I Ranked Every Bank of America Credit Card (Best Cards in 2025)

00:00:00.000 | You might not think of Bank of America as a top player in the credit card reward space,

00:00:03.880 | and two years ago, I didn't either. But since then, we've gone from zero Bank of America cards

00:00:08.860 | in our household to five, and we're using them all the time. They might have the best cashback

00:00:13.700 | card out there right now, and when it comes to Ernie Miles, the refreshed Alaska, or now Atmos

00:00:18.500 | cards, are really compelling. So today, I want to break down the full card lineup at BOA and go deep

00:00:24.280 | on the entire ecosystem. If you're new here, I'm Chris Hutchins. If you enjoy this episode and you

00:00:29.320 | want to keep upgrading your money, points, and life, click follow or subscribe. I'm excited to

00:00:34.580 | continue this issue or deep dive series with Bank of America because there's so much to get excited

00:00:38.840 | about. I learned on a call yesterday that I've been a Bank of America customer for 28 years.

00:00:43.360 | I actually think they issued me my first credit card, though it definitely didn't earn points.

00:00:47.640 | I closed it plenty of years ago, and I haven't done anything with them until recently. We opened up our

00:00:53.060 | first, and now all the way through to five cards, and despite that short time, I've spent so much

00:00:58.640 | time researching Bank of America for this episode, so here's what we're going to cover. First, I'm going

00:01:02.960 | to do a run-through of the full Bank of America card lineup, putting every card on a tier list as we go,

00:01:07.760 | so you know what to look for and what to skip. Then, I'm going to talk about some of the perks and

00:01:12.400 | benefits of being a Bank of America customer, like free access to museums around the country. Then,

00:01:17.360 | I'll cover the rules and other quirks of applying for cards, getting approved. We'll talk about their

00:01:22.160 | preferred rewards program and how it can nearly double your earnings with Bank of America cards. And finally,

00:01:27.960 | I'm going to touch on the new Alaska and Hawaiian loyalty program, Atmos Rewards, and why I'm really

00:01:33.400 | excited about it. It's a lot to cover. Whether you're new to Bank of America, have never had one of their

00:01:38.280 | cards, or you've been a customer for decades, I'm sure you will learn something today that can help level up your

00:01:43.640 | credit card game. And keep in mind, there's timestamps in the show notes, so if you want to skip around, you can. And while we

00:01:49.800 | don't have any affiliate links with Bank of America, there are links to all the cards we talk about and

00:01:54.200 | any card you're looking for at allthehacks.com/cards. I keep those up to date with all of the best deals

00:02:00.280 | I can find. First, I want to clarify two things before we get into cards. The first is that unlike

00:02:05.560 | a lot of other major issuers, Bank of America does not have a transferable points currency, so there's no

00:02:10.760 | Bank of America points. Some of the cards do earn points, but they are effectively cash back. So keep

00:02:16.600 | that in mind as we run through a lot of these cards. The individual airline cards do earn miles, but for the

00:02:22.120 | most part, everything else is effectively cash back. The second, and I said I was going to talk about this at the

00:02:27.640 | end, but I actually think it makes sense to move to the beginning, and that is talking about the preferred

00:02:32.200 | rewards program from Bank of America. And that's because it basically allows you to multiply all of your

00:02:39.000 | earnings on all of their cash back cards. So this doesn't work with their co-brand cards with airlines, but for all

00:02:44.680 | the other cards that earn cash back, you can amplify your earnings. And the way it works is it's entirely

00:02:50.600 | based on how many dollars you have in your balance across Bank of America and Merrill Lynch accounts.

00:02:56.680 | And that includes checking accounts, CDs, Merrill Lynch brokerage accounts. It could even include

00:03:02.360 | retirement accounts like a Roth IRA if you move it to Merrill Lynch. And how it works is they have four

00:03:08.120 | tiers: gold, platinum, platinum honors, and diamond. And I'll be honest, the diamond tier doesn't really add

00:03:14.040 | that much more. So really, I'm going to focus on gold, platinum, and platinum honors. So when you're in the gold

00:03:18.760 | tier, you get a 25% boost on all your rewards. You get a lot of other benefits like no fees and maintenance fees and

00:03:26.600 | some discounts on different loans. But for the most part, I'm just going to focus today on the benefits for your

00:03:31.480 | credit cards. So you get a 25% boost. So if you had a 1% cash back card, it would now be 1.25. And to get to the gold tier, you need at least

00:03:39.480 | $20,000 in your Bank of America accounts or Merrill Lynch accounts across all of them combined.

00:03:44.920 | And when you first join, there's usually a fast track where if you deposit that money into a new

00:03:49.800 | account, you can qualify quickly. Otherwise, it's based on your three-month average. And once you qualify,

00:03:56.360 | it lasts for a year. And then I believe there's a little bit of a grace period after that year,

00:04:00.920 | and you have to qualify again. So technically, you could deposit the amount of money you need.

00:04:06.120 | So for gold, $20,000 for three months, and then pull it out and then do it again every year.

00:04:11.400 | But I think that the strategy here, because nobody wants to be leaving money in a checking account that

00:04:15.960 | earns nothing, is that if you can open up a Merrill Lynch account and you can deposit any type of

00:04:21.240 | investments, and you could transfer investments from another brokerage, then you're able to qualify

00:04:25.960 | without needing to keep money in an account that doesn't earn interest or has really low rates.

00:04:30.520 | So that's what we've done. And in fact, you can do that with a joint Merrill Lynch brokerage account,

00:04:35.160 | and then both you and your partner or whoever's in that joint account name will get that same status.

00:04:40.840 | So once you get to $50,000, you hit the platinum tier, and that gives you a 50% boost.

00:04:46.200 | So a 1% card would be 1.5%. And then if you have $100,000, you get to the platinum honors tier,

00:04:52.120 | and that gives you a 75% boost. So I bring this up up front because all of the cashback cards we're

00:04:57.880 | going to talk about get amplified by your status. And that amplification makes them really, really

00:05:03.160 | compelling. So let's jump into the first card, which is the Bank of America customized cash rewards card.

00:05:09.800 | Now, at its face, this is a no annual fee card that earns 3% in a chosen category. However,

00:05:16.520 | I'll just clarify that all the 3% earnings are capped at $2,500 a quarter. So it's about $10,000 a year.

00:05:23.320 | And you have to pick your category, but you can change it once a month. So the categories are gas and

00:05:28.040 | EV charging stations, online shopping, dining, travel, drugstores and pharmacies, and home improvement and

00:05:34.040 | furnishings. Now you also get 2% back at grocery stores and wholesale clubs, but that 2% along with

00:05:40.680 | all the 3% are actually combined for that $10,000 limit, which is $2,500 a quarter. After that,

00:05:46.520 | it is a 1% card on everything. So you're not going to earn more than 1% on anything after you spend $10,000

00:05:54.120 | in those two and 3% categories. However, like I mentioned, if you have Bank of America's platinum honors,

00:06:00.360 | and I'll give all of my examples with platinum honors, but of course, if you have gold or platinum,

00:06:04.840 | you'd get that multiple as well. So in this case, if you're earning 3% on let's say gas and EV charging,

00:06:12.200 | but you have platinum honors, you're actually earning 5.25% because you take three times 1.75.

00:06:19.160 | So it could be a really compelling card for any of those categories, but only up to $10,000 of spend a year.

00:06:24.760 | However, right now the signup bonus, not only is $200 after spending $1,000 in 90 days,

00:06:31.080 | not only is also a 0% intro APR for 15 months, but they're offering 6% cash back in the category of your choice

00:06:38.440 | for the first year. So how that works is when you choose that category, they're going to give you an extra 3%.

00:06:43.480 | Now you don't earn the platinum honors boost on that extra 3%. And that extra 3% is also capped at $2,500 a quarter

00:06:50.520 | or $10,000 a year. But that means that in the first year, this could be a really compelling card

00:06:55.480 | because you'd earn 5.25% plus the 3% from the signup bonus promo. So you'd technically be earning 8.25%

00:07:04.520 | if you have platinum honors and you spend the full 10,000 in one of those 3% categories.

