Bank of America® Unlimited Cash Rewards Credit Card review: Earn 1.5% on all purchases

The CardName is a great no-annual-fee credit card for anyone looking to earn cash back on all purchases, but it's a particularly good option for Bank of America customers. Here's why: Bank of America Preferred Rewards members can earn 25%-75% more cash back on every purchase, meaning that this card could earn eligible cardholders up to 2.62% back on every purchase - a great offer for a card with no annual fee.

CardName BENEFITS

There are a number of benefits offered with the CardName. The main ones you'll want to consider include:

• Solid cash back rewards - you'll get 1.5% cash back on all purchases. And there is no limit to the cash back that you can earn.
• No annual fee. (Annual fees often mean more cash back, but at the same time it can be nice to not have to hassle with an annual fee.)
• You will earn a $200 online cash rewards bonus after spending at least $1,000 in purchases within the first 90 days of opening an account.
• Are you a Bank of America Preferred Rewards member? (In order to be one, you need to have an active, eligible Bank of America checking account and a three-month combined average daily balance of $20,000 or more in qualifying Bank of America deposit accounts and/or Merrill Investment accounts.) If you are a Preferred Rewards member, you can receive a 25% to 75% bonus on rewards earned. So instead of 1.5% cash back, you might get as much as 2.62% cash back on every purchase.
• You'll receive IntroAPRRate - and for any balance transfers made within 60 days of opening your account (BalanceTransferFees fee applies). After the introductory APR offer is over, the card will have a RegAPR A 3% Intro balance transfer fee will apply for the first 60 days your account is open. After the Intro balance transfer fee offer ends, the fee for future balance transfers is 4%..

FEATURED CARD

 

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• Earn a $250 statement credit after you spend $3,000 in purchases on your new Card within the first 6 months.
• $0 intro annual fee for the first year, then $95.
• Buy Now, Pay Later: Enjoy $0 intro plan fees when you use Plan It® to split up large purchases into monthly installments. Pay $0 intro plan fees on plans created during the first 12 months from the date of account opening. Plans created after that will have a monthly plan fee up to 1.33% of each eligible purchase amount moved into a plan based on the plan duration, the APR that would otherwise apply to the purchase, and other factors.
• Low Intro APR: 0% on purchases and balance transfers for 12 months from the date of account opening. After that, your APR will be a variable APR of 19.24% - 29.99%. Variable APRs will not exceed 29.99%.
• 6% Cash Back at U.S. supermarkets on up to $6,000 per year in purchases (then 1%).
• 6% Cash Back on select U.S. streaming subscriptions.
• 3% Cash Back at U.S. gas stations.
• 3% Cash Back on transit (including taxis/rideshare, parking, tolls, trains, buses and more).
• 1% Cash Back on other purchases.
• Cash Back is received in the form of Reward Dollars that can be redeemed as a statement credit or at Amazon.com checkout.
• Get up to $120 in statement credits annually when you pay for an auto-renewing subscription to Equinox+ at equinoxplus.com with your Blue Cash Preferred® Card. That's $10 in statement credits each month. Enrollment required.
• Thinking about getting the Disney Bundle which can include Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+? Your decision made easy with $7/month back in the form of a statement credit after you spend $9.99 or more each month on an eligible subscription (subject to auto renewal) with your Blue Cash Preferred® Card. Enrollment required.
• Terms Apply.

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WHO IS A GOOD FIT FOR THE CardName?

The CardName is a good credit card for anyone who wants a credit card with no annual fee - and who wants to earn a little more than the standard 1% fee on all purchases. If you want to earn considerably more, like, 3% or 5% cash back, you generally will have to pay an annual fee, or those bonus rewards will only be on select spend categories.

If you are a Bank of America cardholder, it starts to make even more sense to have this card because - well, it's a good credit card at your own bank.

That said, if you're a Bank of America Preferred Rewards member, it really begins to make sense because, as noted, you'll be getting more back than 1.5%. You'll receive 25% to 75% more than 1.5%, which comes to about 1.87% to 2.62% cash back on every purchase.

Moreover, if you have other Bank of America credit cards that earn cash back in bonus categories, the CardName can be a good one to use in addition to those cards for all of those "other" 1% purchases.

In other words, if you really play your cards right (that is, your Bank of America credit cards), you can strategically save more money than the average consumer.

