How to redeem Bank of America Travel Rewards points for maximum value

Bank of America has a slew of cashback and travel rewards cards under its own banner, and it even added 2 new cashback cards to its offerings last year - the Unlimited Cash Rewards and the Premium Rewards Elite credit cards.

One of its older offerings is the no fee Bank of America Travel Rewards credit card which earns 1.5 points everywhere.


Comparing 4 Bank of America Rewards cards. All images from bankofamerica.com.

If you go through the usual Travel Rewards redemption options, then the maximum value that you can get by using the points is as travel statement credit. That is, you can get 1 cent a point towards purchases made on the card in the travel category which includes airfare, hotels, transit and tolls, etc.


Bank of America Travel Rewards Card's basic redemption options.

But if you were a heavy spender on the card, for example because of an extra 2% offer, then you might soon run out of travel purchases to redeem, leaving you with poor redemption options like gift cards at 0.8 cents per point or cash redemption at 0.6 cents per point. Luckily, there is another way if you have another Bank of America card.

Best way to redeem Travel Rewards points

If you have the Bank of America Premium Rewards credit card, then you would know that it allows you to redeem your points at a 1c value no matter the redemption option you choose. 

Bank of America Premium Rewards card has better redemption options.

All the options allow redemption at 1c a point but the best of them is of course the cash option, which allows you to use your rewards however the way you want, and I have not seen a bonus on any of the redemption options so far.

Coming back to the topic of the post, it would be great if there was a way to make use of the Premium Rewards card redemption for your Travel Rewards card points. Well, the good news is that there is a way. 

If you have both the Premium Rewards and Travel Rewards credit cards, Bank of America allows you to transfer your Travel Rewards card points to the Premium Rewards card, thus allowing you to redeem them easily for a better value. 

The steps are as follows:

1. Login to your Travel Rewards online account and under the Rewards tab of the account page, select the 'Transfer Points' option.


 2. That opens a 'Transfer Reward Points' sub-window. Enter the 16-digit card number of the Premium Rewards credit card in the field provided.

3. Click on 'Check account eligibility' to verify that the transfer can be done.
Successful transfer eligibility check.

4. If the eligibility check succeeds, click 'Continue' to proceed. Select the number of points to transfer and finish by clicking 'Submit Transfer'.

Submit Transfer window.

Transfer success.

That's it. Now you should be able to get maximum value out of your Travel Rewards card points no matter the purchases you made. I have been able to do this for my own cards but the options mention being able to share rewards with friends and family so you might not need to have both cards in your name.

On another note, I also tried transferring the Travel Rewards points to my Customized Cash Rewards card, but it was not eligible. My guess is the Travel Rewards and the Premium Rewards run their rewards on a different backend then the Customized Cash Rewards card. Maybe WorldPoints?

Also, it would be nice if the tool automatically picked up the eligible cards in your account or if it allowed saving eligible cards for future transfers but those are small downsides for an otherwise great option.

Summary

It is possible to transfer your Bank of America Travel Rewards card points to your Bank of America Premium Rewards card points in order to get better redemption options including the 1c per point Cash redemption option.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review Air India Business Class from Vancouver to Delhi

Image
I recently flew Air India Business class from Vancouver to Delhi. In this post I review how I booked it and the details of the flight. Booking As described in my earlier post about Delta's IT fiasco, I had to book a Seattle to Delhi flight on short notice after Delta denied me boarding on a 7-month-old ticket. The options that Delta representatives offered me were poor in both terms of value and comfort - routing through Denver and London for instance and costing more than $2800 round trip for economy. I refused the offers with the best grimace I could offer in that situation. I next tried to find a good cash rate on Google Flights instead but none of the options looked appealing. I consider paying anything more than $800 for one-way in Economy to India and $1400 roundtrip as bad deals unless it's an emergency. What I ended up doing is booking via Aeroplan and that too in Business class.  I paid a total 85000 Aeroplan points + 46.20 Canadian Dollars (~$36) for the one-way ticke
Read more

Bank of America adds more categories to Custom Cash Card

Image
Bank of America ®  has added more cashback categories to its  Customized Cash Rewards credit card.  You can now earn 3% cash back on  EV charging stations, cable, streaming, internet & phone plan purchases  in addition to previous categories. The updated categories that can earn 3% cash back in are: • Gas &  EV Charging Stations • Online Shopping,  Cable, Streaming, Internet & Phone Plans • Dining • Travel • Drugstores & Pharmacies • Home Improvement & Furnishings Updated categories for Bank of America Custom Cash Card. Image courtesy Bank of America. You can change your category for future purchases, via Online Banking, or Mobile app. You can change it once each calendar month or your category stays the same.  You earn 3% and 2% cash back on the first $2,500 in these combined purchases each quarter, then 1% thereafter. Bank of America preferred customers earn bonus on top of these, with Gold members earning 3.75%, Platinum members earning 4.5%, and Platinum Honors
Read more

IHG Ambassador Renewal Offer extension

Image
As discussed before on this blog,  IHG Ambassador is one of the few reward status that can be outright purchased for a fixed amount every year. The usual rate is $200 or 40,000 IHG points. This can be very useful if you are going to stay at Six Senses for example. As also noted in the same blog, if you do not automatically renew, you usually get an offer to renew for $200 and get 15,000 points in return, which is a nice discount. Only a few days remain to renew your InterContinental® Ambassador membership. Give in to your sense of exploration and enjoy 15,000 bonus points when you renew for USD200 by 1 September 2023. Alternatively, you can also renew your Ambassador membership for 40,000 IHG One Rewards points. One additional data point to note is that if you do not renew by the first deadline, you get an additional month to renew with the same offer. Image courtesy IHG. Explore the world with the indulgences you deserve. Renew your InterContinental ® Ambassador mem
Read more