00:07:09.480 | So it can be pretty interesting. I know a lot of people that have somehow managed to accumulate

00:07:13.160 | multiple of these cards. So then you might have 20 or $30,000 of spend in that 3 or 5.25% category

00:07:21.000 | with platinum honors. And so pretty interesting outside of that. It's not that compelling. It does

00:07:26.120 | have no annual fee, but it does have a 3% foreign transaction fee. And like I said, it's 1% on everything

00:07:32.120 | else. Now there are a couple variations of this card. There's a four students version, which effectively

00:07:36.920 | looks like it's the same card. And then there's a secured version of this card, which has no signup bonus,

00:07:42.040 | no intro APR and requires a deposit. And then there's the Susan G Komen version of this card,

00:07:46.920 | which is effectively the same card, but it supports the Susan G Komen foundation.

00:07:50.600 | So you're helping fight breast cancer. And on top of that, $200 a year is donated when you open that

00:07:57.720 | card to the foundation up to a total of $100,000 a year for bank of America. Plus it sounds like they

00:08:04.680 | donate $3 a year for having this card to the foundation plus 0.08% of all purchases. So I guess

00:08:13.000 | if you're going to get this card, it has the same signup bonus, has the same earning potential. I don't

00:08:17.800 | see any reason not to get the Susan G Komen version. Definitely supports breast cancer research. So seems

00:08:23.160 | like a great alternative and arguably you could say that would bump the card up. As for the tier

00:08:28.600 | for this card, for anyone not familiar with the tier list, it's going to go from S tier, which is

00:08:33.080 | the best to A, B, C, D. So I'm going to put this card at the B tier. And that's not because I don't

00:08:38.120 | love the idea of getting 3% on a bunch of select categories. And with platinum honors, it goes up to

00:08:42.040 | 5.25%, but it's because of the cap of that earning of $10,000 a year. Now you'll learn in the next card

00:08:49.640 | that you have the ability with Bank of America to get a earning of 2.625% with that same platinum honor

00:08:56.120 | status across all your purchases. So the additional 2.625% here for $10,000 is really only $262.50. So

00:09:07.480 | for a card to be an S or an A tier card, I think it needs to add real tremendous value. I'm not saying

00:09:13.160 | if I didn't have this card, I wouldn't use it up to that $10,000 maximum. I'm just saying it's hard for

00:09:18.840 | me to put this card any higher given that the upside over an alternative card is really only a few hundred

00:09:25.480 | dollars. I'm also going to put the Susan G Komen card up at the B tier, though between the two, I would

00:09:31.160 | always pick that card because you could have more impact for the exact same benefits and perks of the card.

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00:11:00.760 | This episode is brought to you by GELT. When it comes to building wealth, taxes are such a big part of

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00:12:15.000 | Again, that's allthehacks.com/G-E-L-T to stop overpaying on taxes. Okay, the next card is very straightforward.

00:12:24.200 | I just mentioned it. It's the unlimited cash card and it earns a simple one and a half percent on

00:12:29.880 | everything. Though if I look at my table for preferred rewards, it's 2.625% on absolutely

00:12:35.640 | everything if you have platinum honors. If you're a gold, it's 1.875%. And if you're a platinum,

00:12:41.240 | it's 2.25%. So I think I'm going to review a lot of these cards assuming that you have the ability to

00:12:48.360 | move enough funds over to hit that platinum honor status. And if you don't, that's not to say these

00:12:53.720 | cards aren't compelling. But if you look at this one, if you can't move funds over one and a half percent

00:12:58.360 | on everything, it's not as exciting as the Citi Double Cash card where you'll get 2% on everything.

00:13:03.480 | But if moving $100,000 of investments to Bank of America isn't a challenge for you, and by Bank of

00:13:08.280 | America, I mean Merrill Lynch, then this becomes a 2.625% card, which is significantly more compelling

00:13:15.240 | than a 2% card. And then I'll talk about another card that's even better than that. So this card has no

00:13:20.120 | annual fee, 3% foreign transaction fees, and right now the signup bonus isn't that exciting. It's $200

00:13:26.040 | after spending $1,000 in 90 days and a 0% intro APR for 15 months. So when I think about this card on

00:13:32.680 | the tier list, if you have platinum honor status, we're talking 2.625% on everything, which might be

00:13:38.840 | one of the best cashback cards out there now that the Smartly card has kind of been nerfed and kind of

00:13:44.360 | devalued a bit. And there just aren't a lot of other options. So I'm going to put this at the A tier

00:13:48.600 | here because I really like this card. However, I do think there's a better option coming up. There's a

00:13:53.560 | student version of this card that's effectively the same. And then there's a secured version with no signup

00:13:58.040 | bonus and no intro APR and requires a deposit. Okay, I have a quick update since I recorded this episode

00:14:04.520 | because the welcome offer changed. In addition to the $200 bonus and 0% intro APR, you'll also get an uncapped

00:14:12.760 | extra half a percent cashback on the unlimited cash card for the first year. That makes it a 2% card

00:14:19.800 | for the first year only. And while that extra half a percent isn't eligible for premium rewards,

00:14:25.880 | the one and a half percent still is. So if you have platinum honors status, you'd be at 2.625%

00:14:32.440 | already plus half a percent for the first year, making it an unlimited 3.125% cashback card for the

00:14:41.480 | first year. Now it's a no annual fee card. So that's a really incredible amount of cash back. I don't know

00:14:47.880 | how long the offer will last. It is up as of re-recording this on September 18th. Okay, back to the episode.

00:14:54.600 | Now next is a card that is very, very similar to the unlimited cash card, and that is the travel

00:14:59.400 | rewards card. It's really almost an identical card with a couple of subtle differences, has a slightly

00:15:05.400 | different signup bonus. They market it as 25,000 points on $1,000 spend in 90 days. It also has a 0%

00:15:11.960 | APR for 15 months, no annual fee. But differently than the custom cash card, it has no foreign transaction

00:15:18.280 | fees. And instead of earning one and a half percent on everything, it's marketed as earning 1.5 points on

00:15:23.560 | everything. And the signup bonus is called 25,000 points, which is effectively $250. But it's not

00:15:30.200 | quite as simple as earning cash back because you can only redeem these points as one cent as a credit

00:15:36.120 | towards travel and dining purchases. So if you spend enough money on travel and dining such that 2.625%

00:15:44.280 | of all of your spend is in travel and dining, then you'll have no problem using this card as a cashback

00:15:50.520 | card. But if you don't spend that much in travel and dining, then you're going to be stuck with a card

00:15:55.000 | that earns a lot of points, but they're a little bit harder to get value out of. That said, you can

00:15:59.880 | transfer these points to anyone else's Bank of America Travel Rewards, Premium Rewards, and Premium

00:16:04.920 | Rewards Elite card, which I'll talk about next. And that gives it a little flexibility. But ultimately,

00:16:10.920 | I don't love this card compared to the next cards. And if you don't travel enough, I don't love this

00:16:17.160 | card compared to the unlimited cash card. If you do, I like it a little bit more because there's no foreign

00:16:21.640 | transaction fees. So it works anywhere in the world without having to pay those fees. Like the other cards,

00:16:26.920 | cards, has a student version that's the same, has a secured version that has no signup bonus,

00:16:31.000 | no entry APR, and requires a deposit. As for the tier list, I'm going to put it down at the B tier.

00:16:36.040 | That's one below the unlimited cash card, just because it's a little bit harder to use. And I think

00:16:40.520 | that most people traveling internationally probably have another card that won't charge them foreign

00:16:44.520 | transaction fees. So with the exception of one small reason to love this card, which I'll mention

00:16:49.160 | in a little bit, I think it's got to be for the average person less interesting than the unlimited cash

00:16:54.360 | card. Again, with preferred rewards, you will get 1.75x if you're in platinum honors. So yes,

00:17:00.840 | this is earning 2.625x points if you have that status. Next, I'm going to talk about the premium

00:17:07.880 | rewards card. And this is where I think Bank of America really starts to shine. This is a card that

00:17:13.400 | earns, just like the unlimited cash card, one and a half percent on everything, but it also earns two

00:17:19.080 | percent on travel and dining. If you have platinum honors, what that means is it's 2.625% on everything

00:17:25.560 | and three and a half percent on travel and dining. Now it's really starting to be one of the most

00:17:30.600 | compelling cards out there for cashback. It has no foreign transaction fees. It does have a $95 annual fee.

