Redeeming Merrill Points: A Guide

In the comments of our posts about the Merrill+ Visa Signature card, and elsewhere on the interwebs, there’s a lot of confusion about how the card works & how you redeem for airfare. To top that off, there is an abundance of incorrect information out there (including my original post on Reddit and here on DOC) because the way rewards work changed in 2016. (I believe—as I recall, the benefits guide I referred to when writing my post was from 2015, and DOC has covered Merrill Points for a while). Rather a rarity, the changes made to the Merrill Points program were extremely good.

This is a guide to help people understand how redeeming Merrill Points works, as well as the current state of the program. For the sake of completion, it is rather long & can be skimmed.

You can read our review of the Merrill+ here.

Redemption Routes

You redeem points via the Merrill+ portal, which can be accessed in two ways: (a) signing in to Bank of America online banking, selecting your Merrill+, going to the rewards tab, and selecting “Redeem Points”, or (b) going to the website and signing in to your Bank of America account by selecting “Merrill+” from the “Sign in to your account” dropdown menu.

There are three categories of redemptions: (a) Travel, through the Merrill Lynch Travel Center, whose backend is Orbitz – “redeem for air travel, hotel stays, car rentals, and more”, (b) Cash, through calling 1 (800) 419-0000 – “Redeem points for cash back into a Merrill Lynch CMA, Bank of America checking or savings account, or statement credit”, (c) Gift cards, through the Merrill Lynch Gift Card Center – “Redeem for gift cards from your favorite merchants”. In all but one case, these options convert your points to cash at a rate of 1 ¢ (or worse, in the case of $25 gift cards – 0.91 ¢). For example, it is possible to redeem points through the Travel Center at a rate of 1 ¢ for anything, including airfare. I will forego discussion of these options so that we can get into the redemption option that everyone actually cares about.

Anytime, Anywhere™ Air Rewards

The exception to this rule, and the major draw of the Merrill+, is Anytime, Anywhere Air Rewards, with which you can redeem 25,000 points for a ticket that is up to $500 in value (inclusive of taxes & fees). Prior to 2016, these rewards were limited to major carriers (American Airlines, Delta Airlines, United Airlines, and British Airways) and other carriers started at 30,000 points, which is why you may see that stated by as august a source as Bank of America’s website. A quick reference of the 2016 Benefits Guide, however, shows that Anytime, Anywhere Air Rewards on all available carriers start at 25,000 points.

Depending on where you are flying to & from, available carriers may include Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, British Airways, Delta Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Sun Country Airlines, United Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, and Virgin America. Domestic & international redemptions are possible, making a complete listing of available carriers infeasible—I see 15 unmentioned available carriers for a JFK-CDG route. All of them are 25,000 points for up to a $500 ticket. (I have no points left, so the Travel Center only shows me the cash price – thanks to u/mat_red for confirming this for me). Reader Noah was told that all but four (4) airlines are available: Southwest, Frontier, Allegiant, and Spirit.

How Does “25,000 points for up to a $500 ticket” Work?

Some examples to make this clear are in order. I selected weekdays in mid-March to come up with prices.

  • Round-Trip Tickets
    • You can redeem 25,000 points for a $244.90 economy class ticket from BWI–CLT–BWI on American.
    • You can redeem 25,000 points for a $270.40 business class from DCA–JFK–DCA on Delta.
    • You can redeem 25,000 points for a $378.40 economy class ticket from IAD–LAX–IAD on United.
    • You can redeem 25,000 points for a $466.40 economy class ticket from IAD–CUN–IAD on United.
  • One-Way Tickets
    • You can redeem 25,000 points for a $294.94 business class ticket from BWI–ATL–MEX on Delta.
    • You can redeem 25,000 points for a $420.44 business class ticket from BWI–CLT–DFW–MEX on American.

Hopefully these examples are sufficient demonstration: a ticket is a ticket, whether it be round-trip, one-way, multi-city, or even one leg of a longer trip that you are booking part of elsewhere. Two tickets is not a ticket, so two one-way tickets eat up 25,000 points each.

What About Tickets Over $500?

Prior to 2016, the way tickets over $500 worked was stupidly complex. You can read one of the links in the introduction if you want to figure out how they worked. The new way this works is very simple: if you want to book a ticket over $500 with points, any amount over $500 must be paid for with points at a rate of 1 ¢. $600 ticket? 25,000 points covers the first $500, leaving $100, which adds 10,000 points for a total of 35,000 points.

The best part about tickets slightly or greatly over $500 is that you may not have enough points to cover them, but that’s okay! You can pay the remainder in cash. Want to book a $600 flight, but only have 26,000 points? That covers $510 and you can put the remaining $90 on any damn credit card you like—including the Chase Sapphire Reserve, where it codes as travel.

nota bene: I have noticed a discrepancy in the way this is supposed to work. From all the fares I have been able to check via other screenshots, you actually get up to a $510 ticket for 25,500 points—if the ticket is over $500. You can run your own calculation on the second screenshot below. I do not know whether this is intentional, nor whether this carries through when proceeding to the review & booking screen. If I recall correctly, no point or cash amounts changed for me when booking two over-$500 flights, which would mean that it does carry through to the review & booking screen.

How is the Merrill Lynch Travel Center?

There are two reasons you might ask this question: (a) does it have the same prices as elsewhere? or (b) is it easy to use? I would give a resounding yes to both questions. It uses Orbitz for its backend and is no different from any other flight aggregator in that regard. And the user interface is very well done; I like it better than Google Flights because all of the parameters are exposed instead of hidden in drop-downs.

