Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
Doctor of Credit points out that the Bank of America Premium Rewards card is now showing a new bonus category: get 2x on grocery store purchases now through 12/31/21. This means that those with Bank of America Preferred Rewards Platinum Honors status will receive a 75% bonus good for 3.5% total cash back. While we didn’t receive any notification of this change for our account, I do see it online under “Rewards”.
While this isn’t the absolute best category bonus for grocery stores, getting an uncapped 3.5% cash back certainly isn’t a bad deal for those who qualify for Preferred Rewards Platinum Honors status (see more about how the Preferred Rewards bonuses work in this post: Bank of America cards: awesome if you have $100K lying around). Keep in mind that investments like self-directed IRAs do count toward the requirements for Preferred Rewards status (and there is usually a decent bonus available for moving your investments over to Merrill Edge). Note that the Cash Rewards card also offers a similar 2x grocery bonus, but the $2500 quarterly cap applies to combined spend in 2x and 3x categories, so this is a much better deal and preserves bandwidth on the Cash Rewards card for a 3x category.
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US only or will worldwide grocery stores work?
I don’t know whether BOA bonus categories are typically worldwide or not.
I’ll find out once the statement posts in a few weeks then.
Isn’t there an “intermediate” bump when having $50K in a Merrill Lynch account?
Right. Sorry, I had typed a response but I guess it didn’t go through. Gold is a 25% bonus, Platinum is a 50% bonus, Platinum honors is the 75% bonus. So on grocery purchases, it’ll be two and a half percent, 3%, three and a half percent.
Nick – how sensitive is BoA Premium Rewards visa on purchasing Gift of College cards from a grocery store? 3.5% back less 1.2 = 2.3% for contributing to college. 🙂
I don’t know, but we got a CLI for spending a lot on it :-).
I do know. They don’t care. You can buy 20k a month and not raise any eyebrows.
This is my everyday card and never had any problems.