How to Use the Bank of America Travel Rewards Card Step by Step

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The Bank of America Travel Rewards credit card is designed for travelers who want simple, flexible points with no annual fee and no foreign transaction fees. Used thoughtfully, it can quietly cover airport taxis, budget flights, hotel nights, and even takeout on the road. This step by step guide walks through how the card works in real life, from your first application to redeeming points against actual travel and dining purchases on your statement.

Understanding How the Bank of America Travel Rewards Card Works

The Bank of America Travel Rewards credit card is built around a straightforward idea: earn points on every purchase, then use those points to erase eligible travel and dining charges from your bill as a statement credit. There is no annual fee and no foreign transaction fees, which makes it appealing for frequent international travelers and occasional vacationers alike. You earn at least 1.5 points per dollar on everyday spending, with higher earnings on certain travel bookings through the Bank of America Travel Center.

At its core, the card offers a flat 1.5 points per dollar on most purchases and an elevated rate, typically 3 points per dollar, on travel reservations booked via the Bank of America Travel Center. In practice, that means using the card to pay for things like groceries at home, a budget hotel in Lisbon, or a train ticket between Paris and Lyon, then applying points later to those travel or dining charges. Points are generally worth about 1 cent each when redeemed toward qualifying travel and restaurant purchases, so 10,000 points will usually wipe out about 100 dollars of eligible costs on your statement.

Instead of forcing you to book travel through a single airline or hotel program, the card lets you book however you like. You can reserve a Ryanair flight directly on the airline’s site, pay for an Airbnb in Barcelona, or buy an Amtrak ticket within the United States, then log in later and redeem points against those transactions. That flexibility is one of the card’s biggest advantages over co-branded airline or hotel cards, which often lock you into one brand and one set of redemption rules.

For travelers who keep their banking with Bank of America or Merrill, the Travel Rewards card can become more powerful. If you qualify for Bank of America Preferred Rewards based on your combined balances, you can earn a bonus on every purchase, effectively increasing your points rate. For example, at a common mid-tier level, your 1.5 points per dollar on everyday spend can climb closer to 2 points per dollar, and your 3 points per dollar on Travel Center bookings can move even higher. The exact boost depends on your tier, but the structure is designed to reward deeper banking relationships.

Step 1: Apply, Get Approved, and Set Up Your Account

Your first interaction with the Bank of America Travel Rewards card is the application. You can apply online, in a branch, or over the phone. The issuer will review your credit profile, income, existing relationship with Bank of America, and other factors. Many applicants receive an instant decision online. In other cases, you might be asked for additional information or receive a decision by mail a few days later. A stronger credit history and stable income increase your chances of approval and a higher starting credit limit.

Once approved, your physical card typically arrives in about one week within the United States. While you wait, you can often add the card to digital wallets such as Apple Pay or Google Pay through your online banking profile so you can start using it immediately for contactless purchases. This is useful if your card arrives just before a trip and you want to quickly start earning on airport parking, rideshare to the terminal, or last-minute luggage purchases.

When the card arrives, activate it via the Bank of America mobile app, online banking, or the automated phone number on the sticker. As part of activation, set up or confirm your online banking login if you do not already have one. In the app, navigate to the card’s main screen and locate the rewards section. You will see your current points balance, earning details and a link or button to “Redeem points.” Familiarizing yourself with this screen early makes it easier later when you start turning points into statement credits.

If there is a welcome bonus offer, such as earning a lump sum of points after spending a certain amount in the first few months, make note of the exact requirement and deadline. For example, you might see an offer of 25,000 bonus points after spending a few thousand dollars in purchases within 90 days. That bonus is typically worth about 250 dollars in travel and dining statement credits and can be enough to cover a domestic round trip ticket on a budget airline or several nights at a mid-range hotel in an off-season destination.

Step 2: Use the Card Strategically at Home and Abroad

Once your card is active, the fastest way to build points is to route as many everyday expenses as you comfortably can through the card, while paying your balance in full each month. The Travel Rewards card earns a minimum of 1.5 points per dollar on most purchases, with no rotating categories to track. Use it for groceries, streaming subscriptions, rideshares, gas, and phone bills at home. A typical traveler who spends around 1,500 dollars a month on such expenses could earn about 27,000 points in a year, worth roughly 270 dollars toward travel and dining purchases.

