25 Things Everybody Should Know About Bank of America Credit Cards

We’ve done this for Citi, American Express & Chase before so now it’s Bank of America’s turn. Here are 19 things everybody should know about Bank of America when it comes to their credit cards.

  1. Bank of America has an application rule called 2/3/4. They’ll only approve you for at most two cards per rolling 2 months, three cards per rolling 12 months, and four cards per rolling 24 months.
  2. Bank of America won’t approve you if you have too many recent new cards opened across all banks. Reports indicate a soft limit of 6 new cards in the past 12 months for those who have deposit accounts with the bank; 2 new cards in the past 12 months for those who don’t.
  3. Bank of America will merge multiple hard credit pulls into a single hard pull. You need to apply on the same day. Keep in mind sometimes personal and business inquiries will merge, but sometimes they won’t. Recent datapoints are suggesting Bank of America no longer combines pulls.
  4. If you’re denied for a Bank of America card, call their reconsideration department! In a lot of cases you’ll be able to get that denial turned into an approval by answering some basic questions. If you haven’t called reconsideration before, read our tips first. They might also only do a soft pull on your credit report if you’re denied.
  5. It’s possible to check for pre-approved offers with Bank of America. As far as I know they never show offers that are higher than the public bonuses though.
  6. There is no hard limit on the amount of credit cards you can have with them. They are more concerned about the total credit limit that they extend you. Sometimes they will automatically reallocate credit limits from existing cards to approve you. Some people are being limited to four cards.
  7. You may receive an inferior offer instead of being denied. A lot of the Bank of America credit cards have different tiers (e.g Signature, Platinum, Secured). If you’re not approved for the Signature card (usually due to Bank of America already extending you too much credit) they might approve you for the Platinum card instead that comes with a lower sign up bonus.
  8. It’s possible to churn Bank of America cards. In the past there hasn’t been any waiting period (even possible to get multiples of the same card in the same day), but it now seems like they are more strict on this with something called the 24 month rule.
  9. Bank of America does a soft pull for credit limit increases. They used to do a hard pull, but this has since changed to a soft pull.
  10. Reallocating your credit limits between your cards is only a soft pull. Sometimes you can call up after being approved for the Platinum card and offer to reallocate existing credit limits to the new card.
  11. If Bank of America increases the sign up bonus on a card you recently applied for, they’ll probably match it. No matter the card issuer, it’s always worth asking for a bonus match but Bank of America has a history of matching them.
  12. Bank of America will expedite your card if you have a valid reason. For example, if your heading international and need the card before your trip.
  13. Bank of America will usually waive the annual fee on your card, but you need to ask. It’s generally worth calling their retention department after the annual fee posts to get it waived, when your card has been open for 180 days (or 180 days after the annual fee posts in year two onwards) call again and try to get some free points/miles. I haven’t seen them waiving the annual fee on the Premier Rewards card.
  14. They will also refund the annual fee in most cases if you cancel within one statement cycle. This seems to depend your banking history with Bank of America though.
  15. You can downgrade your Bank of America credit cards. Now that the better balance rewards card is no longer available there isn’t that many good options.
  16. Bank of America used to offer a referral program to card members. Unfortunately it looks like this program was axed.
  17. Bank of America will sometimes pull a different credit bureau if you have one or more of them frozen. This seems to vary wildly person to person though, you can’t give them a PIN to access a frozen report though.
  18. They’ll let you change the statement closing date on your account. You just need to call the number on the back of your card, but as far as I know you can’t use this feature to expedite bonus points/miles posting.
  19. Bank of America reports your credit utilization as what shows on your statement balance. So make sure to pay it off earlier if you need to lower your credit utilization for FICO score purposes. It might also be possible to get them to report this mid cycle by changing your contact information.
  20. Bank of America will typically only give you an instant credit card number on the Alaska credit cards. This can be useful when you have a big purchase coming out and want to knock out a minimum spend requirement.
  21. The period you have to meet your minimum spend requirement begins at card activation. It’s also based on billing cycles (e.g you’ll have three billing cycles to spend $1,000). Reader leifinseoul says that they were told it was based on card approval. 
  22. Bank of America business credit cards don’t get reported to the personal credit bureaus which is useful for keeping your credit report cleaner.
  23. If you closed out a Bank of America credit card and change your mind, you can have the account reinstated for up to six months, but it will require a hard pull, unfortunately.
  24. You can check your credit card’s application status online.
  25. Setting up auto pay with Bank of America is a pain, in addition there is mixed data points on what happens when you make a partial payment.
  26. Reduce credit limits with Bank of America before cancelling your cards. Bank of America has a maximum credit limit they like to extend per individual and when you close a card that credit limit is still counted for another year. By reducing your credit limit before cancelling you free up that limit earlier.

You can view other posts in this series by clicking the links below.

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Matty Rex
Matty Rex (@guest_1793318)
February 5, 2024 14:08

Here’s a 12-month sample velocity that’s worked pretty well for me. All cards approved with the one exception noted (either Alaska’s are harder to get, or I may have violated 2/3/4 rule). All business cards are different: customized cash, unlimited cash, travel rewards, platinum plus.

I also opened personal and biz checking accounts for bonuses during this year and maintained $1.5k in personal and $5k in the biz.

