Step-by-step: How to redeem points with a Bank of America Premium Rewards card

If you keep Bank of America® Premium Rewards® With credit cards, you have several options when it comes time to redeem your points: You can use them to book travel, get cash back, or buy gift cards. But how exactly do you redeem them? Here’s a step-by-step guide to using your Bank of America Premium Rewards credit card points.

Begin

First, you need to log into your Bank of America account, select your Premium Rewards credit card from the list of accounts, and click the “Rewards” tab. That tab will show your total available points and provide an option to redeem them.

Clicking “Redeem Points” takes you to a screen with three redemption options – you can use your points for travel, cash or gift cards. There is a minimum of 2,500 points for all redemptions.

Bank of America doesn’t have any airline or hotel transfer partners, but the first redemption option – “Travel” – will allow you to use your points to book flights, hotels or car hire directly. The redemption rate is a percentage point, the same as the rate for the other two selections.

However, you should probably book your travel another way. For example, if you use an online travel agent (OTA) like Orbitz or Expedia, you can earn more rewards from the OTA itself. In addition, many OTAs appear on Cashback shopping portalso you can dip twice when booking and get more money. Then, if you still want to use your Specialty Points for travel bookings, simply redeem them for statement credits of the same amount and you’ll get identical one-cent conversion rates.

The same advice applies to gift card redemption – you’ll get a percentage point each. You don’t lose any value going this route, but there are generally better ways to buy gift cards with discount or cashbackOr you can simply pay for purchases with a credit card and earn extra rewards that way.

That brings us to the most valuable option – cash. We love points and miles, but nothing is more versatile than cash, and the Premium Rewards card is one of the most powerful earning cards available, especially when you combine it with the Bank of America Preferred Rewards banking program. With this program you can earn up to 75% bonus on your credit card rewards, but to get to this level you will need to have $100,000 in assets with Bank of America or british. her brother Merrill Lynch.

So when you click on the “Cash” option, you get to a screen that allows you to use the points to deposit directly into your US Bank or Merrill account, 529 College Savings Plan, or star credit for your Special Rewards Card. Click the “Redeem Options” pull-down menu and you will see your various Bank of America accounts listed, including the Special Rewards card.

After choosing an account, you can enter the number of points you want to redeem. Bank of America will display how much cash you will receive for those points and ask you to confirm your entry.

The final screen will show a confirmation that your redemption request has been submitted, along with all the details and transaction ID number (which you should note in case of any issues). It can take up to five business days for the redemption process to appear, so don’t panic if you don’t see it right away.

Automatic redemption

You may have noticed that, along with the process above for making a redemption (which Bank of America calls a “One Time Redemption”), there is a tab to the right that offers the opportunity to set up Auto Redeem.

Enabling Auto Redeem will cause all the points you earn to be automatically redeemed for statement credits or deposited into the account you set up at the end of each month, as long as you have at least 2,500 points to redeem. If you want to put your redemption amount on autopilot, you will never have to think about it. Only watch the cash grow every month.

As you can see, redeeming with this card is quite simple and Premium Rewards card with reasonable annual fee.

The Premium Rewards card is a cashback credit cardbut if you’re primarily interested in travel rewards, Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card same $95 annual fee and bigger bonus – you will earn 60,000 Chase the ultimate reward points after spending $4,000 in the first three months of having the card. The Premium Rewards card has a bonus of 50,000 points after spending $3,000 in the first 90 days of account opening.

The Chase points you earn with the Sapphire Preferred are worth one cent per point for cashback or 1.25 cents per travel booked through Travel Portal Ultimate Reward. It earns 3 points for every higher dollar on dining and 5 points on travel booked through the Chase travel portal (or the same 2 points per dollar on travel booked elsewhere).

For spending that doesn’t fall outside of these bonus categories, 1.5 points per dollar of the Premium Rewards card beats 1 point per dollar of the Sapphire Preferred Card. But with Sapphire Preferred, you can Chase points transfer for the issuer’s airline and hotel partners.

This option makes best travel credit card a much better option to book business class and first class flights than best cashback card. For some examples of what you can do with transferable Chase points, see our article on Best ways to use Chase Ultimate rewards.

Or, if you like the simplicity of cash back and don’t qualify for the Bank of America Preferred Rewards program, Citi® Double Cash Card is a great choice. It has no annual fee and 2% cash back on purchases: 1% when you make a purchase and an additional 1% when you pay off your balance.

Register here: Bank of America Premium Rewards Card.

Additional reporting by Ryan Wilcox and Jason Stauffer.