00:17:37.320 | We'll talk about the benefits that that covers. And currently it has a 60,000 point signup bonus on $4,000

00:17:43.800 | spend in 90 days. And for reasons I will never understand, even though this card does earn points,

00:17:51.080 | unlike the travel rewards card, those points can be deposited directly into your checking or savings

00:17:56.680 | account. So this is truly like a cashback card, even though it is marketed as a points card,

00:18:03.400 | unlike the travel rewards card that I just talked about. Now for that $95 annual fee, aside from

00:18:08.920 | getting extra earnings on travel and dining, you get a $100 a year airline credit, which you can use for

00:18:15.480 | seat upgrades, baggage fees, lounge fees, in-flight services. There's a lot of different ways to use

00:18:21.400 | this. It's not that difficult to use and it pretty easily negates the annual fee. You also get your TSA

00:18:26.760 | Pre-Year Global Entry covered, and it does have some decent travel protections. You get trip delay,

00:18:31.080 | cancellation, interruption, baggage delay, lost luggage, emergency evacuation. You get purchase

00:18:36.120 | protection, extended warranty, and return protection. You do get rental car coverage, but it's secondary.

00:18:41.720 | And you do get access to the Visa Signature Luxury Hotel Collection, but I wouldn't call that a huge perk.

00:18:46.840 | I'm going to put this card at the A tier, not because I don't really like it, but because I like the next

00:18:51.160 | card the most. I think it's the best cashback card that Bank of America has, and it's definitely,

00:18:55.880 | I can preview this, it's going to be an S tier card. It's the Bank of America Premium Rewards Elite card.

00:19:01.800 | And on the surface, it's very, very similar. It also earns 1.5% on everything, 2% travel and dining,

00:19:08.600 | or with Platinum Honors, that's 2.625% on everything, and 3.5% on travel and dining. Same no foreign

00:19:15.640 | transaction fees. Bigger signup bonus, 75,000 points, which is effectively $750 on $5,000 spend in 90 days.

00:19:24.600 | However, there are a few differences. The annual fee is higher, the benefits are higher, and there's

00:19:29.400 | one really cool perk. So the annual fee is $550. The benefits bump the airline credit up from $100 to $300.

00:19:38.360 | And there are a lot of ways to get usage of this airline credit. There's a lot of posts online of

00:19:43.800 | things that code for this airline credit, so it shouldn't be too hard to get use. It also has $150

00:19:49.080 | a year lifestyle credit, and that covers any video streaming, food delivery, fitness subscriptions,

00:19:55.240 | ride sharing. So if you add those up, you're at $450. And I think that those are not difficult to use.

00:20:01.640 | There are a lot of credits out there that are really tough to call valuable at face value.

00:20:06.920 | In this case, I think you might end up using all of these credits without even knowing it. And halfway

00:20:12.280 | through the year, I often notice that exact same thing. You get your TSA Pre and Global Entry reimbursed.

00:20:17.320 | You also get four Priority Pass memberships. That's not four entries. That is four different

00:20:23.480 | memberships for Priority Pass, meaning if you had a family of four, you could create a Priority Pass

00:20:29.320 | membership for every single person in your family, and they don't need to go get their own credit card

00:20:34.920 | to have that membership. But even better than that is that this is one of the rare Priority Pass

00:20:40.440 | memberships that still allows restaurant access. So even though me and my wife both have other cards with

00:20:46.440 | our Priority Pass memberships, we do not have a card that gives access to all the Priority Pass

00:20:51.400 | restaurants. And so two of these four memberships are for us, and they're our primary Priority Pass

00:20:56.440 | memberships. The next benefit is where I think this card really, really shines. And that is that if

00:21:01.960 | you use your points to book flights, domestic or international, in any class in the Bank of America

00:21:09.400 | travel portal, you get 20% off when you pay with points. That means that for a thousand dollar flight,

00:21:16.120 | instead of needing to spend a thousand dollars or a hundred thousand points, you could spend

00:21:22.200 | $800 or 80,000 points. So you could look at it as a 20% discount, or you could look at it as a 25%

00:21:29.720 | premium. Because if you take a thousand divided by 800, you get 1.25. And that really boosts the value of

00:21:36.200 | this card. So if you assume that all the cashback and points you're earning on this card are able to

00:21:41.160 | be used to book flights through the Bank of America travel portal, which in my experience comes with the

00:21:47.560 | same prices you'd get everywhere else. But it does come with one downside, which is when you book in the

00:21:53.000 | travel portal, you often have to manage those flights through the travel portal. So you might have to call

00:21:58.680 | Bank of America to make changes. Some airlines are not like this. Some airlines make it easy for you to take

00:22:04.120 | over that itinerary with the airline. I know United doesn't do it easily online, but if you use the

00:22:10.520 | texting feature with United, you can do it. So it's not always that bad. If you don't have any changes,

00:22:15.240 | it's not a problem. If you do have changes, sometimes it's not a problem. Sometimes you have

00:22:19.880 | to call Bank of America or use their website to make those changes. However, if you apply that 25%

00:22:25.720 | boost to the value of your points, assuming you're going to use those points to book travel, it means

00:22:30.040 | that this card, which earns 1.5% everywhere, if you have platinum honors, would earn 2.625% everywhere.

00:22:37.320 | But that 2.625% gets a 25% boost if you book travel, which makes it a 3.28% everywhere card. And travel,

00:22:46.200 | which earns 2% or 3.5% with platinum honors now earns 4.375%. So if you make the assumption that

00:22:54.200 | you're going to book enough travel that you can use your points for booking flights, then this is a 3.28%

00:23:00.920 | on everything card plus 4.375% on travel and dining. It really doesn't get better than that. If you want

00:23:08.920 | a cashback card, I can't think of any other card in the market that does this well without lots of hoops,

00:23:15.880 | without caps on how much you earn. And so I think this is the best cashback card if that is your game.

00:23:23.080 | And if you have the ability to qualify for platinum honors with $100,000 in a brokerage account or a bank account.

00:23:29.880 | So I'm going to make this an S tier card. I think it's really one of the best cards out there if you care about

00:23:34.840 | cashback. And it's really made me rethink the everything else category. And would I rather earn 3.28% or 2x miles? And in a lot of cases, I end up

00:23:45.560 | using this card as the primary card. Also, even travel and dining 4.375% is pretty compelling. So

00:23:53.320 | this has become a really great card. And I know anyone on team cashback should be thinking about it.

00:23:58.280 | As for travel protections, they're among some of the best frequent miler just did a review of all the

00:24:03.560 | premium travel cards. I'll put a link in the show notes. And while the Chase Sapphire Reserve and the

00:24:08.520 | Ritz-Carlton card came in number one, the Bank of America premium cards came in number two. You get

00:24:14.200 | all the trip cancellation, interruption, baggage delay, lost luggage, accident, emergency evacuation,

00:24:18.920 | purchase protection, extended warranty, return protection. You get all that. You get primary

00:24:22.680 | rental car coverage and you get rental car status with Avis and National. So like I said, I think

00:24:28.360 | this is an S tier card. If you're on team cashback and you can meet the requirements for platinum honors,

00:24:32.760 | I don't see any other card coming close. Love this card. I'm so glad we have it. And we've been

00:24:37.320 | really able to use all of our points towards booking flights. So I do feel like we're getting

00:24:42.440 | a lot of the value. One last thing about this card. You can earn the extra 25% of value from

00:24:46.840 | your points booking the portal. But I mentioned earlier that the travel rewards card earns points

00:24:52.440 | instead of cash back and you can transfer them. So in that case, if you did have the travel rewards card,

00:24:58.200 | you could transfer all the points you earn on that card to your premium rewards elite card

00:25:03.880 | and be able to use those points to get that extra 25% value. Practically, I don't know why you would do

00:25:08.920 | this because that travel rewards card doesn't earn anything. The premium rewards elite card doesn't.

