Comment by lxgr
2 days ago
There are still several 2% cards that don’t require Apple Pay, although I don’t know of any with no foreign exchange fee other than maybe the Fidelity one.
For everything where Apple Pay works, it’s a great deal; for everything else, it’s below average (as there are many 1.5% on everything cards).
> it's essentially free money. Am I missing a catch here?
In the end, all you’re doing is recouping a bit more of your own money than with some other cards. You pay those 2% and more as part of the price of everything you buy.
Bank of America Travel Rewards is effectively 2.625% on everything if you put >$100k in a Merrill account and redeem the rewards against "travel" (including restaurants in any location) expenses charged to the card. There's no foreign transaction fee.
The biggest downside is all the dark patterns at Merrill trying to sell you advisory services. That seems to be only upon account opening, though.
Bank of America Preferred rewards card is even better with one caveat that there is a $95 annual fee. You get the 2.625 but you also get 3.5 on travel and dining, and you also get Global Entry paid once every 4 years, and $100 in travel incidentals (bag fees, wifi on plane) every year. And you do not need to redeem against travel, you can get cash back if that's what you want.
Yes, that’s a great cashback setup, but definitely not a “no catch” one. Really not a fan of the brokerage UX and generally the BofA web/app experience.
If all you’re doing is buying and holding VOO or TTTXX or similar, I don’t see what difference any of the major brokerage websites makes. If anything, I prefer BoA as they allow you to configure at least 2 phone numbers for SMS 2FA, so I don’t have to hunt down my wife to get the 2FA code.
> There are still several 2% cards that don’t require Apple Pay, although I don’t know of any with no foreign exchange fee other than maybe the Fidelity one.
The Bread American Express is a 2% card and no FTF. Fidelity is still the best overall card, but sometimes the AmEx can be nice.