BoA Unlimited Cash Rewards Credit Card Review (2026.9 Update: $250 Offer + Additional $225 Bonus From Rakuten!)

     2026-09-05     2026-09-05 45 Comments

BoA

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Bank of America Unlimited Cash Rewards Credit Card Review

[2026.9 Update2] The additional cashback offered by Rakuten is now increased to $225, which is the best ever offer! We no longer track the additional cashback from Rakuten (unless there’s a best ever offer) because it changes too frequently.

[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.

Application Link

Benefits

  1. $250 offer: earn $250 cashback after spending $1,000 in first 3 months.
  2. Earn 1.5% cashback on all purchases.
  3. BofA Rewards credit card rewards bonus: if you have a BoA checking account and your combined assets in BoA bank accounts + Merrill Edge investment accounts reach certain thresholds, you can receive a credit card rewards bonus. The most useful tiers include: Preferred Honors, which requires more than $100k in assets and provides a 50% rewards bonus; and Premier, which requires more than $1M in assets and provides a 75% rewards bonus.
  4. No annual fee.

Disadvantages

  1. It has a foreign transaction fee, so it's not a good choice outside the US.

Recommended Application Time

  1. You can get it even without SSN and with no credit history at all! We recommend you go to the branch in this situation.
  2. 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”.
  3. 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

As a credit card that can be applied for without an SSN and with zero credit history, this card is well worth considering! If you have no credit history, you must apply at a branch. Note that branch applications do not come with a sign-up bonus, but for your very first credit card, the sign-up bonus should not be a major concern. Once you have built up enough credit history, you can apply for cards with much better rewards.

The card’s base earning rate of 1.5% cash back on all purchases is nothing special. However, suppose you have $100k in assets at Merrill Edge and qualify for the Preferred Honors tier. With the +50% rewards bonus, you would earn 2.25% cash back on all purchases! That is a very strong return for uncategorized spending. If you have $1M in assets and qualify for the Premier tier, you would earn 2.625% cash back on everything, which is even better. With the rewards bonus, this card becomes a solid no-annual-fee, one-card cash back setup.

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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