For travel-related bookings, you have two options. You can book through the Bank of America Travel Center to earn a higher rate, often 3 points per dollar, on eligible flights, hotels, and car rentals, or you can book directly with airlines, hotel groups, and other providers and still earn the base 1.5 points per dollar. As a concrete example, if you book a 600 dollar round trip flight to Rome through the Travel Center, you could earn about 1,800 points from that purchase alone, which later converts to about 18 dollars in statement credit toward travel or dining expenses.

On international trips, the no foreign transaction fee feature is particularly valuable. Many general credit cards add around 3 percent to every purchase made in another currency. With the Travel Rewards card, that extra cost is removed. Imagine spending 2,000 dollars over two weeks in Japan on hotels, meals, and train passes. A card with a 3 percent foreign transaction fee would add about 60 dollars in extra charges. The Bank of America Travel Rewards card avoids that fee, while also earning at least 1.5 points per dollar, which translates into about 30,000 points, or roughly 300 dollars in potential travel and dining statement credits down the line.

Because this is still a credit card, it is important to avoid interest charges by paying your statement balance in full each month whenever possible. The card sometimes offers an introductory period with 0 percent APR for a set number of billing cycles on purchases and balance transfers, but once that period ends, a variable interest rate applies. Using the card as a tool to earn rewards while staying out of long term debt ensures that the points you collect are a genuine benefit rather than an offset to expensive interest charges.

Step 3: Learn What Counts as “Travel” and “Dining” for Redemptions

To get full value from your points, you need to understand which purchases qualify as travel and dining for redemption purposes. Bank of America relies on merchant category codes, or MCCs, assigned to each business by the card networks. Common travel categories include airlines, hotels, motels, vacation rentals, cruise lines, car rental agencies, intercity buses, trains, ferries, tourist attractions and some travel agencies and booking platforms. Dining typically includes restaurants, cafes, fast casual chains, food delivery from restaurants, and sometimes bars and bakeries, depending on how they are coded.

In practice, this means a 45 dollar dinner at a family restaurant near Zion National Park, a 120 dollar hotel night in Denver, a 35 dollar train ticket between Munich and Salzburg, and a 15 dollar gelato shop purchase in Rome are all likely to show up as travel or dining in your transaction list. Once posted, you can use points to erase any or all of those charges through a statement credit. Purchases that usually do not qualify include general retail shopping, pure grocery stores without a travel or dining tag, prepaid reload cards, money transfers, and similar transactions.

There can be gray areas. For example, a restaurant located inside a hotel might code as a restaurant rather than a hotel, but both are usually eligible for travel and dining redemptions. On the other hand, a large warehouse club where you buy snacks for a road trip may code as wholesale retail and not count as travel or dining at all. Before a big trip, it can be helpful to make a few small test purchases at local merchants to see how they code in your online banking activity, which appears usually within a day or two.

Many cardholders also discover that experiences related to travel can qualify. Theme parks, major museums, popular sightseeing attractions, ski lift tickets, and guided tours often fall under travel-related MCCs. For instance, if you spend 300 dollars on one-day tickets to a major theme park in Florida and 90 dollars on food inside the park, those purchases may be recognized as travel and dining, allowing you to cover them later with points. The flexibility to redeem toward attraction tickets and meals as well as traditional transportation and lodging makes it easier to build an entire vacation around this rewards structure.

Step 4: Redeem Points as Statement Credits Against Travel and Dining

Redeeming points with the Bank of America Travel Rewards card is designed to be simple. First, use your card to pay for eligible travel and dining purchases as usual. Once those charges post to your account and appear on your online or app transaction list, you can log in and choose “Redeem points.” From there, select the option that applies points as a statement credit toward recent travel and restaurant transactions.

As an example, imagine you just returned from a long weekend in New York City where you booked a 450 dollar boutique hotel stay, spent 150 dollars on restaurant meals and coffee, and paid 80 dollars for a round trip ticket on the AirTrain and commuter rail. If you have 68,000 points saved up, you could choose to redeem 6,800 points to wipe out the 68 dollar rail expense and a portion of one restaurant bill, or you could redeem the full 68,000 points to erase 680 dollars of those combined travel and dining costs. Either way, the redemption appears on your next statement as credits reducing what you owe.

