BoA Unlimited Cash Rewards Credit Card Review (2026.9 Update: $250 Offer + Additional $150 Bonus From Rakuten!)
[2026.9 Update] Besides the $250 offer provided by BoA itself, third party website Rakuten offers an additional $150 cashback! Note that if you choose to earn MR on Rakuten you may see $0 additional cashback, you need to choose to earn cashback on Rakuten. We no longer track the additional cashback from Rakuten (unless there’s a best ever offer) because it changes too frequently.
[2026.8 Update] The new offer is $250.
[2025.6 Update] The new offer is $200 plus unlimited 2% cashback for the first year. This is 0.5% more cashback in addition to the existing 1.5% cashback rate. Therefore, if you are a Platinum Honors member with +75% bonus, you will earn 1.5%*(1+75%)+0.5%=3.125% cashback rate! This is the best ever offer on this card. This is a fantastic offer if you have huge spending.
Application Link
Benefits
- $250 offer: earn $250 cashback after spending $1,000 in first 3 months.
- Earn 1.5% cashback on all purchases.
- BoA Preferred Rewards program: If you have checking/savings/brokerage account in BoA or Merrill Edge, you can earn additional points based on the amount of asset. Earn additional 25% rewards if you are in Gold tier ($20k or more in balance); 50% if Platinum tier ($50k or more in balance); 75% if Platinum Honors tier ($100k or more in balance).
- No annual fee.
Disadvantages
- It has a foreign transaction fee, so it’s not a good choice outside the US.
Recommended Application Time
- You can get it even without SSN and with no credit history at all! We recommend you go to the branch in this situation.
- [New] 2/3/4 Rule: BoA will only approve you for at most: 2 cards per rolling 2 months; 3 cards per rolling 12 months; and 4 cards per rolling 24 months. Because their IT system hasn’t been fully updated yet, you may not get declined because of this rule. Instead, you may get approved at first, and then the account will be closed because of “approved in error”.
- [New] 24 month churn rule: This card will not be available to you if you currently have or have had the card in the preceding 24 month period.
Summary
The sign-up bonus is decent for a no annual fee card. If you have $100k+ balance in BoA or Merrill Edge, you can earn 1.5%*(1+75%)=2.625% in return! This card is quite similar to BoA Travel Rewards, the main differences are: (1) this card is a cashback card, so you don’t need to worry about the hassle of redeeming points; (2) this card has foreign transaction fee, so you shouldn’t use it outside of the US.
Related Credit Cards
After Applying
- Click here to check BoA application status.
- BoA reconsideration backdoor number: 800-732-9194. It seems that the number is changing. Please inform us at once if it fails. The representatives here can get in touch with decision-makers directly.
Historical Offers Chart
Application Link
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