The Bank of America Cash Rewards card allows you to choose one of 6 categories which earns 3% back on purchases up to $2,500 per quarter. The six categories are: gas, online shopping, dining, travel, drug stores, or home improvement and furnishings. It’s especially interesting since relationship customers get as much as 5.25% back due to the 75% rewards boost.
A lot of people have asked about which online merchants are included in the Online Shopping category. Most regular online retailers should work, e.g. Amazon.com, Walmart.com, Newegg.com, etc., but we won’t know for certain until we hear actual reports on the ground.
Please contribute any data points you have in the comments below. Feel free to add any data points about the other categories as well, but the online shopping category will be the primary focus here.
You can follow along the comments to see what works, or you can use the Comments Search Bar (found direct above the comments) to look up a particular website. I’ll also incorporate any data points found in the comments here into our Payments Workshop which tracks such information across many cards and programs.
Online Shopping bonus confirmed for:
1) Tesla subscription services (i.e., Premium Connectivity)
2) Tesla feature upgrade (Full Self Driving, $2K in my case)
I funded Coastal CU using my CCR MC and it qualified for the higher “online” CB rate.
I made a purchase from Giftcardsaving and it DID NOT count for the higher “online” CB rate on my CCR MC.
Does the BoA quarterly category accumulation (the max spend) reset to zero for Q4 at 12 AM Eastern Time on October 1? Or 4 AM Eastern Time? I want to purchase a CD very early on 10/1/2024, before the CD rate goes down (if I can capture it). I suspect the credit union will lower CD rates on 10/1/2024.
I want the purchase, on my BoA card, to count as a fourth quarter purchase for the Online Shopping category. I already maxed out the category for Q3. If I purchase at 4 AM Eastern on 10/1/2024 (if BoA uses west-coast time), would the transaction be considered to be in Q4? Thanks!
I can’t speak on experience, but I assume 3AM EST. Most banks’ day clocks change at 3AM PST time (Hawaii and Alaska get the screw job…lol).
First Florida CU funding coded as online purchase.
That’s the one that expired so fast, right?
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/fl-first-florida-credit-union-225-checking-bonus/
Yes…unfortunately, looks like additional accounts can’t be funded by CC :/
I funded LendingClub using my CCR Visa and it qualified for the higher “online” CB rate.
Sharing some data points –
Sam’s Club purchases made in-store, via Scan And Go coded as Online Shopping for 3% (rather than Wholesale Club for 2%). That includes both a store purchase and a café purchase.
BoA is NOT counting a manual online payment to AT&T to pay for internet services as “Online Shopping”. I called BoA customer service and they said that AT&T coded the transaction as “Telecommunications Services” which, according to BoA, is not “Cable, Internet & Streaming Services” nor “Landline and Mobile Phone Providers”. So it comes down to semantics and the actual code number, which I know, is the determiner, and I did not receive the Online Shopping category code rewards points.
My eBay purchase coded as “online shopping”.