Miles to Memories recently ran a post extolling the Bank of America Travel Rewards card. The Travel Rewards card is indeed a good choice for some people, what with the 2.625% rewards on everything, but there is one caveat about Bank of America’s Preferred Rewards program that I haven’t seen discussed anywhere.
For those of you not familiar with it, the Preferred Rewards program is what makes the 2.625% rewards possible. The base rate for the Travel Rewards card is 1.5%, but if you have certain levels of assets then you get more rewards for certain cards. $20K in assets gets you a 25% bonus, $50K gets you 50%, and $100K gets you 75%.
As the M2M post pointed out, probably the easiest way for a lot of people to meet the $100K requirement is with an IRA account. If you do go that route, please be advised that though you will receive status, your spouse will not. The account has to be a joint account for your spouse to also receive status.
So if the two of you put $100K into a joint checking account, you’re good to go. But if it’s $100K rolled over from your 401K, then only you get the status.
It’s a fairly small caveat for a product of somewhat limited interest, and it’s not a deal-breaker. But if you’re the type who likes to capitalize on your spouse’s credit, it’s probably something you should be aware of.
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