00:25:14.520 | But if you happen to have both of those cards and you didn't want to close the travel rewards and

00:25:19.000 | just spend on the premium rewards elite card, you could move those points around so that you're

00:25:23.800 | getting more value when you redeem them. So that's the consumer cashback card lineup. Next,

00:25:29.320 | let's talk about airline cards. Now, the biggest airline card lineup for Bank of America is Alaska

00:25:34.440 | Airlines. Since the rebrand from Alaska's mileage plan, it's now Atmos Rewards. They've rebranded

00:25:41.000 | all those cards. The base tier consumer card is now called the Atmos Rewards Ascent card. And it hasn't

00:25:48.600 | changed that much functionally as it did when it was just the Alaska card. So if you've had that card,

00:25:54.200 | there's not a lot going on differently other than the branding. However, let's run through the card.

00:25:59.240 | It's a $95 annual fee, no foreign transactions. You get 3x Alaska miles or now Atmos points on Alaska,

00:26:08.120 | 2x on gas, EV charging, cable, streaming, transit, including rideshare and 1x on everything else.

00:26:14.520 | However, one really cool perk of all of the Alaska or now Atmos cards, I got to retrain my brain,

00:26:21.400 | is that you get a 10% bonus on all the points you earn. If you have a Bank of America checking account,

00:26:26.920 | that's been active, I think in the last 90 days. So effectively it's 3.3x Alaska, 2.2x on those

00:26:33.080 | categories and 1.1x on everything else. You also earn status as you spend. So for every $3 you spend,

00:26:39.720 | you get one status point. In 2025, that was capped at 30,000 status points, but next year it will be

00:26:45.800 | uncapped. The signup bonus right now is pretty great. It's 80,000 points, at least as of recording,

00:26:51.240 | which is September 11th. You also get a $99 companion certificate after spending $4,000

00:26:57.400 | in 120 days. Same requirement as the signup bonus, the 80,000 points. There are some links online for

00:27:03.320 | 85,000 points, so you can Google around and see if you can find them. As for the value of these companion

00:27:08.440 | fair certificates, I think you're going to have to ask yourself how much you actually spend on Alaska

00:27:13.000 | booking a round trip flight. If you're booking a $200 round trip flight with you and your partner,

00:27:17.960 | the partner's flight instead of $200 will be $99 plus taxes, which are at least $23. So you're looking

00:27:24.920 | at spending $122 instead of $200. If you spend $1,000 on flights and you're going to Hawaii,

00:27:31.000 | this could be a better deal. Not if you're flying first class because the companion fares are only

00:27:35.560 | available in economy class. So if you spend probably more than $200 or $300 on a round trip ticket every

00:27:42.440 | year, they can be valuable. I do have a friend who was struggling to even use his before it expired because

00:27:48.360 | he just didn't have any flights on Alaska that he was flying with a partner that year. So depending on your

00:27:54.360 | situation, it may or may not be valuable to you. You do also get free checked bags for you and up to

00:27:59.880 | six guests and you get priority boarding when you book the flight on the card. TBD, whether it's also

00:28:06.840 | applies to authorized users, I couldn't find an exact answer there. You also get 20% off Alaska in-flight

00:28:12.200 | purchases. And if you were to buy an Alaska lounge membership, you'd get $100 off. As for where to put

00:28:17.480 | this on the tier list, the earnings aren't great. There's a lot of cards that earn better on almost all the

00:28:23.160 | categories and compared to the Alaska Summit card, which I'll talk about next, it just blows it out

00:28:28.280 | of the water. So I think it's hard to justify using this card unless you spend a ton of money on Alaska.

00:28:33.640 | And if you do, I think you'd want the next card. So I'm actually going to put this in the C tier.

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00:31:26.680 | But this next card I'm really excited about. I already got it. It's the Alaska or I guess now it's the Atmos Rewards Summit card. For earnings, you get 3x on Alaska, you get 3x on dining and you get 3x on all foreign transactions, which they categorize as transactions outside of the United States or in transactions in foreign currencies. This opens up all kinds of interesting opportunities. There's no other bonus categories. It's 1% on everything else. You also get that

00:31:45.000 | 10% boost if you have a Bank of America checking account. So you can think of it as 3.3x on all those categories, 1.1x on everything else. And instead of spending $3 for every status point, you only have to spend $2 for every status point. So you can get accelerated status points. Another exciting thing right now is that the signup bonus is 100,000 points.

00:32:03.640 | I have heard that if you find an offer in branch, you might be able to get someone to give you 105,000 point offer, but pretty exciting offer in the six figures. You also, as part of that signup offer, which is spending $6,000 in 90 days, you get a 25,000 point companion certificate, which means you get a 25,000 point companion certificate.

00:32:21.640 | Which means that if you're booking a flight with points, your companion gets a 25,000 point discount on the cost of their flight. So if you were to book two 50,000 point awards, you pay 50,000 points for your flight and 25,000 points for your partner. Those companion certificates, I believe, expire a year after there is a 25,000 point discount.

00:32:40.640 | or maybe it's the end of the second year after they're issued. Let's assume you have at least one year to use them, but probably not much more. No fee for authorized users, no foreign transaction fees, but you do have a $395 annual fee.

00:33:01.640 | So let's talk about the benefits you get for the card that I think definitely justify the $395 annual fee. So first you get that 25,000 point companion award every year.

00:33:14.640 | So as long as you're booking one flight over 25,000 points with a partner every year, that's effectively 25,000 free point bonus every single year, which depending on how you value Alaska points could probably be anywhere from

00:33:28.640 | 250 to let's call it $375. You also get 10,000 status points, which gets you halfway towards the lowest tier of Alaska status, which is pretty interesting.

00:33:40.640 | You'd only have to spend another $20,000 on the card to get another 10,000 status points. And that would lock in the lowest tier of Alaska status.

00:33:47.640 | After spending $60,000 per card member year, you get another companion award for a hundred thousand points. That means that if you were booking a round trip business class,

00:33:58.640 | flight to Europe with your partner where each way was, let's just say 140,000 points for the primary person, you'd spend 140. And for the second person, you'd only spent 40,000 points.

00:34:08.640 | So if you're spending Alaska points, that companion award can be super valuable.

00:34:13.640 | So how do I think about the value of this companion award? Well, at a minimum, if you're going to spend $60,000 on this card, let's assume it's in the everything else category.

00:34:22.640 | You would earn 60,000 points. Or if you had a Bank of America checking account, which I'd highly recommend you have, if you have this card, you would earn 66,000 points.

00:34:31.640 | But you would also get that 100K companion award. So you would effectively get, assuming you could maximize the usage of that award, 166,000 points on 60,000 spend, which is 2.77X.

00:34:46.640 | Meaning for that first $60,000, again, assuming you can use the 100,000 point companion award, you're earning 2.77 on everything else.

00:34:55.640 | If you managed to do that first 60,000 spend in dining or foreign transactions or on Alaska, then it's even better than that.

00:35:02.640 | But I just want to flag that if you're traveling with your Alaska points enough that you can use these awards, even if you discounted the award to 70,000 points or less, it still makes spending on this card really compelling.

00:35:13.640 | On top of that, every quarter you get two Alaska Lounge passes. And anytime you show your card, you get two free signature cocktails in the lounge.

00:35:22.640 | Also, it unlocks point sharing with up to 10 people. So if you're accumulating points, your partner's accumulating points, maybe your kids are accumulating points or your parents, you can link them all.

00:35:33.640 | And with this card, you can move points between all those accounts for free and book all out of the same account.

00:35:39.640 | You also get free checked bags for you and up to six guests, priority boarding when you book on the card.

00:35:44.640 | You get a global entry and TSA pre-credit. Another interesting benefit is you get a $50 instant travel delay credit for cancellations or delays of two hours plus.

00:35:52.640 | Meaning if either of those things happen, your flight gets canceled, your flight gets delayed more than two hours, you should, by having this card, instantly get an email with a $50 travel credit.

00:36:00.640 | But one of the other benefits that I think is just amazing about this card, if you don't have Alaska status, is that you get waived fees for same day confirmed changes.

00:36:11.640 | That means that if you were to book a flight at 6:00 PM and you wanted to take the flight at 3:00 PM, assuming there is a seat, you can change your flight, assuming you didn't book a saver ticket.

00:36:22.640 | This also works at co-terminals in Northern California and Southern California.