2/2024 biz
12/2023 biz
7/2023 personal
5/2023 biz
5/2023 personal – DENIED (alaska card)
5/2023 personal
3/2023 biz

Cardee
Cardee (@guest_1748623)
November 30, 2023 17:36

DP: I was successfully auto-approved for the BofA premium rewards card after opening 3 credit cards in the prior 3 months – 2 business cards and 1 personal card (all with other banks). BofA pulled Transunion, which was my third inquiry on TU. No existing relationship with BofA. 800+ credit scores and a mortgage.

favo🔗
favo🔗 (@guest_1736469)
November 14, 2023 06:14

Reports indicate a soft limit of 6 new cards in the past 12 months for those who have deposit accounts with the bank”, does the number of cards include business cards that do not show up on personal credit reports?

v
v (@guest_1618576)
May 15, 2023 22:08

DP: Success with a second Travel Rewards card, without product-change or closure of the existing Travel Rewards Card (31 months old).
I applied for a second Travel Rewards card (25k pts/$250, zero APR for 18 mos) and got instant approval, even though I had an existing Travel Rewards card still open (although that card was more than 24 months old, it was 31 months old). This is despite the language in the “Conditions” section in the Terms & conditions saying:
This card may not be available to you if you currently have or have had the card in the preceding 24 month period.

Compeek
Compeek (@guest_1616905)
May 12, 2023 01:57

DP: I applied for both the Premium Rewards and the Unlimited Cash Rewards tonight. I did one after the other and got approved for both instantly (well, after 30 seconds or whatever). My Experian credit monitoring is only showing 1 hard pull.

FrankPL
FrankPL (@guest_1600355)
April 18, 2023 11:21

Another DP for 1 HP in 30 days for BoA CCs. I applied for the Alaska biz on March 19 and UCR biz on April 16 and usually when somebody inquiry my credit I received a bunch of notifications about it but nothing for the 2nd card. both approved.

007
007 (@guest_1596693)
April 13, 2023 09:11

Any good way to set up auto-pay on a BUSINESS card for Bank of America? Instead of “Bill Pay” there is “Payments & Invoicing” on the business account which seems different (I believe requires payment from the BofA business checking account for one). If I request an eBill by adding the card number manually on the personal BofA account, it says “eBill is coming” despite already having received my first physical bill. Thanks so much!

will jeffers
will jeffers (@guest_1596912)
April 13, 2023 14:26

I did it for a personal BOA card but its been months so I forgot exactly how
And i do recall it was too confusing
Maybe they call it “AutoPay” or something because I don’t have a boa checking
on fidelity it shows as “direct debit Bk of Amer VI ONLINE Pmt” but mine is a mastercard so I am unclear why it says vi unless that is an abbreviation for “visa and mastercard”
To be clear It is a PULL from BOA not a push from fidelity- I rarely use fidelity billpay when autopay often pulls 1-3 days AFTER the due date meaning I get a little more interest on the $

007
007 (@guest_1597022)
April 13, 2023 17:17

Thanks. I have it set up for personal accounts but the business account doesn’t have a bill pay section…

007
007 (@guest_1670540)
August 11, 2023 13:06

So as a datapoint for future readers, to set up autopay on a BofA BUSINESS card use the bill pay in the PERSONAL account and add the card using the CORP Account number, NOT the actual business credit card number.

Mike
Mike (@guest_1671207)
August 12, 2023 18:33

Both worked for me. In fact using the actual business card number frees up the credit line immediately.

007
007 (@guest_1671239)
August 12, 2023 20:10

I see. Thanks for the datapoint and extra info!

VL
VL (@guest_1596509)
April 12, 2023 22:34

 William Charles , could you please clarify if 2/3/4 rule applies to personal and business cards separately or they are combined for the rule?

If separately, would cards from 2 different businesses contributing to this rule together, or they as well would be treated separately (if we have any DPs on that)?

Jason
Jason (@guest_1586825)
March 28, 2023 16:13

FYI – BoA does seem to combine multiple inquiries into 1. That happened for me yesterday (3/27/23 – Premium Rewards and Unlimited Cash cards), and I’ve done it with BoA a couple of other times on the business side. That portion may need to be updated.

Separately, I already had a Premium Rewards card, and they approved me for a second despite the 24 month anti-churning language. I have Platinum Honors status with them so that may have been a factor. In any case, it’s clear that language isn’t always enforced.

Seeu
Seeu (@guest_1632324)
June 10, 2023 15:37

but did you give you welcome bonus though

will jeffers
will jeffers (@guest_1579541)
March 18, 2023 01:40

Does the BAC 3% card for online purchases pay 3% for paying various bills online?
Like power,gas,internet and water bills?

I normally use my 2% card for those but if I can get 3% why not?

I guess I could try paying a $1 or $5 or whatever their minimums are and then figure out later which paid what

Is this out there somewhere?

Fred
Fred (@guest_1579625)
March 18, 2023 10:14

There are a bunch of exceptions to online shopping which are intendeded to exclude bills (and most things that are not “shopping”). If you go to change your category you should be able to poke around and find that exception list.

jd
jd (@guest_1579633)
March 18, 2023 10:23

they dont…get a usbank cash+ or elan card for 5% on those