How do Bank of America Cash rewards work?

Bank of America cash rewards offer you cash back on all purchases that you make. Most notably, the Bank of America Cash Rewards credit card offers 3% cash back on a category of your choice, 2% cash back at grocery stores, and 1% cash back on all other purchases. The flexibility of this rewards system can make it beneficial for people looking to optimize their cash back earnings on categories that they use.

How it works

With every purchase that you make, you will receive cash back. No matter whether you are financing a large vacation or buying a candy bar, you will receive at least 1% cash back on your purchases. You do not have to worry about black out dates, a maximum amount of cash rewards, expiration dates, or categories that you will not earn cash back on. Instead, Bank of America rewards you for making purchases by making their structure simplistic.

After you earn the points, there are a variety of ways in which you can redeem your earnings. First, you can place your earnings into a qualifying Merrill checking or savings account. This allows you to easily save your money and either earn interest on it or spend it easily. However, in order to put it in one of these accounts, you must have $25 of cash rewards, which is the equivalent of $2,500 of non-grocery store or chosen category purchases.

The other alternative is to use these earnings as a statement credit toward your credit card bill. Get ahead on your next payment by using your earnings to pay off your debt.

You can also set up automatic redemption, allowing you to automatically redeem your earnings once you reach a certain threshold. The threshold must be above $25, but this allows you to easily receive your earnings without any hassle.

One bonus to the Bank of America Cash rewards system is that Preferred Rewards members can earn 25% - 75% more cash back on their purchases. Thus, the 3% cash back earnings on a category of your choice could turn into 5.25% and 2% at grocery stores could now be worth up to 3.5% cash back. There are three tiers of rewards members, starting with gold members who earn 25% bonus cash back, then platinum members who earn 50% extra cash back, and finally platinum honors members who earn the full 75% extra cash back. Your rewards tier is based on the amount of money in your account, as $20,000 gives you gold, $50,000 gives you platinum, and $100,000 gives you platinum honors.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Bank of America’s cash rewards are very flexible, as they are easy to earn and easy to redeem. Your cash back earnings from the Bank of America Cash Rewards credit card range from 1% cash back to 3% cash back, which can be increased if you are a Preferred Rewards member. Also, if you set up automatic redemption, you can easily receive your earnings as a statement credit or into a different checking/savings account without having to worry about any hassle.