POTENTIAL DOWNSIDES OF THE CardName

Every up has a down, and the CardName is no exception. A couple downsides include:

• There is a foreign transaction fee of foreign_fee, which is common with no-annual-fee cash-back cards, but when you have a credit card with that type of fee, it makes traveling internationally more expensive. If you have another credit card without a foreign transaction fee that you can use abroad, then this card becomes even more appealing.
• Also, if you aren't a Preferred Rewards member of Bank of America, and if your bank account simply isn't full and robust enough to become one, you might feel like you're losing out a bit on the cash back rewards available.

CardName CARDHOLDER SCORES

CardRatings conducts a survey annually to learn what actual cardholders think of their cards. Here are the results:

HOW THE CardName COMPARES TO OTHER CARDS

CardName vs. CardName

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At first glance, the CardName seems to wallop the CardName in the rewards department.

The "customized" version gives you 3% in a category of your choice (cash back on gas and EV charging station, online shopping/cable/internet/phone plan/streaming, dining, travel, drug store/pharmacy or home improvement/furnishing purchases). At grocery stores and wholesale clubs, you'll get 2% (up to $2,500 in combined choice category/grocery store/wholesale club quarterly purchases, then 1%), and unlimited 1% on all other purchases.

Because there is a limit to how much you can earn in bonus categories, and because some cardholders don't like dealing with categories of their choice and just love the simplicity of saving money and figuring nothing out, the CardName might be the better way to go. However, savvy cardholders could benefit from having both cards in their wallet by using the CardName for bonus category spend, and then the CardName for all "other" purchases earning 1.5% cash back instead of the standard 1%.

Everything else about the two credit cards is pretty similar, such as earning a $200 online cash back bonus after you spend at least $1,000 in purchases in the first 90 days after account opening, which you can also do with the CardName. The Customized card also has introductory APR for your first 15 billing cycles for purchases, and for any balance transfers made within 60 days of opening your account (then RegAPR). A 3% intro balance transfer fee will apply for the first 60 days your account is open; after that the fee for future balance transfers is 4%.

CardName vs. CardName

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Credit cards promising unlimited cash rewards? How are they going to stack up? Well, the CardName card is one of those cards where you have to be strategic, but if you don't mind that, you will get some generous rewards including 6.5% cash back on travel purchased through Chase Travel, our premier rewards program that lets you redeem rewards for cash back, travel, gift cards and more; 4.5% cash back on drugstore purchases and dining at restaurants, including takeout and eligible delivery service, and 3% on all other purchases (on up to $20,000 spent in the first year). After your first year or $20,000 spent, enjoy 5% cash back on Chase travel; 3% cash back on drugstore purchases and dining; and unlimited 1.5% cash back on all other purchases.

The Bank of America card offers unlimited 1.5% back on everything, although if you are a Bank of America Preferred Rewards member, you might make up to 2.62% cash back, which certainly puts it in contention with CardName.

Both cards do not have an annual fee; both cards have a foreign transaction fee of 3%; and both cards offer intro APR. With the CardName, cardholders can enjoy intro APR for 15 months from account opening on purchases and balance transfers, then RegAPR.

CardName vs. CardName

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These are both pretty equally matched cards. The CardName offers unlimited 1.5% cash back on purchases, just like Bank of America card. Capital One Quicksilver's intro perk is a one-time $200 bonus after you spend $500 on purchases within the first three months; the CardName gives you $200 after you spend $1,000 in 90 days. Both have intro APR offers. With the Quicksilver card, cardholders can look forward to 0% intro APR on purchases and balance transfers for 15 months (then, RegAPR; balance transfer fee applies.

If you frequently travel aboard, the Quicksilver card might be of more interest to you though as it doesn't charge fees on foreign transactions - a rare perk for a no-annual-fee cash-back card.

IS THE CardName A GOOD CARD?

Yes, particularly for Bank of America Preferred Rewards cardholders, the CardName is good credit card. Unlimited 1.5% cash back, no annual fee, a $200 welcome bonus after you spend $1,000 in 90 days, and additional bonus rewards for preferred cardholders makes this a good, easy-to-use and easy-to-benefit-from credit card option for a variety of different types of credit card users.

Survey Methodology: CardRatings commissioned Op4G in September and October 2022 to conduct surveys among 1,554 cardholders nationwide. CardRatings website analytics from Jan. 1, 2022-Aug. 31, 2022 were used to determine a selection of the most popular cards and additional cards were included to add survey breadth. Responses to each of nine questions were given on a scale of 1-10 and respondents' scores were then averaged under broad topics. To determine the overall score, responses from questions 1-8 were summed and the answer to "How likely are you to recommend this card to a friend, coworker or family member?" was double weighted. "Current Scores" reflect scores from the most recent survey (2022); "Past Scores" reflect scores from the 2021 survey.