As part of the Alaska Airlines/Hawaiian Airlines Atmos rebrand Bank of America has added a new benefit: 10% rewards bonus if you have an eligible Bank of America account. Personal cards require a personal account, whereas the business card requires a business account.
This is different to the preferred rewards program as that has deposit requirements and doesn’t apply to cobranded cards like this. The full terms on the personal card are as follows:
If the primary cardholder or joint cardholder (excluding authorized users) has a Qualifying Account with us, a 10% bonus will be added to the points earned with each $1 spent on Net Purchases. An active Qualifying Account is an open consumer (non-business) checking or savings account with Bank of America N.A. or an investment account with Merrill that maintains an average daily balance greater than $0 or a Bank of America checking or savings account that has had a deposit or withdrawal within 90 days. Balances are reviewed at the end of every month to determine if qualifications were met. For cardholders with a Qualifying Account all Net Purchases made with your card on or after the fifth business day of the current month through the fifth business day of the following month will earn the Relationship Bonus Points. Upon opening a new Qualifying Account, it may take up to 60 days to begin earning the Relationship Bonus Points.
Main thing to note is you need a balance of more than $0 and a deposit or withdrawal within 90 days if it’s a checking or savings account. The other thing to note is this 10% bonus is points earned on spend, not on the sign up bonus. Bank of America is currently offering a $100-$500 personal checking bonus and a somewhat targeted business checking bonus of $1,000/$1,500.
This relationship bonus is probably most interesting on the Summit card that earns 3x on foreign transaction purchases.
So if I open their “Advantage SafeBalance Banking” checking and keep $500 to maintain the minimum daily balance, it would be eligible for the 10% bonus and not incur any fees?
Bank of America is the most toxic bank I ever dealt with in my life. Would never anyone actually banking with them. I occasionally pick up some of their credit cards but that is about it.
Not new for Alaska Airlines, I’ve had this boost for a while.
So I opened a Merrill Edge account and linked it to my BofA account. I deposited $1 into the Merrill Edge account. I’m thinking this satisfies the requirements listed above. You can also set it and forget it since you don’t have to worry about deposits or withdrawals.
Do you need to call to have your merrill edge account and BofA credit card account linked or is it automatic?
I just pressed the link accounts button when you log into either website.
If it’s on the dame name/SSN, you should be able to link the online accounts yourself. Not sure if you don’t do that it would link for rewards.
I guess unless you have Preferred Rewards with boa already this checking still requires monthly deposit or $1500 in the checking to avoid the $12 monthly fee. 1500 would earn about $60 at 4% interest vs no interest so it indeed could still be a decent deal for the extra 0.3X back on category earn for the right person. Does not really move the needle for me without going all the way to preferred rewards and other cards too. I think if you do spend 10000 or more on the 3x cat it makes sense though if you value Atmos points at 2cpp. Or about 13300 if value at 1.5cpp
BofA is pretty loose with what counts as a “direct deposit”.
Hi Wander, I’m curious, where are you coming up with the 4% interest?
An active Qualifying Account is an open consumer (non-business) checking or savings account with Bank of America N.A. or an investment account with Merrill that maintains an average daily balance greater than $0 or a Bank of America checking or savings account that has had a deposit or withdrawal within 90 days.
What is the difference between “a consumer checking” OR a “Bank of America Checking”?????
I read that as a checking/savings account with an average daily balance greater than 0, or instead a checking/savings account which has had a deposit/ withdrawal within 90 days
“This relationship bonus is probably most interesting on the Summit card that earns 3x on foreign transaction purchases.”
Yup. I feel like the 3x has got to be capped or totally eliminated in under a year. 3.3X is going to be slurped up by every expat or anyone doing serious overseas shopping, may even open up international MS opportunities in places that normally have capped card fees.
Highly doubtful. Most ExPats don’t even know how to properly maintain a US mailing address and phone number in order to keep access to US financial institutions.
It doesn’t take “most expats” to nuke it.
Not sure this is “new”. It’s been a thing on my standard Alaska card for the past year and a half I’ve had it. Only reason I haven’t churned the BofA checking account.
Agreed. Not sure what’s so new about this other than it carried offer to Atmos cards
Yes, and it was an advertised feature of the Atmos cards since launch, but I guess it may be worth highlighting for those unaware.
Agreed, it was there in Alaska card before. They changed the name now.
What’s new is that they provide the benefits for summit card which means 3.3x for foreign spend
I feel like this was advertised in the Summit card from the get go – I had a statement cut within the first week, and it earned the 10% bonus.