Bank of America® Customized Cash Rewards Credit Card Expired

The Platinum Honors tier gives you 3% cash back PLUS 75% boost on rewards. Together that combines to be 5.25% cash back. This applies to your CATEGORY OF CHOICE, not all purchases. With mixed spending, you'll be lucky to get a combined 3% cash back for all purchases.

You'll need to spend $2,639 per month just to break even for the 0.05% interest rate of the $100K earned in BoA's savings or checking account. You can find other financial institutions paying 1.00%.

If you spend twice that amount per month ($5,258), you'll net 1.5% cash back.

Three times that amount per month ($7,917), and you'll net 2.0% cash back.

Personally, I'd have a hard time spending $7,917 each and every month. Meanwhile, I have credit cards that earn anywhere from 3% to 6% that cover most of my expenditures without needing to tie up so much cash.

You are wise to plan for your new car lease. Most people don't think that far ahead. As to whether this particular credit card suits your needs, I'd need to have a better picture of your spending habits. My guess? You can do better elsewhere.

EDIT:

My guess of doing better elsewhere has to do with the Platinum Honors tier. As far as the the basic Cash Rewards card (without tying up cash in the tier system), I think that most people can find a use for this card.

For myself, one of the biggest "holes" in my cash back/rewards system has been for Online Purchases. The Cash Rewards card helps me plug that hole.

Bank of America counts Merrill Lynch account balances to determine reward tiers (thus the name BAML in financial industry). It's fairly easy to maintain $100k balance in combined 401k/IRA/regular investment. Other perks include discounted loan rates, discounted mortgage origination fees, free ATM access, free trades, etc.

If most of the spendings are online, 5.25% if quite a bit. There is a $2,500 quarterly cap but one can have multiple cards. Personally I set one card on gas and also use it for groceries (it includes Walmart and Costco). Another two cards are on online shopping. It is possible to own 4 BofA cards at the same time, and one can tailor the reward categories based on individual needs. The category can be changed once per calendar month effective immediately. In a situation a card is currently on dining, it can be immediately changed to online shopping should there is a need to buy a new computer.

Disclaimer: I don't work for BAML.

Bank of America ...

Disclaimer: I don't work for BAML.

I've got a $100K handy that I was about to stick into a T-mobile checking account that pays 1% interest. Do you know of any investment vehicles by BoA or Merrill that offer a comparable rate and that would qualify for the Platinum Honors tier?

There's usually a signup bonus where you can get like 600-900 bucks from ML for throwing 100k in there.

After that, assuming this isn't $ you immediately need, just throw it in an S&P500 index fund- over the long term (any given 10 years for example) it's gonna beat the hell out of 1% interest.- nearer 10%.

Another way to make routine income on this would be to buy a good stock you can profitably sell way OTM covered calls on- this will make your taxes slightly more complex, but again should be able to beat the hell out of 1% interest even paying cap gains...



Plus the extra 2.25% you'll be getting on all your spend in those 3x categories.


(disclaimer, the above are lay opinions, not investment advice- but you can check avg 10 year return on index funds yourself easily enough or google selling covered calls as income)

Merrill Lynch brokerage has unlimited investment vehicles, many pay more than 1 percent. Depends on how much reasonable risk you will accept.

Can you provide me a link to these investment options?

When I do a search for Merrill investments, nearly all of the links end up with webpages that give a lot of broad advice but don't list any detailed investment options. All of them seem to direct my attention to an Investment Financial Advisor.

I'd like to know more about what they have to offer before talking to any of their Financial Advisors to avoid being steered into what THEY are interested, as opposed to what I am interested in.

Can you provide me a link to these investment options?

When I do a search for Merrill investments, nearly all of the links end up with webpages that give a lot of broad advice but don't list any detailed investment options. All of them seem to direct my attention to an Investment Financial Advisor.

I'd like to know more about what they have to offer before talking to any of their Financial Advisors to avoid being steered into what THEY are interested, as opposed to what I am interested in.

I've got a $100K handy that I was about to stick into a T-mobile checking account that pays 1% interest. Do you know of any investment vehicles by BoA or Merrill that offer a comparable rate and that would qualify for the Platinum Honors tier?

Again below is not advice, just general info:

.....

And generally returns are a LOT better than 1%.

Again below is not advice, just general info:


The two things I mentioned were just an S&P index fund.... which is simply taking your money and buying shares of a fund that owns the entire S&P500 (weighted for the market cap of each company).

For the S&P500 index, median annual returns for all 10-year periods since 1928 has been 6.5%. Which is obviously a lot better than 1%.

Over any 20 year period the median annual returns are 7.3%


This is basically the lazy persons best way to invest (ie you can't be bothered trying to pick a few potentially outstanding return stocks you deeply understand and believe in- so you use an index to just capture the typical gain across a broad spectrum of companies).


As long as this isn't money you're likely to IMMEDIATELY need, you can allow the longer investment horizon to get you a ton better returns than 1%.




The other thing I mentioned is selling covered calls.

If an index fund is new to you this is probably not the way to go.

But the short version of it is this:

A call option gives the owner of that option the right, but not the obligation, to buy 100 shares of a given stock at a specific price (called the strike), any time between when they buy the option, and a specific date (called the expiration).

They pay a premium to buy the option.


Essentially they buyer of the call is placing a bet.

The seller of the option gets to take the other side of that bet.

If the stock reaches the expiration date and it's below the strike price, the option is said to "expire worthless". The seller of the option 'won' the bet and the premium they collected up front is pure profit (minus income tax on it).


If the stock DOES go above the strike price, then you may have to sell those 100 shares (by owning those 100 shares to start with, your call is considered "covered") for the price you agreed on. But you still got the option $ on top- so the worst 'downside' here is you capped the gain on the stock... you still made a profit.

The other way to profit off option selling is selling covered puts... this is kinda the opposite of the above.

A put owner has the right, but not the obligation, to SELL 100 shares to the seller of the put for a fixed price by a fixed date.

So by selling them a put for a strike well below the current share price you're essentially selling them insurance that guarantees they can sell their shares for at least X dollars up to the expiration date. If it doesn't drop that far by that date, again, the premium you collected is pure profit.

In this case the put is "covered" by you having enough cash to buy the 100 shares at the strike price.

And finally, some folks swap between the two... selling puts until/unless they get assigned 100 shares on a dip in price... then selling calls covered by those same 100 shares until it goes up enough to exercise... and collecting profit and premiums both ways.

This strategy is called The Wheel.

And generally returns are a LOT better than 1%.

i got this deal without any hard pull on my credit. i guess being an account holder for quite sometime makes them trust you not to do a hard inquiry on your credit. got the $200 right after the third month billing.

yes you can apply for this one too. now i got the mastercard and this visa card.