Update 6/21/21: Card now comes with a $200 bonus. Hat tip to US Credit Card Guide
AAA offers various credit cards to their members, some are U.S Bank cards and some Bank of America cards. Today we’ll take a quick look at the AAA Member Rewards Visa card issued by Bank of America. The card has been around for many years, and readers recently brought out a couple of interesting aspects of the card.
AAA Member Rewards Visa
Card earns the following rates:
- 3x (3% cash back) on travel and on AAA purchases
- 2x (2% cash back) on gas, grocery, and drugstores
- 1x (1% cash back) on everything else
A few other details about the card:
- No annual fee
- No foreign transaction fee
- The card is only available in select areas
- Reportedly, you can get and use this card even without AAA membership
- It’s possible to get a 20% bonus when redeeming points for AAA vouchers (10,000 points will get you $120 in vouchers or $100 in cash back)
- Rail purchases are not included in the travel category.
Interesting Notes
Relationship Bonus
Readers note that this card is eligible for the Bank of America Preferred Rewards program which will give BofA relationship customers better rewards. Apparently, only the base earnings get the Preferred bonus on this card (contrast that with other cards which give the bonus on category earnings as well). Here are the earning rates for the top tier relationship customer:
- 3.75% on travel and AAA purchases
- 2.75% on gas, grocery, and drugstores
- 1.75% everywhere else
Cashing Out BofA Points
Another thing readers note is that this card makes it possible to cash out travel points from the Bank of America Travel Rewards card at one-cent-per-point without having to deal with travel redemption. Simply transfer the points from the Travel Rewards card to the AAA card and then cash them out.
There’s reportedly a grandfathered version of a BofA business card which can also be used to cash out BofA travel points. It used to be possible to do so via the Fidelity card, but that card is now issued by US Bank.
Signup Bonus
The card currently offers a $50 Walmart gift card as a signup bonus. Students are not eligible for the signup bonus.
Our Verdict
The most interesting part is to use the card to cash out BofA travel points, making the card a great combo for someone with the Travel Rewards card which can earn up to 2.6% everywhere for relationship clients. That said, BofA travel redemption category is fairly broad, and most people won’t find it worthwhile getting this card just for this reason.
The other interesting thing is the 3.75% earnings rate on travel. This, too, isn’t spectacular being that many cards have travel as a bonus category, and a lot of people will value, for example, 3x Ultimate Rewards from CSR more than 3.75% cash. Further, the upcoming BofA premium card will offer 3.5% on travel for relationship clients, just .25% less than this card.
