It's anathema to consumerism and general polite political circles to give even 3 stars to a big…read morebank, let alone FOUR stars! After all, I'm a Warren supporter; big banks are evil (almost to the extent of big Pharma), especially to businesses big and small, where they take their money and offer 0 interest. What a DEAL - for the banker; for the bankee, not so much. It's more like the "Bang-ee", if you know what I mean.
But I'm being pragmatic here, and, I think, fair. I've held a BOA CC for the longest time, but truth be known, it was much, much more on account of my support for the WWF, and that beautiful tiger (see pic - they have an ADORABLE snow leopard one too). But ever since I found out about their 'program', I went, "Hmm - there's something in this for us, too, scraps as they might be (in the overall scheme of things!" You see (I'm gonna sound like their paid commercial now, but I'm not - 'paid' or a 'commercial') ... if you open a chq account with them, move over your investment account (regular, IRA, Roth) to Merrill Edge, you get some cool benefits. There are different levels, but at the highest level (Platinum Honors, 100K minimum investment), you get (for me, the biggest benefit) a 75% bump in your cash back of your CC. There are other benefits (you can check it out for yourself), but for us, that's the biggest one practically - until... today.
I had a rather large chq to deposit. My wife said, since it's from a Canadian company (account in USD notwithstanding), they're going to hold onto that chq forever before releasing it! Now generally speaking, this is true - chq I sent to a friend in HKG, I'm told they hold it for like a MONTH and STILL charge you for the privilege of using their service (see what I mean about 'evil' and 'big banks' being synonymous?) But I told her, since I have an established relationship with BOA, with money to back up any funny business, it'll be different.
So in I strolled to the BOA in LM, and the lady greeting folks at the front told me she was 'one of the managers' (Hi, Christina). I explained the situation to her, and she said, see you at the teller's counter. I'm sure she checked me out in the mean time (well I mean check my CREDENTIALS out, not 'me') - by the time I got to the teller, she said 'no hold'. Cool, I thought, as I swaggered out of the branch feeling like (almost, but not quite, not NEARLY quite) a million dollars.
WhenI came home to find that the balance did not reflect that deposit, I almost blew a gasket! Then I noticed a note saying that the funds, while not reflected in the balance, ARE available the next business day, which is what I need.
So, yeah, depending on your circumstances and allegiance, BOA just might have something that benefits YOU.
(P.S. I also get free trades on the stock market with Platinum Honors, equity AND options. That's sweet, but I hope it doesn't give me the license to do stupid trades)
