Whenever I talk to people, they always tell me the Bank of America Keep the Change program is a waste of time. It’s too hard to earn $250. I’m always puzzled by this. You don’t HAVE to earn the whole $250 and it’s money you’re already going to spend. This is just a higher cashback % on most small purchases. I deliberately make seperate purchases at McDonalds and etc whenever I can to try to get the whole $250 in match. However, most people who just use the card on small purchases should easily rack up $100 match in 3 months.
Not worth it? If your purchase at McDonalds was $3.50, you’d get $0.50 in match which is essentially 14% cashback. $3.01? Approximately 33% cashback right there.
The BoA Keep the Change program is great for that first three month period where they match 100% of your change. But afterwards its not really worth it.
There are plenty of credit cards that offer 1% or 5% (the 5% is typically on groceries, gas, and drug store purchases) cash back on all your purchases. Compare this to 5% that BoA matches (on amounts less than a dollar) and you’ll see that the BoA program isn’t worth it.
If you purchase anything over $5 or purchase from a grocery store, gas station, or drug store, the rewards from a rewards credit card will always be better. If you purchase anything under $5 or under the 1% cash back rate, there are still many situations where a rewards card will be better.
If you look at it in terms of your total spending, it’s basically impossible for the BoA Keep the Change amounts to match up to the cash back from a rewards card, as 1-5% of your total spending is always going to be greater than 5% of various amounts of change.
Yes, you are right. It doesn’t make sense for people to not enroll in keep the change. Sure its only a 5% match after the first 3 months-
but who doesn’t want $250?