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For frugal travelers, the Bank of America® Travel Rewards credit card is a perfect choice: It charges an annual fee of $0 and features flexible, easy-to-redeem rewards.
Here’s what to know about its benefits.
No annual fee
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Right away, the Bank of America® Travel Rewards credit card‘s annual fee of $0 sets it apart from other travel credit cards and makes it an excellent pick for budget-minded travelers. Even if you don’t spend much on this card, you’ll come out ahead in rewards as long as you don’t carry a balance from month to month.
» MORE: NerdWallet’s best no annual fee travel credit cards
Versatile rewards
Earning and redeeming points is simple on this card. You earn a flat 1.5 points per dollar spent on all purchases. Points can be redeemed as a statement credit toward a broad range of travel expenses, such as airline tickets, hotel stays, amusement park entry fees, RV rentals and more. General travel cards from other issuers tend to have narrower definitions of “travel,” often leaving cardholders with fewer options when redeeming rewards.
Travel redemptions start at just 2,500 points, so you don’t have to make a big purchase to cash in rewards. Points are worth 1 cent apiece when redeemed for travel.
Sign-up bonus
Like any good travel credit card, the Bank of America® Travel Rewards credit card starts you off with a sign-up bonus: 25,000 online bonus points after you make at least $1,000 in purchases in the first 90 days of account opening – that can be a $250 statement credit toward travel purchases.
For a $0-annual-fee card, that’s an excellent offer. The reasonable spending requirement makes it relatively easy to nab, too.
Preferred Rewards
This straightforward card gets far more exciting if you keep a lot of money in Bank of America® or Merrill accounts. That’s because if you qualify for the bank’s Preferred Rewards program — by maintaining combined balances of $20,000 or more among eligible accounts — you can earn a higher rewards rate on this card (and all eligible Bank of America® credit cards), along with other benefits.
With combined balances of over $100,000, for example, you could earn 2.62 points per dollar spent on this card, according to the bank. Remember, you have to be enrolled in the Preferred Rewards program to get that boost.
No foreign transaction fees
This card charges no foreign transaction fees, so you won’t have to deal with any annoying 3% charges while making purchases outside the U.S. That benefit, combined with the card’s other budget-friendly features, regularly earns it a spot on our list of Best No Foreign Transaction Fee Credit Cards.
0% intro APR offer
The Bank of America® Travel Rewards credit card is one of the few travel cards that features a generous 0% APR period: It boasts 0% on Purchases for 12 billing cycles, and then the ongoing APR of 17.24% – 25.24% Variable APR. That can come in handy if you book a trip using the card and want to pay it off over a few months, instead of all at once. And while you’re floating that balance interest-free, you can score that sign-up bonus.