00:36:26.640 | So I'm experimenting with this a little on a flight I have upcoming where the flight I want from San Francisco to LAX is quite expensive, but a flight from Oakland down to Ontario is a lot cheaper.

00:36:38.640 | And from all the terms I've read, I should be able to change from an Oakland flight to a San Francisco flight, from an Ontario flight to a LAX flight.

00:36:47.640 | So I should be able to book a much cheaper flight and assuming there's still space on the flight I want, I can change it same day with no fees.

00:36:54.640 | You also get two Wi-Fi passes a quarter and you get 20% back on in-flight purchases.

00:36:59.640 | This is a lot of perks, so sorry to go through all of them.

00:37:02.640 | As for the other benefits, it's a Visa Infinite card.

00:37:05.640 | So you get the Visa Infinite luxury hotel collection.

00:37:08.640 | You get Avis President's Club, National Executive, Hertz five star, plus a free spouse driver on Hertz.

00:37:14.640 | And you get all the same premium travel protections I mentioned in the premium rewards elite card,

00:37:20.640 | which like that frequent miler post clarified is one of the best out there, probably second only to the Chase Reserve and the Ritz Carlton card.

00:37:29.640 | I think you do also get that $100 off an Alaska lounge membership.

00:37:32.640 | But because you get eight passes a year, hopefully that's enough.

00:37:35.640 | If you're traveling a lot more than maybe you need an Alaska lounge membership, you get that perk as well.

00:37:40.640 | So what do I think of this card?

00:37:42.640 | If it isn't obvious, I'm a huge fan.

00:37:44.640 | I got the card right away, not just for the bonus, but because I think I'll be flying Alaska

00:37:49.640 | and being able to use a lot of these things.

00:37:51.640 | But one of the reasons I love it is even if you're not flying Alaska, because of all the partners Alaska has,

00:37:57.640 | and because a lot of these perks that you get are relevant for booking partner awards.

00:38:02.640 | By the way, that 100,000 point and the 25,000 point companion awards, those work for partner flights as well.

00:38:08.640 | So you could be booking a flight from New York to Europe on Condor and still use a lot of these perks.

00:38:14.640 | So I think this is an S tier card.

00:38:16.640 | The benefits more than outweigh the annual fee by a long shot.

00:38:20.640 | And if you're spending any money internationally, it's the only card I know of that earns an elevated number of points on foreign transactions.

00:38:28.640 | So that's amazing.

00:38:30.640 | But if you're going for Alaska status, it's even better.

00:38:32.640 | And I'll talk about that at the end.

00:38:34.640 | But I'm a huge fan of this card.

00:38:35.640 | I'm really excited to have it.

00:38:36.640 | And I'm going to be using it a lot for the rest of the year to try to get that 100,000 point companion award and to try to get a little boost to my Alaska status.

00:38:44.640 | There are three other airline cards that are a little bit less exciting.

00:38:47.640 | The first one is the Spirit Airlines card.

00:38:50.640 | It's the Free Spirit Travel More World Elite MasterCard.

00:38:53.640 | It is a no foreign transaction fee card.

00:38:56.640 | You earn 3x on Spirit and 2x on Dining Grocery and 1x on everything else.

00:39:01.640 | The annual fee is waived the first year after that at $79.

00:39:04.640 | And there's a signup bonus right now of 50,000 bonus points plus a $100 companion flight voucher as long as you spend $1,000 in the first 90 days.

00:39:13.640 | I'm not too excited about this card, but I'll run through some of the benefits.

00:39:17.640 | After spending $5,000 a year, each anniversary year, you get another $100 companion fare certificate.

00:39:23.640 | So if you fly Spirit a lot, that's interesting.

00:39:25.640 | You get group two priority boarding and you get a 25% rebate on all in-flight food and beverages.

00:39:31.640 | Otherwise, that's kind of it.

00:39:32.640 | You can get additional cardholders.

00:39:34.640 | They get the priority boarding and the rebate on in-flight purchases.

00:39:37.640 | I guess if you fly Spirit a lot, maybe it's interesting, but you're still only getting 3x on Spirit.

00:39:42.640 | You're still only getting 2x on Dining and Grocery.

00:39:45.640 | A lot of the perks aren't that exciting.

00:39:47.640 | You're not getting special seat selection or anything like that.

00:39:50.640 | So I guess if you love Spirit and you fly a lot, maybe the companion certificates are worth it.

00:39:54.640 | But I would argue there are a lot more compelling cards you could get that would add more value to your life.

00:39:59.640 | So I'm going to put this card to the D tier because I don't really see any reason to get this card.

00:40:03.640 | I think even for a Spirit flyer, it might not be that exciting.

00:40:06.640 | Next card I'm going to talk about is the Allegiant Always Rewards card.

00:40:10.640 | It's similar in that it gets 3x on Allegiant.

00:40:14.640 | Like the Spirit card, it gets 3x on Spirit.

00:40:16.640 | You get 2x on Dining, nothing on Grocery, except the 1x you get on everything else.

00:40:20.640 | No foreign transaction fees, $59 annual fee.

00:40:23.640 | The sign-up bonus is even less interesting at 25,000 points, which is just $250 off your future Allegiant trip, as long as you spend $1,000 in the first 90 days.

00:40:33.640 | And then similarly, you get another annual $100 companion fare after you spend $5,000 a year.

00:40:39.640 | It doesn't look like you actually get one of those opening the card.

00:40:43.640 | So you have to have the card for a year.

00:40:45.640 | You get priority boarding and a free beverage.

00:40:47.640 | And anytime you use your card to purchase a vacation package with four or more hotel nights or seven or more rental car days, you get buy one, get one free airfare.

00:40:57.640 | I think that's a big stretch to be an exciting perk.

00:41:00.640 | But I guess if you're super loyal to Allegiant, maybe you've looked at this card.

00:41:04.640 | I've never even flown Allegiant.

00:41:06.640 | I don't think anything about this card is that compelling.

00:41:09.640 | And so it's also going to be a D tier card for me.

00:41:12.640 | Last airline card is the Air France card.

00:41:14.640 | And it's the Air France KLM World Elite MasterCard.

00:41:17.640 | And if you want to know the benefits of this card and the Spirit card, they're both World Elite MasterCards.

00:41:21.640 | So they will come with some of the World Elite MasterCard benefits that you can search online and learn more about.

00:41:26.640 | The Air France card is a no foreign transaction fee card.

00:41:29.640 | It has an $89 annual fee and it earns 3x on Air France, KLM and other SkyTeam member airline flights.

00:41:35.640 | And then it earns one and a half miles on everything else.

00:41:38.640 | Now, unless you're an avid Air France flyer, you're not going to be that excited about this card.

00:41:43.640 | But let me give you one reason to potentially be excited.

00:41:45.640 | And it's not the signup bonus.

00:41:47.640 | The signup bonus is 50,000 points after spending $2,000 in 90 days.

00:41:50.640 | But you also get 60,000 experience points, which is the way you earn status on Air France on approval.

00:41:57.640 | And then another 20 experience points every account anniversary.

00:42:02.640 | And then another 40, totaling 60 each year if you spend $15,000 or more on the card.

00:42:08.640 | You also get 5,000 miles every year after you spend $50 or more on the card.

00:42:13.640 | So those 5,000 miles should be pretty easy to earn.

00:42:15.640 | Good little return on that $50 of spend.

00:42:17.640 | So why is this card interesting?

00:42:19.640 | It is really only interesting for one use case, and that is you are trying to get Air France status.

00:42:24.640 | And if you live in the US, the only real reason to get Air France status is if you're flying to France all the time and you want that boost and you don't get it naturally.

00:42:32.640 | Or you want to game your way to Air France status because Air France's first class, which I've never flown and I've heard is incredible, is only available to book with a high tier of their status.

00:42:45.640 | So I do know a couple people who have tried to get one or two or maybe even three of these Air France cards by product changing, by applying again, just so that they can get status on Air France so they can use their points.

00:42:58.640 | And Air France is a transfer partner of almost every major currency to book Air France Lot Premier.

00:43:04.640 | I would say that's a lot of hoops to jump through.

00:43:06.640 | You might be better off booking business class on Air France and hoping you can do a paid upgrade day of.

