Bank of America Gold relationship customers now get up to 10 free investing trades per month. (Link)
Preferred Rewards is Bank of America’s proprietary relationship benefits package for those with deposits and investments with the bank or with Merrill (combined). They’ve long offered up to 30 free trades per month for Platinum customers and up to 100 free traders per month for Platinum Honors customers. Now, they added 10 free trades for Gold customers.
- $20,000+ puts you in the Gold tier and gets you up to 10 free trades per month
- $50,000+ puts you in the Platinum tier and gets you up to 30 free trades per month
- $100,000+ puts you in the Platinum Honors tier and gets you up to 100 free trades per month
For someone who does a bit of trading, this can be an easy way to get them free. Technically, you can save around $1,000 per year by keeping $20,000 in cash or investments BofA/Merrill. (I figure about $8 per trade is typical, 8 x 120 = 960.) Another option is to use an app like Robinhood to save trading fees.
We’ll update our original post on Bank of America Preferred Rewards to reflect this new Gold benefit. Be sure to take advantage of the Merrill brokerage bonus; if you decide to open an account and deposit $20,000 with Merrill you can get $100.
Hat tip to readers Joseph Trusts and Max
Out of curiosity, why was my comment removed? I was pointing out that the majority of large brokerages charge $5-$7 for trades, so valuing this benefit at ~$1,000 is overstating a bit.
We don’t remove comments, it was either in moderation or it went to spam for some reason
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/heres-comment-isnt-showing-site/
Whoops, thanks guys 🙂 Maybe the spam filter thought I was trying to advertise brokerages. Though I’ve read that post before, it definitely slipped my mind. I’ll probably remember it now that it’s happened to me. Thanks again!
🙂
Does Merrill offer any money markets at all yet? Last time I checked they still don’t offer vanguard’s money markets and their sweep fund pays out at savings rate (meaning nothing). The problem for those who just do occasional trades is that there is really nowhere to park your money. Short term bonds are reasonably safe, but they aren’t as safe as a money market.
Same. When I checked a while back there was only a similar option for those with high balances (maybe it was over $1M? can’t remember). I’m thinking of moving from them for that reason. There are likely other options though, needs research.
There is, go to Merill’s website, scroll ALL the way down and look for the link “Deposit Account & Money Fund Rates”. Look for the ticker BPTXX, BlackRock Cash Management account. It’s a T+1 account meaning you have to go to the mutual fund tab to place a purchase and it takes 1 day for your transaction to settle. Place purchase order today, starts accruing interest tomorrow, or sell today and you’ll have cash ready tomorrow.
The rate is variable, it’s down to 1.64% right now but it’s better than nothing. $5k minimum to open but if it falls below that, it stays open.
https://olui2.fs.ml.com/Publish/Content/application/pdf/GWMOL/ICCRateSheet.pdf
Interesting. I didn’t know about that (not great, but better than nothing) Money Market Fund. If you go to the Mutual Fund Screener, it says there are zero MMFs. But if you go to the MF trade page it does look like BPTXX ($5k min) is indeed available for purchase.
Ultrashort bond ETFs give more yield with a bit more risk (but safer than short term).
Ultimately, the way to use M-edge Pref Rew, is just to park enough buy and hold investments there, so you don’t have to deal with these deficiencies.
Thanks
joE, maybe I’ll do that. I was really looking for something with a competitive yield 2%+, but this BPTXX doesn’t sound terrible.
This is there way of making it a little easier to trade as opposed to have to open that PDF every time you want to look and see what your options are.
Was waiting for this to switch my Roth IRA over. Awesome! Now I just need to get targeted for $300 checking.
You only need to have 3 month average balance to be over 20k to get gold status (same for other levels). Then you keep the status for one year even if the balance drops.
You get your status until membership year end (it’s based on your enrollment date) + 2 months grace period. So technically you may get up to 14 months of status for the first year.
PS BofA does average balance update on about 5th or 6th day of month.
Let’s say your average balances reach threshold and you enroll in the program in September. Enrollment is a separate (but simple) online process, you don’t get status without it.
You are supposed to requalify next September to keep the status, but if you don’t you get a snail mail saying you have 2 extra months to replenish your balances while enjoying your previous status (i.e. until November 30). If you still don’t qualify your status in online bank changes on around December 6th. I’m not sure what actually happens in the first few days of December (does BofA waive fees for example or not)
since Robinhood is ALWAYS “nothing” in fees, this BofA offer is literally worth nothing.
I would argue that there is value in keeping investments with merrill over robinhood. Not to mention you can’t open an IRA with robinhood, but to each his own
this is like BofA saying i can use their water fountain for free in their branch. or offering to let me use their bathroom for free 10 times if i have $20,000 there.
robinhood still doesn’t allow for dividend reinvestment, do they? That alone kept me from that service. If they allow that, I’d consider it.
that is correct. still no DRIP
I’m a gold client; I sold some ETFs today and can confirm this has gone live despite that the main Preferred Rewards site has not yet been updated.
Thanks
Now if they would only come out with a half decent looking physical credit card rather than the flimsy premium rewards card…
It’s 2019, you still use physical cards? 😉
If you still have the originally issued card, call and request a duplicate (just say your current card is damaged) and they will send you one of the newer cards which is a lot better.