Bank of America Cash Rewards card now offers 2% cash back grocery store purchases up to a quarterly $2,500, up from the previous limit of $1,500. They also added Wholesale Clubs to the grocery category, an important addition.
You can see the changes here and here on the BofA website, and see the official Terms & Conditions here.
2% Bonus Category: Earn a total of 2% cash back (equal to $0.02, consisting of 1% bonus cash rewards and 1% base cash rewards) for every $1 of Purchases made at eligible grocery store merchants and wholesale clubs, which include supermarkets, freezer/meat lockers, candy, nut or confection stores, dairy product stores, and bakeries. Excluded from this Bonus Category are superstores and smaller stores (like drugstores and convenience stores) that sell groceries and other products.
Bonus Category Cap: Grocery store, Wholesale club and Gas Purchases earn bonus cash rewards on the first $2,500 of combined Purchases made each calendar quarter. Once the $2,500 quarterly limit is reached, you will earn base cash rewards of 1% for those purchases.
Bonus Category Processing: Merchants are assigned a merchant category code (MCC) based on the merchant’s primary line of business. We do not determine which MCC a merchant chooses to classify itself.
‘Wholesale Clubs’ includes places like Costco (who starts accepting Visa soon), BJ’s, and Sam’s Club.
The fine print excluded ‘suprestores’ which sounds to me like it means to exclude Walmart and Target. Note, however, that many Target stores and some Walmart stores come through as grocery stores and have been getting the 2% rate all along as grocery.
Relationship Bonus
The Cash Rewards card gets a relationship bonus ranging from 10% if you have a simple checking account with BofA, to 75% if you have $100k in assets with them.
For those with a banking relationship with BofA, the Cash Rewards card is now the best cash back credit card for Wholesale Clubs purchases since you’ll get at least 2.2% cash back on purchases up to $2,500 quarterly, or even 3.5% cash back for those with a $100k relationship. Quite good. (Remember that the $2,500 limit is shared with the 3% gas category.)
Read more about Bank of America’s 10% – 75% relationship bonus in the post Bank of America Preferred Rewards Program: 5.25% Cash Back On Gas, 3.75% Travel, 2.625% All Purchases.
Final Thoughts
Really a nice addition here and it’s good to see BofA changing their fixtures to keep themselves relavent.
There’s also a $200 signup bonus on the Cash Rewards card so it’s a good time to get the card now if it interests you for use at Wholesale Clubs or for any other reason. And the relationship bonus works on the signup bonus as well, meaning the bonus can be $220 – $350 for relationship customers.
Hat tip to bonersaurus-rex on Reddit
FWIW. You can ‘issuer change’ the Bank of America Cash Rewards card from Visa to Mastercard. This is helpful as the Mastercard is known to work with more grocery/fuel rewards programs. I’ve recently submitted this change and was told it takes 2-4 weeks to complete.
It will wipe out any rewards you have accrued and terminate any special benefits the various branded Cash Rewards cards may give you.
So is the $2.5k limit per Cash Rewards card? $2.5 is not a lot of spend if you’re swinging for the fences.
I have 2 Cash Rewards cards (and imagine anyone with any number of MLB cards) wondering if that $2.5k limit is per each card or all total.
Anyone run into that limit yet?
I assume each card has it’s own $2.5k limit.
Great.It is much better than the previous $1500 limit. So my previous cash card will get the same $2500 limit?
I probably will apply one more cash card along with Alaska 300K + $100. Thus I will have 3.5% back $5000 limit to spend per quarter Not too bad for me.
By the way William, have you post a review (or a good way to use) the Costco card yet?
The new Costco Visa by Citi is offering the following:
4% back on up to $7,000 a year in gas purchases at Costco and other gas stations.
3% back at restaurants and on some travel purchases.
2% back at Costco and Costco.com.
1% back on everything else.
Yup, here’s the link https://www.doctorofcredit.com/new-citi-costco-visa-personal-business-card-reviews/
Thanks Chuck.. Now that I’ve read the review on the 1%, it does makes sense. Also the NO bonus to start is a low blow.
That BOA card deal sounds sweet. Will be a good along the one Costo is changing to this June…. https://www.citi.com/credit-cards/creditcards/citi.action?ID=citi-costco-credit-card-conversion
If you have the 10% bank account bonus, this card would give 2.2% cashback at Costco, while the actual official Costco credit card would only give 2% cashback. Sad.
I used this card in 4 or 5 Walmarts and 3 Targets in the south Bay Area in the last half year, all of them got credited the 2%. Checking the Visa Supplier Locator, all of them are coded as grocery stores (lucky me?)
That is true, especially with Target, that it often codes as grocery. The question is regarding the ones that don’t (especially Walmart which often doesn’t).
Good point, let me add that in the post.
The Super Walmarts in my area(Augusta GA) all earn 2% with this card. I haven’t shopped at an old style Walmart without groceries with this card so I can’t confirm if they pay 2% or not. There are none in ny area anymore.
I meant to say my area not the ny area.
Hey Doc, are you sure the relationship bonus is on the full 2%? My assumption was that only the base rate (the 1%) was subject to the relationship bonus, so now you’d earn 2.75%, not 3.5% (if you are in the 75% bonus category). Not saying you are wrong, just checking! Thanks.
I don’t have a relationship with BofA, but I believe it’s confirmed that the relationship bonuses work on the bonus points too. It’s probably there in the fine print somewhere.
I can confirm. For the cash rewards card, unlike any other BofA card, the bonus is *when* and *on the whole amount* you redeem. Better yet, you can earn the 1%/2%/3% now, and if you only get the relationship bonus half a year from now, as you get the bonus at cashing out, your current spending will also get the practical 1.75% / 3.5% / 5.25% cashback.
Till when do you think will the BoFA 200$ offer be alive? I plan to get this with the Alaska 30K + 100.
No idea, has been on going for awhile now.
Doc, ask your inside source about Freedom’s future. I don’t see it changing. But I was wrong once before, haha.
I already have. Will post when we hear from them.