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For all the cash back friends, BoA is changing its “Preferred Rewards” program.
Most people were parking $100,000 with Merrill Edge to get “Platinum” rewards status. This status allowed you to receive a 75% cash back boost (e.g. 5.25% on online categories or 2.62% unlimited).
Starting on May 27, BoA is changing the program. To get the 75% cash back boost, you now have to maintain a $1M balance. The new boosts are:
10% for the Member tier (any account except a credit card, no minimum)
25% for the Preferred Plus tier ($30K-$100K)
50% for the Preferred Honors tier ($100K-$1M)
75% for the Premier tier ($1M+)
Love these little updates you do Bogdan. In this case it caused me to do my once-a-decade study on why I don’t have a Merrill Lynch account.
It’s a spending-centric vs. savings-centric approach to customer acquisition. It works well; they have beautiful office buildings and you get to play golf with your broker.
See you in 2036.
… as evermore vendors are adding a 3%+ surcharge for using credit cards. Even my independent Mercedes shop added same starting this year.
Accepting credit cards helped me grow my business, so I didn’t pass the fee to my clients. My merchant fee was less than the 3% that many retailers tack on to customers’ bills, so I suspect that they are over-charging (a little bit) for the use of credit cards.
Good point. I suspect that accepting credit cards increases volume. People tend to buy a bit more if it’s on a card. Merchants have a lot of never tacking on and extra percents. How many would simply not take cards if it is such a bad deal? Not many I bet.
If I were a ML client with less than a million, this change would not be well taken.
I’d have to crunch numbers for accuracy, however, my educated guess is that between Fidelity’s double cash VISA, Costco Visa, and Amazon credit cards, I am averaging around 3%, maybe more, in rewards.
I suppose it would be nice to have one card that could do it all, but I like the idea of having two cards in my wallet, in case one fails for some reason.
Absolutely. I’d always have at least two.
And, I’d always have one that’s not actually in my wallet.
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