

Which Was My Choice for the Past Few Months Dining Drug Stores Gas Home Improvement Stores and Travel Slash Transportation Within the App They Do Give Some Example Merchants That Qualify Under Each Category 

But of Course This is Not an Exhaustive List They Also Have a Few More Details About the Codes That Each Transaction Could Be Coded as That May Fall Into These Categories Within the Actual Welcome Paperwork 

So if You're Kind of Hesitant and Not Sure if This Will Fall Into the Right Category You Want to First Consult Those Documents if You're Not Sure for Example in the Category of Online Shopping You Can Always Just Do Small Transactions at the Merchant to See 

If It Qualifies or Not I'll Talk a Little Bit More Details About the Categories in the Later but the Standout Feature of These Customized Three Percent Categories is That You Don't Have to Remember to Activate It Every Month 

So if You Had Wanted to Stay With the Online Category for Example You Don't Have to Remember to Choose It Again the Next Month It Will Just Automatically Carry Over Your Previous Selection From the Previous Month and Then 

If You Do Decide Midway Through During the Month That You Want to Change It to a Different Category You Can Choose to Do So You Just Have One Opportunity Per Month to Make the Change in Addition to the Three Percent 

You Also Earn Two Percent Back at Grocery Stores and Wholesale Clubs Which is Good Because This is on the Visa Network Which Means It's Acceptable at Costco All Together Your Three Percent Two Percent Earnings Will Cap Off at Two Thousand Five Hundred Dollars of Spend Per Quarter So Every Three Months and Anything You Spend Outside of Those Categories 

 if You Max Out Your Three Percent Two Percent Categories You Will Earn One Percent Back but if You're a Little Bit More Cashback Savvy You Might Be Thinking Well These Numbers Are Not Particularly Outstanding Especially Since the Blue Cash Bce Card Now Earns Three Percent Back at Grocery Stores 

As Well as Online Retail Stores So It's Not All That Great Per Se but if You Have a Lot of Assets With Bank of America or Investments With Merrill Lynch You Can Actually Bump Up Those Cash Back Rates 

So if You Have 20 000 or More With Them You Can Earn 25 Percent More on That Cash Back Rate and So on and So Forth Up to the Platinum Honors Category Which You Can Earn 75 Percent More 

So Ultimately You Could Be Earning a 5.25 Percent Back Instead of Three Percent Back in Those Special Categories for Redemption Options You Can Either Cash Out by Posting as a Statement Credit Depositing Into Your Bank of America or Merrill Lynch Accounts or Requesting 

A Personal Check the Personal Check is the Only One That Has a 25 Minimum the Other Options You Can Redeem as Little as One Cent Additionally It's on the Visa Network Which is Much More Widely Accepted Than American Express 

For Example and Like American Express They Also Have These Limited Merchant Offers Where You Can Get Additional Cash Back or Rebate if You Spend Certain Retail Stores and a Lesser-known Perk of All Bank of America Cards is That 

You Can Earn Free Admission to Select Museums Across the U.s on the First Full Weekend of the Month Which Could Be Pretty Valuable Depending on Where You Live Though the List Has Definitely Tapered Down Quite 

A Bit After Covid but Still a Nice Touch and Then There Are a Couple Other Standard Perks That You Would Get With a Credit Card From a Major Bank Including the Ability to Dispute a Transaction Straight From the App Contactless Payment Digital

Wallet Fraud Protection Free Card Replacement Etc Etc You Can Look at Their Terms and Conditions Yourself on Their Website and They Do Change From Time to Time

So I Don't Want to Lock It in Stone in This Video but Let's Go Ahead and Move on to the Cons So Once Again the Three Percent and Two Percent Categories Have a Spend Cap of Twenty Five Hundred Dollars Per Quarter 

So Depending on How Much You Spend in Those Categories It May Not Be a Lot It Also Does Have Foreign Transaction Fees So It's Not Good for International Travel and if You Are Going to Pretty Much Slowly Use This Card for Online Purchases

Which is My Primary Reason for Getting the Card You Do Have to Make Sure You Check Whether You're Actually Earning the Three Percent That You're Expecting When You Do Make Online Purchases Because I Was Quite Surprised at Which Transactions Actually Coded as an Online Purchase and Which One Didn't 

