Why Bank of America Worldpoints Business Visa might be useful to some

Just recently, Fidelity introduced its Fidelity Rewards Signature Visa to replace the Fidelity Amex.  With that, they are severing ties with Bank of America.  All current cardholders of the Fidelity Visa will be converted to the Visa within about 6 months.

The Fidelity Amex is a Worldpoints earning card.  The best thing about that card, in my opinion, is that you can take points from the Bank of America Travel Rewards Visa card and combine them with the Fidelity Amex, and then cash out those points instead of having to use them strictly for a travel credit to get maximum value.

Some with Platinum Honors benefits with Bank of America earn 2.62 points per dollar (equal to 2.62% towards a travel redemption) on the BankAmericard Travel Rewards, which is why I called it the best card for everyday spending.  However, with the Fidelity Amex going away, that 2.62% will not longer be able to be cashed out.  Instead, the only way to fully redeem BankAmericard Travel Rewards at 2.62% would be to use them for travel credit.

Here’s where the Bank of America Worldpoints Business Visa come in.  Having one of these worldpoints earnings card would allow you to effectively replace the Fidelity Amex in the sense of being able to combine points and cashing them out (see below).

Bank of America Worldpoints Business Visa cards

1. WorldPoints® Rewards for Business Visa® Card
   • No annual fee
   • Earn 2 rewards points per $1 on purchases at gas stations, restaurants, and office supply stores
   • Earn 1 rewards point per $1 on all other purchases
2. WorldPoints® Travel Rewards for Business Visa® Card
   • No annual fee
   • Earn 1.5 rewards points per $1 spent on all purchases.
   • Earn 3 rewards points per $1 spent for travel booked through Bank of America’s Travel center.
   • No limit to the number of points you can earn and points don’t expire

Cashing out the 2.62% from BankAmericard Travel Rewards

Of course, all of this is only beneficial if you have Platinum Honors benefits with Bank of America.  Once you have one of these business visa cards, you should be able to combine points from BankAmericard Travel Rewards Visa to that account.  After that, you should be able to cash out the worldpoints.  Per Creditcardforum, to get the full value of the worldpoints, you must redeem 25000 worldpoints or more at a time.  If you redeem for anything less, you will not get 1 cent per point value out of them.

Redeeming 25,000 points for a $470 economy roundtrip ticket.

With one of these business visas, you can use 25,000 points for a $470 roundtrip economy ticket.  That’s pretty amazing.  I learned about this from a pretty good guest post on Doctor of Credit.

I’ve written about redeeming 25,000 Worldpoints for a $400 airfare ticket with the Fidelity Amex, but having a Worldpoints Visa even increases the value even more.

The restrictions on the ticket:

• Twenty-one day advance booking and Saturday night stay required.
• Stopovers of four hours or more aren’t allowed.
• Tickets must be round trip on the same U.S. carrier approved by the Airline Reporting Corporation.

Here’s an example of how this all comes together for someone who is Platinum Honors with Bank of America earning 2.62% back on the BankAmericard Travel Rewards Visa.

Let’s say you spend $9600 on the BankAmericard Travel Rewards Visa.   As a result, you will earn 25152 travel rewards points.  Transfer them to the Worldpoints Visa.  Use 25,000 points and redeem for $250 cash or use those points for a $470 economy roundtrip ticket.  That’s pretty fantastic value for only $9600 spend.  In addition, this will be a revenue ticket, so you will be earning miles on this ticket.

If you look at the chart above, the business / first class tickets can be great value as well.

Keep in mind that you if you don’t have Platinum Honors with Bank of America, but instead Platinum only, you can still do well and earn 2.25% with the BankAmericard Travel Rewards Visa.

There you have it, 2 good reasons to have a worldpoints business visa.

Full disclosure: I don’t have a Worldpoints Business Visa.  I know that worldpoints can be combined, so I am assuming this will work.  I couldn’t test this out and there’s not much data out there regarding this.  If anyone has insight into this, please comment below.