Redemptions usually start at relatively low points thresholds, often tied to a minimum dollar amount such as 25 dollars for travel and dining statement credits, though program rules can evolve over time. In many cases you can redeem partially against a single purchase. For instance, if you have 12,000 points worth roughly 120 dollars and you bought a 350 dollar flight, you can apply those 120 dollars of credit toward that one ticket, leaving 230 dollars you will still pay in cash. This partial redemption approach is especially helpful when your points balance does not fully cover a large trip expense.

While it is possible in some cases to redeem points for cash back deposits or general statement credits not tied to travel or dining, those options often come at a lower value per point. Travelers who want to maximize returns typically focus on using the card for actual travel and restaurant purchases and then redeeming at the higher travel and dining rate whenever possible. Keeping a running list of upcoming trips and expected costs can help you time redemptions for the expenses that matter most, such as a spring break flight for a college student or hotel nights for a family reunion.

Step 5: Pair the Card With Travel Habits and Bank of America Relationships

The Travel Rewards card becomes more powerful when you intentionally integrate it into your travel planning and your broader Bank of America relationship. Start by mapping out your likely trips for the year: perhaps a week in Mexico in February, a road trip through the Pacific Northwest in June, and a long haul flight to Europe in the fall. Estimate major costs like airfare, lodging, car rentals, and tours. Then plan to run those trip expenses through the card, along with your normal monthly spending, to hit any welcome bonus requirements and keep building your points balance steadily.

If you already keep savings or investments with Bank of America or Merrill, review whether you qualify for Preferred Rewards. At higher tiers, you can receive a meaningful bonus on every dollar spent with the Travel Rewards card. For example, at one mid-level tier, you might receive around a 50 percent bonus on your points, so your base 1.5 points per dollar becomes about 2.25 points per dollar, and Travel Center purchases that earn 3 points per dollar can jump toward 4.5 points per dollar. For a traveler spending around 20,000 dollars per year on the card, that difference can add up to tens of thousands of extra points annually.

It can sometimes make sense to pair the Travel Rewards card with another Bank of America product that focuses on cash rewards. Some travelers use the cash rewards card for high-value domestic categories, then switch to the Travel Rewards card whenever they leave the country or book flights and hotels. In real-world terms, a traveler in Chicago might pay for everyday supermarket runs with a cash back card, then turn to the Travel Rewards card for a 900 dollar flight to London, 700 dollars worth of London hotel stays, and 300 dollars of restaurant meals and pub dinners, all of which can later be offset with points.

For advanced users, there can be options to move points between certain Bank of America rewards cards, then redeem in whichever account offers the best value. The details and eligibility rules for point transfers change over time, so it is essential to review current program terms inside your online banking profile before relying on any specific transfer strategy. In general, though, keeping most of your travel and dining redemptions on the Travel Rewards card keeps the process straightforward and avoids confusion.

Step 6: Real-World Trip Scenarios Using the Travel Rewards Card

To see how this card plays out in daily travel, consider a long weekend in Lisbon for a solo traveler from Boston. The traveler books a 550 dollar round trip economy flight through the Bank of America Travel Center, earning around 1,650 points at the higher rate, and spends another 420 dollars on a small guesthouse booked directly, which earns about 630 points at the standard rate. During the trip, they spend approximately 300 dollars in restaurants, cafes, and bakeries and 120 dollars on metro passes, trams, and intercity trains, adding more than 900 points. In total, roughly 1,390 dollars of spend generates more than 2,000 points on the trip alone, not including any everyday spending at home before departure.

Back home, the traveler logs into the Bank of America app. They see the flight, lodging, dining, and transport charges clearly grouped by date. With a total of 35,000 points accumulated from months of pre-trip spending and the Lisbon purchases, they choose to redeem 30,000 points, worth about 300 dollars, against the 420 dollar guesthouse bill and several restaurant charges. This reduces the net cost of the trip considerably. If they had used a card with foreign transaction fees, they might have paid roughly 40 dollars extra in fees on the 1,390 dollars of overseas spending, on top of earning fewer or less flexible rewards.