So It's a Little Bit Hard to See if You Just Dial Into the Individual Transaction It Even Does Have a Breakout Line Where It Says Online Purchase Yes or No and It Will Have Yes but Then if You Go to the Rewards Section and Then Activity That's Where You Can See Whether or Not You Got the Category Bonus as 

You Can See Here Otherwise It Won't Say Rewards Based in Category Bonus So the Shocker to Me Was That for Some Reason Donations via Paypal Counted as an Online Shopping Category Whereas Buying Shipping Labels From Ebay or Buying Phone Minutes Online Doesn't Count as Online Shopping 

So I Definitely Recommend You Do Small Purchases and Then Checking at the Rewards Tab to See if That Transaction Got You That Bonus or Not Thankfully You Can Easily See This After the Transaction Has Posted to Your Account You Don't Have to Wait for the Statement to Be Posted Continue on the List of Cons 

It Currently Doesn't Offer Any Kind of Referral Bonus and the Aforementioned Merchant Offered Called Bank Ameri Deals Are Really Hard to Use They Have a Lot of Hidden Rules Like a Minimum Spend of Three Dollars You Also Have to Remember to Activate Them and There's Also a Max Earning Cap in Which You Can Get the Rebate for 

But Overall the Offerings Have Been Pretty Meager and Not Very Attractive at All So I Haven't Had a Chance to Take Advantage of Any of Them I Also Don't Particularly Like the App Interface It Has a Lot of Things Going on Here Because Bank of America is Such a Big Organization 

They're Constantly Trying to Sell You Their Other Services and So the App is Just Blow Where Loaded With All Their Other Different Services and It's Really Difficult to Find 

What You're Looking for There's a Lot of Scrolling and Tapping Involved Not to Mention It's Pretty Laggy and I Find It Really Strange That It Gives You a Notification Like 10 Minutes After You Have Already Closed Out the App Saying That They Have Auto Logged 

You Out Like I Would Assume That They Would Have Logged You Out When You Closed Out the App and Then Talking About Their Customer Service So They Do Have a Chat Feature They First Default to You With Their 

Virtual Assistant Erica but as You Can Imagine Erica is Not Very Helpful So Usually I Would Have to Try to Contact a Live Agent and the App is a Little Bit Wonky When It Does That So I Just Pick Up a Phone and Call Instead and the Annoying Thing Though is After I Call Them and My Issue is Addressed 

They Insist on Trying to Sell Me Some of Their Other Services or Products to Which I Cannot Find a Friendly Way of Saying No I Don't Want It So a Lot of Times I Just Abruptly Hang Up Which I Find It Really Annoying That I Have to 

Go Through the Process of Somebody Trying to Sell Me Something Just to Ask a Simple Question All Right So That's the Full Lowdown on This Card Let's Talk About Acceptance if You're Still Interested in Getting 

This Card It's a Very Easy Card to Get Accepted for Even if You Don't Have Any Credit History as Long as You Have a Relationship With Bank of America You Can Get This Card You Can Even Just Go in Branch 

If You Don't Have Any Kind of Credit History Which Makes This Card a Really Nice First Card to Get Especially for Immigrants or Foreigners It Tends to Pull Experian at Least for Me and Other Data Points They Even Have a Student Version Which Appears to Have Identical Benefits Even Identical Sign Up Offers at This Time 

So My Guess is Just the Approval Threshold is Just Lower for the Student Version and Something You Have to Be Aware of is Bank of America Does Have a 2 3 4 Rule Which Means Bank of America Won't Approve You for More Than Two Cards Per Rolling 

Two Months More Than Three Cards Per Rolling 12 Months and Four Cards Per Rolling 24 Months So Make Sure to Keep That in Mind When You Are Applying You May Actually Not Get Declined 

If You Break One of Those Rules but in the Future They Could Rescind the Offer and Close Your Account Because Technically They Weren't Supposed to Approve You Originally There Were So Many Different Branded Variations of This Card 

But It Does Seem Like Bank of America is Kind of Whittling Down That Pool There is Still a Few Maybe Here and There That You Can Get as a Specialty Branding but Again This is Just for Aesthetics and Doesn't Affect the Actual Rewards Earning 

But That Also Means That You Can Get Multiple of This Card if You Want So Basically Get This Card if You're Interested in Their Three Percent Categories and Particularly 

If You Have Already a Lot of Assets With Bank of America or Maryland to Boost Your Cashback Earnings or if You're Just Looking for a Good Cash Back Card and You Have No Credit History or You're an International Student or a New Immigrant.

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