Bank of America Amtrak Guest Rewards World MasterCard Review
2022.1 Update: This card is discontinued.
2021.10 Update: The higher offer expired. There’s only 20k offer now.
2021.8 Update2: During the booking process, there is a 50k+$100 offer of this card. I’ve obtained a direct link, see application link part.
2021.8 Update: The new offer is 50k, and this is the best ever offer on this card.
Contents
Application Link
Benefits
- 20k offer: earn 20,000 bonus points after you make at least $1,000 in purchases on your new card within 90 days of account opening. The recent best offer is 50k+$100.
- The Amtrak points are worth about 2.5 cents/point, so the 50k+$100 sign-up bonus worth about $1,350.
- You’ll also receive a complimentary Companion Coupon, One-Class Upgrade and a single-day ClubAcela pass for access to ClubAcela, Amtrak Metropolitan LoungeSM or First class lounges upon account opening.
- Earn 3 points for every $1 spent on eligible Amtrak travel purchases, 2 points per $1 spent on all other eligible travel purchases, 1 point for every $1 spent on all other purchases.
- Earn Tier Qualifying Points (TQPs) in increments of 1,000 points for every $5,000 in eligible purchases on this card, up to 4,000 TQPs within a single calendar year.
- Get a 5% Amtrak Guest Rewards point rebate when you book your Amtrak redemption travel using this credit card.
- No foreign transaction fee.
Disadvantages
- $75 annual fee, NOT waived for the first year.
- There might be blackout dates issues for Companion Coupon and One-Class Upgrade etc.
Recommended Application Time
- We recommend you apply for this card after you have a credit history of at least one year.
- You can have multiple same credit card from BoA. You must wait at least 90 days to apply for the same credit card, otherwise the application will be automatically cancelled.
- [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”.
Summary
The welcome offer for this card is very good during promotion, so it is highly recommended if you need to travel with Amtrak. Since 2016.1.24, Amtrak has changed their zone based redemption policy to revenue based, so the points will be devalued for expensive tickets. In general, we recommend people who travel with Amtrak a lot to keep this Amtrak credit card, because you can save quite a bit with Companion Coupon and One-Class Upgrade etc. If you don’t want to always pay the annual fee, you can consider downgrade it to BoA Amtrak Rewards Platinum. For the ones who are not used to Amtrak, you can continue to travel with flights, it’s tiring to take long distance trains (of course you can see more veiws).
Related Credit Cards
- BoA Amtrak Guest Rewards (this post)
- BoA Amtrak Guest Rewards Platinum
Recommended Downgrade Options
After Applying
- Click here to check BoA application status.
- BoA reconsideration backdoor number: 877-383-0120 or 866-811-4108. 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.