Now picture a family of four planning a national park road trip across Utah and Arizona. They use the Travel Rewards card to prepay 900 dollars in car rental charges, 800 dollars in simple motel stays along the route, 250 dollars in guided jeep tours near Moab, and about 700 dollars in gas, groceries, and casual meals. With more than 2,600 dollars in trip-related spending, they earn at least 3,900 points, and possibly more if some bookings go through the Bank of America Travel Center. Later, they redeem 25,000 points, equal to about 250 dollars, to offset part of the car rental and one motel bill, effectively lowering the cost of the vacation without changing their itinerary or travel style.

These examples highlight the card’s quiet usefulness for real-life travel. It does not offer luxury airport lounge access or premium cabin upgrades, but it excels at covering the practical, unglamorous parts of a trip: the budget hotel before an early flight, the airport restaurant meal during a layover, the rideshare from the train station to your Airbnb, or the museum tickets that appear on your statement as a travel attraction. For many travelers, turning those everyday costs into occasional statement credits is more valuable than chasing complex airline and hotel award charts.

The Takeaway

The Bank of America Travel Rewards credit card is a solid, no-annual-fee option for travelers who value flexibility and simplicity. You earn at least 1.5 points per dollar on everyday purchases, often 3 points per dollar on travel bookings through the Bank of America Travel Center, and you can redeem those points at a straightforward rate toward actual travel and dining purchases on your statement. The absence of foreign transaction fees makes it a reliable choice for international trips, and Bank of America customers who qualify for Preferred Rewards can significantly boost their earning rates.

Used step by step, the card fits neatly into a traveler’s life: you apply and activate, route routine spending and trip costs through the card, learn which purchases qualify as travel and dining, and redeem points as statement credits that quietly cut the real cost of flights, hotels, meals, and experiences. By pairing the card with responsible repayment habits and a bit of planning around big trips, you can turn regular daily and travel spending into meaningful savings on the journeys you care about most.

FAQ

Q1. How many points does the Bank of America Travel Rewards card earn on everyday purchases?
The card typically earns at least 1.5 points per dollar on most everyday purchases, with a higher rate, often 3 points per dollar, on eligible travel bookings through the Bank of America Travel Center.

Q2. What are Bank of America Travel Rewards points worth when redeemed for travel?
In many cases, points are worth about 1 cent each when redeemed as statement credits against qualifying travel and dining purchases, so 10,000 points usually equal roughly 100 dollars of value.

Q3. Does the Bank of America Travel Rewards card charge foreign transaction fees?
No, one of the card’s key benefits is that it does not charge foreign transaction fees on purchases made in other currencies or with international merchants, which helps keep overseas trip costs lower.

Q4. How do I redeem points on the Bank of America Travel Rewards card?
You log in to Bank of America online banking or the mobile app, go to your card’s rewards section, select recent eligible travel and dining purchases, and apply points as a statement credit against those charges.

Q5. What counts as “travel” for redemption with this card?
Travel typically includes charges from airlines, hotels, motels, vacation rentals, cruise lines, car rentals, intercity trains and buses, tourist attractions, some theme parks, and similar merchants coded as travel by the card network.

Q6. Can I redeem points for things other than travel and dining?
In many cases you can redeem for general statement credits or deposits, but these options often provide a lower value per point than using points specifically for eligible travel and restaurant purchases.

Q7. Do Bank of America Travel Rewards points expire?
Points generally do not expire as long as your account remains open and in good standing, though the issuer can change program terms over time, so it is wise to review current conditions periodically.

Q8. Is there a minimum number of points required to redeem for travel?
There is often a minimum redemption amount tied to a specific dollar value, such as the equivalent of 25 dollars for travel and dining statement credits, although exact thresholds can change according to current program rules.

Q9. How does Bank of America Preferred Rewards affect my Travel Rewards card?
If you qualify for Preferred Rewards based on combined balances with Bank of America and Merrill, you may receive a percentage bonus on every dollar spent, effectively increasing the number of points earned on your Travel Rewards card purchases.

Q10. Is the Bank of America Travel Rewards card a good primary card for frequent travelers?
For many travelers who value no annual fee, no foreign transaction fees, and flexible redemptions toward real-world travel and dining expenses, it can serve as a strong primary or core travel card, especially when paired with other Bank of America products.