00:43:11.640 | But the one use case for this card that I've seen is people want to accelerate Air France status, so they get Air France status, so they can book Air France first class with points.

00:43:20.640 | Otherwise, this card is not that exciting.

00:43:22.640 | Because it has at least one use case, I'm going to put it at the C tier, but I don't imagine most people.

00:43:27.640 | listening are going to be interested in this card.

00:43:30.640 | There are three cruise cards with Bank of America.

00:43:33.640 | And best I can tell, there's not a single interesting thing about all of them.

00:43:36.640 | They're even less compelling than the Spirit and Allegiant cards.

00:43:40.640 | So I'm going to skip running through them and I'm just going to put them all at the D tier.

00:43:44.640 | They're for Royal Caribbean, Celebrity and Norwegian.

00:43:46.640 | Best I could tell, other than Norwegian, they all only earn 2x of the cruise lines points on cruise line purchases.

00:43:55.640 | And so they're really, really uncompelling.

00:43:57.640 | I think the Norwegian card earns 3x points on Norwegian cruises.

00:44:01.640 | So if you cruise a lot on Norwegian, maybe there's something there, but definitely not a card I'm excited about.

00:44:06.640 | So let's move on quickly to the business cards.

00:44:08.640 | Again, for people who haven't listened before, many of you out there have businesses and you're not even thinking about it.

00:44:14.640 | And so I would encourage people not to just assume they don't have a business.

00:44:17.640 | Because if you do some freelance work, maybe you have a blog or a social media presence that you monetize.

00:44:22.640 | Or maybe one day you might monetize it.

00:44:25.640 | Maybe you're doing some consulting or maybe you have some knowledge and skills and one day you might do some consulting.

00:44:30.640 | As long as you're pursuing a business, even if it doesn't have revenue yet, I think you're eligible to apply for a business card.

00:44:36.640 | You don't need to have an EIN or a registered business.

00:44:38.640 | You can use your social security number as a sole proprietor.

00:44:42.640 | This episode is brought to you by Copilot Money.

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00:46:00.640 | Thank you for being here today.

00:46:03.640 | You can find all the links, promo codes, and discounts from all our partners at allthehacks.com/deals.

00:46:09.640 | They're all brands I love and use.

00:46:11.640 | So please consider supporting those who support us.

00:46:14.640 | So let's run through the business cards.

00:46:16.640 | It's a very similar lineup to the personal cards.

00:46:19.640 | So like there was a personal customized cash card, there is a business customized cash card.

00:46:24.640 | It also earns 3% in the chosen categories.

00:46:27.640 | And so I'll run through those categories.

00:46:29.640 | But the biggest change is on this card, that 3% and 2% earnings goes up to $50,000 a year instead of $2,500 a quarter.

00:46:38.640 | Before we jump in that, $0 annual fee, 3% foreign transaction fee.

00:46:42.640 | The signup bonus right now is $300 after you spend $3,000 in 90 days.

00:46:46.640 | You do get a 0% intro APR right now.

00:46:49.640 | And that intro APR is for 9 billing cycles instead of 15 on the consumer.

00:46:55.640 | So let's run through the categories.

00:46:56.640 | So you get 3% on your chosen category.

00:46:58.640 | You can change once a month.

00:46:59.640 | It's a similar list of categories, but a little bit more geared towards business.

00:47:03.640 | So you've got gas station and EV charging, office supply stores, travel, TV, telecom, and wireless, computer services, and business consulting services.

00:47:13.640 | And I've noticed that a lot of business purchases code as business services, which falls into that business consulting services category.

00:47:20.640 | And so I picked up one of these cards because we pay a few different freelance companies to help with a podcast.

00:47:27.640 | And we hit that business services category.

00:47:30.640 | And because we have platinum honor status, which I'll talk about in a second for businesses, that 3% goes up to 5.25% on $50,000 a year.

00:47:39.640 | So unlike the personal card where you're getting an extra 2.625% on $10,000 here, you're getting an extra 2.625% on $50,000, which is about $1,300.

00:47:51.640 | So to me as a business, this card is worth a $1,300 signup bonus every single year.

00:47:57.640 | You also get 2% back at dining and that 2% and all those 3% are part of that $50,000 a year limit.

00:48:03.640 | I also like that it's $50,000 a year.

00:48:05.640 | So you don't have to manage how much did I spend in a quarter.

00:48:08.640 | And then it's 1% on everything else.

00:48:10.640 | So I really like this card.

00:48:11.640 | If you have a business and you spend in those categories and you spend enough to hit that $50,000 cap, it's like getting a signup bonus every single year.

00:48:18.640 | So because the cap is so much higher than the personal card, I'm going to put this card in the A tier above the personal version of this card, which is in the B tier.

00:48:28.640 | And one thing to clarify on preferred rewards is that it is tied to the person or the business.

00:48:33.640 | So just because you have $100,000 in your Merrill Lynch brokerage account does not mean you have Platamonors status on your business cards.

00:48:40.640 | In order to get Platamonors or any preferred reward status for business, you need to put that money in a business account.

00:48:47.640 | For the first year, that's pretty easy because you can do the fast track.

00:48:50.640 | You could deposit $100,000 if you had access to it and you don't have to leave it in there the whole year or even three months.

00:48:58.640 | But when it comes time for year two, you actually have to put the money in there for three months.

00:49:03.640 | So you meet that rolling three month window.

00:49:05.640 | And unfortunately, leaving money in a Bank of America checking account isn't all that compelling.

00:49:10.640 | So you really have two options.

00:49:11.640 | One, you just call the lost interest in that checking account, the cost of getting your preferred reward status.

00:49:18.640 | You could use a CD or an interest bearing product from Bank of America for that money.

00:49:24.640 | Or you can go through what is a huge pain but possible and open up a business investment account with Merrill Lynch.

00:49:32.640 | So this is the path I took.

00:49:33.640 | I opened up a business investment account with Merrill Lynch.

00:49:36.640 | It took me like six different tries to get the application correct.

00:49:40.640 | But once it was correct, it was opened and approved.

00:49:43.640 | And I was able to fund a business investment account.

00:49:46.640 | And I can put that cash into stocks or securities or just buy a treasury ETF like S-Gov.

00:49:53.640 | So we keep some of our business cash in that account so that we're able to maintain the preferred reward status for the business,

00:50:00.640 | which makes our customized cash card not a 3% on $50,000, but a 5.25% card on $50,000.

00:50:08.640 | Next is the business unlimited cash card.

00:50:10.640 | And it's almost identical to the personal unlimited cash card.

00:50:13.640 | It's a $0 annual fee card that earns 1.5% on everything or 2.625% with platinum honors.

00:50:19.640 | Still has a 3% foreign transaction fee.

00:50:22.640 | The signup bonus on the business card is $300 after you spend $3,000 in 90 days.

00:50:27.640 | And you get the 0% intro APR for nine months or nine billing cycles.

00:50:31.640 | And so with preferred rewards, if you're able to get that for your business and you have platinum honors, this becomes a 2.625% card on everything.

00:50:39.640 | And so I guess you could make a case that there just aren't a lot of cash back cards at that level for businesses.

00:50:45.640 | And so I'm actually in real time going to say that I think this card might need to be an S to your card.

00:50:53.640 | And the reason why is there just isn't a way that I'm aware of to get 2.625% back on your business.

00:50:58.640 | So if you have a business that spends a ton of money and you don't want to play the points game and you just want cash back and you have a big enough business that you can put $100,000 into an account at Bank of America or Merrill Lynch.

00:51:10.640 | I don't know if there's a better cash back card out there.

00:51:13.640 | Totally uncapped.

00:51:14.640 | It's possible to get high limits with Bank of America.

00:51:16.640 | I will talk about that.

00:51:17.640 | So I think this card is just, it's got to be an S to your card for a business in that circumstance, because I can't think of any other card that comes close.

00:51:25.640 | The next business card is the business travel rewards card.

00:51:28.640 | And it's just like the personal travel rewards card.

00:51:30.640 | And it's just like the business unlimited cash card.

00:51:33.640 | You get one and a half X on everything.

00:51:35.640 | Unlike the unlimited cash version, you get no foreign transaction fees.

