For a variety of reasons, I decided a few months ago to migrate to a heavy cash back strategy as opposed to points/miles- decreasing points valuations, lack of wanting to travel much during COVID, greater flexibility, etc. The most lucrative overall program seemed to be Bank of America Preferred Rewards utilizing their credit cards at the highest rewards tier. For those who may have looked at this before, the qualification involves a '3-month average combined balance' but there are scant details on the specifics of how that works. Here are some details for at least one recent data point in case anyone else is looking.

My plan was to move over a large enough amount of retirement funds into MerrillEdge to trigger the average balance in the shortest timeframe. In other words, for Platinum Honors level, it requires 100K+ but if one had 300K in the mix, it could be possible to have an average of 100K after the first month - depending on how they calculate things. I could not find specifics anywhere and many calls over a period of time provided only inconsistent answers. They went all the way from 3 full calendar months had to pass regardless of funds to some indication my plan above would track. My experience is that is was somewhere in the middle.

One piece of info that came out from calling did appear to be valid - the calculations by BoA are made on the 3rd business day of the month - in the evening so effectively the results are seen on the 4th business day.

Here was my path:

• 5/26 - opened BoA checking account ($1500 min balance for no fees before Preferred Rewards kicks in but was not expecting this to be a large factor in the average balance)
• 6/9 - funds from transfer check hit MerrillEdge account but are not yet available to invest (mailed check)
• 6/16 - funds from transfer cleared and made available in MerrillEdge account
• 7/6 (4th business day of month) - NOTHING - although the true average balance since 6/16 was well over the first threshold of 20K
• 8/6 (4th business day of month) - Preferred Rewards enrollment option shown on login to BoA at Platinum Honors level (chose to enroll and am good to go).

Once enrolled in Preferred Rewards (a step that is not automatic), the BoA site shows you the last calculated 3 month average (run each month on the 3rd business day). Looking at that, I was able to determine that the 3 month average went back to the day my rollover funds cleared (6/16). What is not clear from all of this is why their systems did not trigger an enrollment for me on 7/6.

Hopefully this helps someone else who may be trying to figure out the timing of Preferred Rewards enrollment offer - however as usual YMMV.

On a slightly related note - this program is large enough I am wondering if FT will someday get a BoA sub-forum like there is for Citi, Chase, etc.??