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.