00:51:40.640 | Same, no annual fee has a 30,000 point, which is effectively worth $300 signup bonus after you spend $3,000 in 90 days and a 0% APR for nine months.

00:51:50.640 | So effectively, it's almost the same card, except like the personal version, you have to redeem those points as credit towards travel and dining purchases.

00:51:59.640 | So for a business, that could be even more difficult if you don't have that much spend for travel and dining for your business.

00:52:06.640 | And so I don't love this card as much as I love the unlimited cash card for the average person trying to find a high tier cash back card for their business.

00:52:15.640 | However, if you have the personal premium rewards elite card, you can transfer your points from your business travel rewards card to your personal premium rewards elite card and get that extra 25% boost.

00:52:28.640 | So for that reason, I love this card and this is a card I have and use, but for the average person who's not playing that transfer game and opening up multiple cards, I think it just adds a little bit more complication to the system.

00:52:42.640 | So as for how to rank this card, at first glance, the only positive this has over the unlimited cash card is that you have no foreign transaction fees.

00:52:49.640 | But the negative is huge because you don't get cash back, you get points that you have to redeem as a credit towards travel and dining, which may be harder for businesses.

00:52:57.640 | So that would make me put this card at the B tier.

00:53:01.640 | I see almost no reason to get this card over the business unlimited cash with one exception.

00:53:07.640 | And that exception is actually the circumstance I'm in.

00:53:10.640 | And if you fall into this exception, then I'd have to put this card at the S tier as well.

00:53:14.640 | However, if you don't, I'm going to keep this card at the B tier.

00:53:17.640 | And that exception is if you also have the premium rewards elite card.

00:53:21.640 | I mentioned earlier how you can transfer your points from the travel rewards to the premium rewards elite card.

00:53:25.640 | Now, if you had both of those personal cards, I'm not sure why you would want to do that.

00:53:28.640 | You'd be better off just spending all of your money on the premium rewards elite card.

00:53:32.640 | But if you have a business and you want to keep those transactions separate, there is no premium rewards elite card for the business.

00:53:38.640 | However, the travel rewards points you earn on the business card can be transferred from your business travel rewards to your personal premium rewards elite.

00:53:46.640 | And you can use those points to book travel at that 25% premium.

00:53:51.640 | So if you're looking for a cash back card for your business and you're willing to cash out all the earnings for your business purchases, booking flights through the personal premium rewards elite card.

00:54:03.640 | Then if you have platinum honor status, this effectively becomes a 3.28% on everything business card.

00:54:11.640 | In that circumstance, this is an S tier card.

00:54:14.640 | However, in order to do that, you need to have the personal premium rewards elite card.

00:54:17.640 | You need to be willing to transfer the rewards from your business card to your personal card.

00:54:22.640 | And you need to use them to book travel.

00:54:24.640 | That is precisely what I'm doing.

00:54:26.640 | And for me, this is an S tier card.

00:54:28.640 | However, because most people are not going to go through all those hoops, I would call this a B tier card.

00:54:33.640 | And I would strongly say if you don't want to go through those hoops, the unlimited cash card is the card to get unless you're spending a lot of money overseas on foreign purchases, then that might be a reason to push you over the edge to get this card for the business.

00:54:45.640 | The last and final card I'm going to run through is the Alaska Atmos Rewards business card.

00:54:50.640 | And it effectively has the same perks and benefits and features of the personal Atmos Ascent card, the basic card.

00:54:57.640 | It's a no foreign transaction fee card that earns 3x on Alaska.

00:55:00.640 | The categories on earnings are slightly different.

00:55:02.640 | You get 2x on gas and EV charging, shipping and transit and rideshare, and then 1x on everything else.

00:55:08.640 | You also get that 10% bonus if you have a Bank of America business checking account.

00:55:12.640 | And you also earn one status point for every $3 you spend, where that's capped at 30,000 status points this year, but it will be uncapped next year.

00:55:20.640 | The signup bonus right now is also 80,000 points plus a $99 companion fare.

00:55:25.640 | There might be places online you can find a link for an 85,000 point signup offer.

00:55:29.640 | And to get those, you have to spend $3,000 in 90 days.

00:55:32.640 | The benefits are similar.

00:55:33.640 | You get another annual $99 companion fare every year that you spend $6,000.

00:55:37.640 | You get free checked bags for up to six guests, priority boarding.

00:55:41.640 | That does include employee cards.

00:55:43.640 | You get 20% back on in-flight purchases and $100 off a lounge membership.

00:55:47.640 | The only other difference that's slightly strange is this card has a $70 annual fee plus a $25 per card annual fee.

00:55:56.640 | So when you get this card, you will have a $95 total annual fee for one of the cards, but it's split between $70 and $25.

00:56:04.640 | So something to keep in mind.

00:56:06.640 | If you get employee cards on this card, you will have an extra fee for each card.

00:56:10.640 | As for the ranking of this card, I similarly don't love it as much as the personal Atmos Rewards card.

00:56:17.640 | If you are trying to spend your way to status and you need to do it on a business card, I could make a case for this card.

00:56:23.640 | Otherwise, I think it's a low earning card and there's a better option for Alaska.

00:56:28.640 | And honestly, I've got a choice between earning 1.1X Alaska points or 2.625% cash back for my business.

00:56:36.640 | I would go with the unlimited cash card and get the cash back.

00:56:38.640 | So I'm going to also put this card at C tier just like I put the other Alaska Ascent card or the Atmos Ascent card.

00:56:44.640 | So that's it for the tier list.

00:56:46.640 | If you want to take a look at it and you're not watching video on Spotify or YouTube, you can go look in the show notes and I'll link to an image of the tier list so you can have it and take a look.

00:56:55.640 | I hope that was helpful. Now I want to run through a few more notes on Bank of America, applying for cards, some of the nuance of the bank that you need to know about.

00:57:02.640 | So when it comes to applying for cards, they have this 2-3-4 rule where you can open a maximum of two cards every two months, three cards every 12 months and four cards every 24 months.

00:57:13.640 | So keep that in mind as you're spacing out your Bank of America applications.

00:57:17.640 | Similar to the Chase 524 rule, it seems like you're not going to get approved for a card if you've opened three or more cards with any bank in the past 12 months.

00:57:26.640 | They call it the 3-12 rule.

00:57:27.640 | However, if you have a Bank of America checking account, the rule becomes the 7-12 rule and you can open up a Bank of America card if you haven't opened seven accounts in the past 12 months.

00:57:37.640 | There are some varying opinions on enforcement here, but the short answer is if you're trying to get approved for Bank of America cards, you have much higher likelihood.

00:57:45.640 | If you open a Bank of America checking account, put some money in there, maybe it's a couple thousand dollars before you apply for cards.

00:57:51.640 | There's also a 24-month rule. With some cards, you may have to wait 24 months after opening or maybe even after canceling to be eligible for approval on the same card.

00:57:59.640 | It really varies card to card and sometimes person to person.

00:58:03.640 | There are some business cards that you can't get twice and then some people I know have gotten the same card multiple times, but they had to wait two years.

00:58:09.640 | So I would search online if you're trying to get the same card over and over again.

00:58:13.640 | For example, you're trying to play the Air France XP game.

00:58:16.640 | There's also a five consumer card limit.

00:58:19.640 | So if you already have five the Consumer Bank of America cards, you're probably not going to get approved.

00:58:23.640 | Given the number of cards they have, I feel like it's hard to get to five consumer cards.

00:58:28.640 | One thing that I have seen work well is that hard inquiries are often combined when they are initiated within 30 days of each other.

00:58:36.640 | So one thing that is nice about Bank of America is that oftentimes they combine the hard inquiry when you apply for a card.

00:58:43.640 | If you apply for another card the same day or some people say up to 30 days.

00:58:47.640 | So I often see people who are looking to go for a couple Bank of America cards, maybe it's personal and business, going for all of them at the same time, at least two or three of them.

00:58:57.640 | So those hard inquiries all get combined.

00:58:59.640 | They also have a reconsideration line that you can call.

00:59:02.640 | I know I had to call on the Atmos Summit card to try to figure out what was going on there.

00:59:06.640 | They also allow you to reallocate credit between cards, but it's a little bit of a slow process.