Merrill Lynch Travel Center

note: the top left says “economy” but is incorrect; this was a business class search

Especially useful is the grid of airlines & stops at top. You can click on “Delta Air Lines” to filter the results to just Delta. You can click on “Non-Stop” to filter the results to just non-stop flights. And you can click “$1,041.44” at the intersection of “Delta Air Lines” and “Non-Stop” to filter the results to just non-stop Delta flights. Primo.

Merrill Lynch Travel Center with Points

courtesy of u/mat_red, since I don’t have any points. apologies for the compression!

Concluding Thoughts

The Merrill+ is a fantastic card, and once you understand how redemption works, it’s a no-brainer. If you have any further questions about redemption, drop them below!

FAQs

Q. JP: So I  can’t have two tickets whether one way or RT in one booking? This is good for only “one, uno, single” ticket each time you want to use 25k points?

A. You can book multiple tickets in a single booking, but they will cost 25,000 points each (for up to a $500 ticket). I booked two round-trip tickets that cost $522.21 each using my signup bonus, spending points, and a $2.43 charge to my CSR.

Q. Alejandro: If I wanted to get two tickets (one for me and one for someone else), am I able to do that? Or can I only get tickets in my name?

A. You can buy tickets for anyone you please; as with any travel portal or airline website, you can enter their information on the booking screen. I do not know if you can complete a booking using points for some tickets and cash for others (i.e. 4x $400 tickets, using 2x 25,000 points and 2x $400 for booking).

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Frank
Frank (@guest_1433399)
August 28, 2022 09:46

So, it’s now 2022 and Southwest is included and even with the cheapest Wanna Get Away fares it looks like one can just make a reservation, cancel it and then have that credit available for the future.
Am I missing something?

Angel
Angel (@guest_1446942)
September 16, 2022 23:28

how did the southwest optino work for you? i’m thinking about using on southwest and then cancel to maximize CCP.

PartsUnknown
PartsUnknown (@guest_1122056)
January 4, 2021 20:06

Looks like the portal no longer uses Orbitz. Update looks like it may be an inhouse platform now, no longer seeing some flights that I do see through Ortbiz.

Gerald
Gerald (@guest_1114243)
December 20, 2020 14:13

I notice that the points required for flights over $500 actually give you $505 worth for your 25,000 points. This jibes with the “nota bene” in the write up.

Peg OGrady
Peg OGrady (@guest_834593)
November 3, 2019 15:47

I have a Merrill+Visa Signature Card but do not have any accounts with Bank of America and want to get a gift card but can’t sign in to B of A without an account number. Any suggestions?

lorem ipsum
lorem ipsum (@guest_844542)
November 17, 2019 21:47

My wife is in the same situation. She has a small number of points, but no Bank of America or Merrill accounts. (I do have both, but they wouldn’t allow redemption into my accounts.) We decided to redeem for a statement credit. I don’t plan on charging anything with this card anytime soon, so I’ll buy an Amazon gift card in the amount of the statement credit. You get 1 cent per point this way, which is better than the 0.91 cents per point you’d get redeeming the points for an Amazon giftcard.

jz
jz (@guest_815998)
September 28, 2019 21:30

DP:

I was able to book tickets for myself and other by using points and $ for total of over $1000.

rbc
rbc (@guest_741172)
March 29, 2019 14:13

Looks like the award have drastically changed since the DoC review.
1) Practically all flights are basic economy
2) Flights are significantly more expensive than the corresponding Orbitz flights
3) Much of the savings of the 25k points for $500 are lost with the artificially prices flights, baggage fees etc.
3) Merrill travel reps that the only seats they have have been assigned to them from the airlines
4) Not what you may expect from a Merrill brand, sold to me from my ML broker. Not familkiar with ML clients who fly basic economy
5) Merrill travel seems to operate as a fly by night con artist operation such as Justfly etc.
6) Use your opening bonus then close your account

Roberto
Roberto (@guest_754205)
April 30, 2019 19:30

Concur, site is only showing me Basic Economy (X) on Alaska. Snagged a $503 Alaska ticket for 25k points and will canx and redeposit to my travel bank. Only works because I’m AS Gold. Sucks for my family members who waited to redeem thinking the $500 ticket for 25k points would stick around. Not a great move on ML’s part!

lingua
lingua (@guest_706675)
January 15, 2019 18:23

I was counting on finally using my points for travel to Cuba though I’ve now found they do not have it as a destination, this despite all the major U.S. airlines offering numerous options from my city LAX. Big let down…

B
B (@guest_699125)
January 2, 2019 18:38

Terrible wait times on phone

RBR
RBR (@guest_698131)
December 31, 2018 17:01

So a bit of rip off actually – many of the flights you can book are the basis economy flight (not able to even reserve a seat). They don’t offer many of the main economy seats – I called and they had almost none available. I assume they are getting a special discounted deal on these seats so you are not really getting the value they say you are getting. If I look on Orbitz of google flights it shows many of the full economy seats available. A bit of a bait and switch as they had said you could get almost any ticket you want for $500 – not true it turns out. Only the ones they get a bigger discount on from the airlines….

Sam
Sam (@guest_634459)
August 26, 2018 01:52

I find Merrill+ prices to be about $10-$20 more expensive than booking directly with the airline. But to burn the points, can’t really complain.