Bank of America® Premium Rewards®

Most premium cards pay 1x outside their bonus categories: Chase Sapphire Reserve at $795 does, Citi Strata Premier at $95 does. Premium Rewards pays 1.5 points on everything, which changes the shape of the card completely — you aren't penalized for spending outside the categories the issuer chose.

Against Capital One Venture, the other $95 card here with a flat structure, the comparison is direct: Venture pays 2x on everything, Premium Rewards pays 2x on travel and dining and 1.5x elsewhere. Venture wins on unspecified spending; Premium Rewards wins if travel and dining are a large enough share to offset the lower base. That's a real trade rather than one card being better.

Points never expire while the account is open, which removes the quiet failure mode of rewards programs: earning them and then losing them to an expiry rule you didn't read. Only Capital One Venture and TD First Class make the same commitment in this catalog.

The APR runs 19.49% to 27.49%. The floor is on the higher side for a Bank of America card — BankAmericard starts at 14.99% — which is the usual pattern: rewards cards price interest above interest-focused ones, because the two are sold to different customers.

2x on travel and dining, 1.5x on everything else. Set beside the rest of the $95 tier that is the thinnest structure: Citi Strata Premier pays 3x across five categories, Chase Sapphire Preferred 3x across four, Wells Fargo Autograph Journey 5x on hotels and 4x on airlines.

The 1.5x base is also below what several no-fee cards in this catalog pay on everything. On the published earning rates alone, this is a difficult card to argue for.

Bank of America's Preferred Rewards programme lifts earning rates according to how much you hold with the bank, and for a customer deep in that programme the effective rates on this card are materially higher than the ones above. That is the real case for it.

It is also not something this catalog carries with a source and a date, so this page will not put a number on it. If you already bank with Bank of America and hold balances there, price the boosted rates on their own disclosure before deciding — the published figures on this page understate the card for you specifically, and overstate it for everyone else.

2x on travel and dining, 1.5x on everything else. Set beside the rest of the $95 tier that is the thinnest structure: Citi Strata Premier pays 3x across five categories, Chase Sapphire Preferred 3x across four, Wells Fargo Autograph Journey 5x on hotels and 4x on airlines.

The 1.5x base is also below what several no-fee cards in this catalog pay on everything. On the published earning rates alone, this is a difficult card to argue for.

Bank of America's Preferred Rewards programme lifts earning rates according to how much you hold with the bank, and for a customer deep in that programme the effective rates on this card are materially higher than the ones above. That is the real case for it.

It is also not something this catalog carries with a source and a date, so this page will not put a number on it. If you already bank with Bank of America and hold balances there, price the boosted rates on their own disclosure before deciding — the published figures on this page understate the card for you specifically, and overstate it for everyone else.