00:59:12.640 | I did call to do that yesterday between a few business cards and they submitted the requests.

00:59:17.640 | But unlike Chase, where it just gets approved and instantly happens, I'm waiting and I don't know how long I'll wait.

00:59:23.640 | They actually told me I should wait till I got a letter in the mail.

00:59:26.640 | But with Bank of America, if you request a credit line increase, they say we'll let you know with a letter in the mail, but you can also refresh the app or the website and you'll usually find out within a couple minutes.

00:59:37.640 | So, unclear if you can reallocate credit between personal and business.

00:59:41.640 | I haven't tried that.

00:59:42.640 | Also, you can product change between cards, but I think you have to wait one year, but it might take some hanging up and calling again to get someone that'll be able to do it.

00:59:51.640 | Only other few nuances about Bank of America.

00:59:54.640 | One, on the business side, every card has two accounts when you log in, a corporate account, which is the base account, and then another card account.

01:00:03.640 | And so it's just confusing.

01:00:04.640 | You log in and you see two accounts for every Bank of America business card and all the statements show up on the corporate account.

01:00:11.640 | All the transactions show up on the card account.

01:00:13.640 | It's just kind of a pain with their UI.

01:00:15.640 | My wife hates their customer service.

01:00:17.640 | Every time she calls for something, she has a problem.

01:00:20.640 | I've had nothing but amazing reps that make everything so easy.

01:00:24.640 | And she hates it because I'll be in the same room.

01:00:26.640 | I'll call Bank of America.

01:00:27.640 | I'll have a great experience.

01:00:28.640 | And then later she'll call and have a terrible experience.

01:00:31.640 | So I can't speak to it, but I feel remiss if I say customer service is great because of the experiences she's had.

01:00:37.640 | You get a free FICO score on your personal side.

01:00:40.640 | You get a free business credit score on the business side.

01:00:43.640 | And while it's not the easiest process, combining your business and personal accounts into one login is possible.

01:00:51.640 | The one thing that is not possible, though I know they are recently changing their billing system, is it seems really hard to pay your bill on a credit card if you're not paying it from a Bank of America account.

01:01:04.640 | There is a way to set it up, but it's not the most obvious.

01:01:07.640 | And so I would just say they really should work on that.

01:01:10.640 | But they're also either recently have or about to launch a new bill pay system.

01:01:14.640 | So hopefully that fixes all of that.

01:01:16.640 | A few other things.

01:01:17.640 | Credit limits with Bank of America are really healthy.

01:01:19.640 | So sometimes there are issuers known for low credit limits.

01:01:23.640 | I've been able to increase over the last, gosh, it's not even been two years, the total credit limits on all of my cards to over $100,000.

01:01:33.640 | And the initial limit that my wife got on her Premium Rewards Elite card was $20,000 or $30,000.

01:01:40.640 | And that's been able to go up to, I think, $40,000 or $45,000.

01:01:43.640 | And I have friends that have gotten those credit line increases up to $100,000 on some of their cards.

01:01:49.640 | So Bank of America is really generous with credit lines over time.

01:01:53.640 | And you can call in every 90 days, or at least it takes at least 90 days.

01:01:58.640 | And I didn't see any hard inquiries on those credit line increases.

01:02:01.640 | Sometimes I've done them online.

01:02:03.640 | You can also do them on the phone.

01:02:04.640 | Two other quick things.

01:02:05.640 | They do have card linked offers.

01:02:07.640 | They call it Bank of America deals.

01:02:08.640 | When I logged in on a personal card, I saw 140 total offers, but they're mostly online only.

01:02:16.640 | And they're pretty similar to what you'd get with Rakuten, except they're actually not as compelling.

01:02:21.640 | There are a few that are retail, meaning you can use your physical card.

01:02:25.640 | And I did see Uniqlo had a 10%, Osprey had a 10%.

01:02:29.640 | But for the most part, they're online and not that exciting.

01:02:32.640 | In fact, we've never used any of them except one.

01:02:35.640 | They had an online offer where if you used the portal, you could generate a 10% off code for Wayfair.

01:02:41.640 | So that was cool.

01:02:42.640 | And when it comes to food, they're mostly lower end places to eat.

01:02:47.640 | Carl's Jr., Burger King, Subway, Little Caesars.

01:02:50.640 | So that wasn't that exciting.

01:02:51.640 | I did see 10% at Shake Shack.

01:02:53.640 | It seems like Shake Shack's on every card linked offer.

01:02:56.640 | So not a lot to get excited about in the Bank of America card linked offers and deals.

01:03:00.640 | And then on the business side, instead of 140, I found 115.

01:03:04.640 | And everything I thought was kind of interesting on the personal side was missing from the business side.

01:03:08.640 | So the business offers seemed totally useless.

01:03:10.640 | Last big perk, which I love about Bank of America, is that on the first full weekend of the month, you can get into 235 museums across the country.

01:03:20.640 | They're in 41 different states.

01:03:21.640 | They include the Met in New York, the MoMA in New York, the Intrepid in New York, Japanese Gardens in Portland, which I've been to and they're awesome.

01:03:27.640 | The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, which is really cool if you haven't been there, all for free by having a Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, credit card or debit card.

01:03:38.640 | The only catch is there are no guests.

01:03:40.640 | So you need a card for each person, which is why we're probably going to add either authorized users or checking accounts for our kids just so they have a debit card so that we can get them into all these museums for free as well.

01:03:53.640 | And there are no monthly maintenance fees on an account when the owner is a child or is under 25 years.

01:03:59.640 | So they have this safe balance account for family banking for age six plus and a safe balance banking 13 plus.

01:04:05.640 | So that's something we're looking into to get the kids debit cards so they can get into the museums for free as well.

01:04:10.640 | So that's Bank of America.

01:04:12.640 | My quick summary.

01:04:13.640 | I think Bank of America right now has the best cashback card lineup out there, assuming you're able to meet the requirements to hit their platinum honors or higher status and get that 1.75x boost to all your earnings on their cards.

01:04:28.640 | To be able to get 2.625% on everything.

01:04:32.640 | Or if you get that premium rewards elite card, bump that up to 3.28%.

01:04:36.640 | Or even if you don't want to book your flights in the portals and you have that card, you're getting 3.5% on travel and dining.

01:04:43.640 | That's amazing.

01:04:44.640 | I'm not aware of any cards that are that uncapped high earning with the ability to get really high limits.

01:04:51.640 | And on the business side, I'm not aware of any that go over 2%.

01:04:54.640 | So really, really incredible lineup for cashback.

01:04:58.640 | On the Alaska side, the new Summit card is also awesome.

01:05:02.640 | Love that card.

01:05:03.640 | What's less exciting?

01:05:05.640 | Really hard to get outsized value on cashback, but you could just buy points if you want with all the cashback you're earning.

01:05:13.640 | We talked a little bit about that in the episode about what points are worth recently.

01:05:16.640 | Also, the Bank of America IT department could really use an upgrade.

01:05:20.640 | The app, the website, not the best.

01:05:22.640 | It does let you do some of the basic things that you'd want to do.

01:05:25.640 | It even has the ability to get your card number after you've applied before it's arrived to your house.

01:05:30.640 | I did that with the Summit card.

01:05:31.640 | It seems like it has most of the features, but it seems like they're all bolted on to really, really old school infrastructure.

01:05:37.640 | So something to keep in mind.

01:05:39.640 | But overall, I'm really stoked with Bank of America lately.

01:05:42.640 | And I'm really excited to have a lot of their cards and be spending a lot on them.

01:05:45.640 | Okay, so that's my summary of Bank of America.

01:05:47.640 | Obviously, you could tell I'm a big fan.

01:05:49.640 | I hope you enjoyed this episode.

01:05:50.640 | I'm going to keep doing some of these deep dives.

01:05:52.640 | Hopefully, I'll be able to do one on Bilt once they launch their three new cards.

01:05:56.640 | If you have any questions, follow-ups, podcast@allthehacks.com.

01:05:59.640 | I really hope you enjoyed this episode.

01:06:01.640 | That's it for this week.

01:06:02.640 | I will see you next week.

I Ranked Every Bank of America Credit Card (Best Cards in 2025)

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