The most valuable credit card perk most people never claim is not on the card. It is in the bank account sitting next to it.
Two major US banks pay you materially more on the same card, for the same spending, purely because of what you keep on deposit with them. Bank of America will increase your card rewards by up to 75 percent. U.S. Bank will take a 2 percent card to 4 percent. Neither requires you to spend a dollar more, and neither is advertised on the card itself.
This guide covers what those programs actually pay, the arithmetic that decides whether they are worth it, and the reason the answer is often no.
Every figure below was read on each bank's own pages on September 4, 2026.
Bank of America: a percentage bonus on everything
Bank of America's rewards program applies a multiplier to what its cards already earn, scaled to your combined balances with the bank.
| Tier | Combined balances | Rewards bonus on eligible cards |
|---|---|---|
| Member | No minimum balance required | 10% |
| Preferred Plus | $30K+ | 25% |
| Preferred Honors | $100K+ | 50% |
| Premier | $1M+ | 75% |
Those are the bank's own figures and its own tier names.
The mechanism is worth understanding because it compounds rather than replaces. A card earning 1.5 percent does not become 2 percent at the top tier; it earns 1.5 percent plus a 75 percent bonus on those rewards, which is 2.625 percent. The bonus applies to the rewards, not to the spending.
The fee waivers scale too. Preferred Plus gets "monthly maintenance fees waived" on checking and savings. Preferred Honors gets "no monthly maintenance fee on checking and savings accounts." Premier adds waivers on "ATM fees, wire transfers, and foreign currency fees."
Our guide to Bank of America Preferred Rewards covers the program in more depth, and our roundup of the bank's cards covers which ones the bonus applies to.
U.S. Bank: a rate increase with a spending cap
U.S. Bank structures the same idea differently, and the difference matters.
Its Smartly card earns "2 Points for every $1 spent in eligible Net Purchases" as a base, per U.S. Bank's program rules. The Smartly Earning Bonus then adds to that rate according to your qualifying balance:
| Qualifying balance | Total points per $1 |
|---|---|
| $10,000 to $49,999.99 | 2.5 (base 2 plus 0.5) |
| $50,000 to $99,999.99 | 3 (base 2 plus 1) |
| $100,000 or more | 4 (base 2 plus 2) |
Two conditions attach, and both are easy to miss.
The bonus is capped by spending. U.S. Bank states the "Smartly Earning Bonus applies to a maximum of $10,000 in eligible Net Purchases each Card billing cycle," on the Smartly card page. So the 4 percent tier tops out at $10,000 a month, or $120,000 a year, of boosted spending. Above that you are back to the base rate.
The balance is an average, not a snapshot. The bank calculates "a 30-day average balance of all qualifying accounts," summing end-of-day ledger balances over the last 30 days and dividing. Moving money in the day before your statement does nothing; the balance has to actually sit there.
Our review of the Smartly card covers the card itself in more detail. U.S. Bank's wider lineup includes the Cash+ and Shopper Cash Rewards cards, neither of which asks anything of your deposits.
The arithmetic nobody does
Here is the part these programs are not designed to make easy, and it is the whole decision.
Deposits have an opportunity cost. Money parked to reach a tier is money not earning what it could earn elsewhere, and the reward has to beat that gap, not beat zero.
Work the U.S. Bank top tier as an example. Reaching 4 percent requires a $100,000 average balance. The bonus is worth 2 percentage points above the base rate, capped at $10,000 of spending a month. If you actually spend the full $120,000 a year, the extra 2 points are worth about $2,400 a year.
Now price the deposit. If that $100,000 could earn a meaningfully higher rate somewhere else, the difference comes straight off the $2,400. A gap of two percentage points on $100,000 is $2,000 a year, which erases most of it. A gap of three points erases all of it and then some.
The Bank of America tiers work the same way. A 50 percent bonus at $100,000 of balances sounds enormous, but it is 50 percent of your card rewards, not 50 percent of anything else. On $30,000 of annual spending at 1.5 percent, the base rewards are $450 and the bonus is $225. Against $100,000 tied up, that is the number you are comparing to whatever else the money could do.
None of this means the programs are bad. It means the honest question is never "how big is the bonus." It is "what is this deposit earning, and what would it earn elsewhere." If you were going to hold that cash at that bank anyway, the bonus is free money. If you are moving money specifically to qualify, it usually is not.
Who these programs actually suit
Three cases, and the split is sharp.
People who already bank there. The clearest yes. If your emergency fund, brokerage or mortgage relationship already sits with the bank, you may be sitting at a tier without having enrolled, earning nothing extra for it. Check your tier before you do anything else, because for a meaningful number of people this is money already earned and unclaimed.
High spenders with idle cash. The U.S. Bank structure rewards spending up to $10,000 a month, which means it suits someone whose card volume is high and who genuinely holds six figures in cash rather than invested. That is a narrower group than the marketing implies.
Everyone else. Probably not, and the reason is the opportunity cost above. A simple card with a strong flat rate and no balance requirement frequently beats a boosted card whose boost you paid for by parking money at a poor rate. Our comparison of cash back cards covers the alternatives that ask nothing of your deposits, and a flat-rate card like the Capital One Venture X earns the same on every purchase with no balance to maintain.
The perks that are genuinely hidden
Beyond the headline programs, three things sit in this category and are worth two minutes each.
Fee waivers you are already entitled to. Both banks tie monthly maintenance fee waivers to the same tiers. If you are paying a monthly checking fee at a bank where you also hold a card and a balance, check whether the tier you already occupy waives it. This is the single most common unclaimed benefit in the category, because the fee is small enough that nobody investigates it.
Foreign transaction and ATM fee waivers at the top. Bank of America's Premier tier waives "ATM fees, wire transfers, and foreign currency fees." For a frequent international traveler these are recurring costs that a card alone does not remove, and they are worth pricing alongside the rewards bonus rather than ignoring.
Relationship pricing outside rewards. Tier status at a bank frequently affects things the rewards page does not mention, from loan pricing to account minimums. That is not a credit card benefit, but it is part of what the deposit is buying, and leaving it out of the calculation undervalues the relationship for people who borrow.
Why these programs exist, and what that tells you
Understanding the bank's motive makes the offer easier to price.
Deposits are the cheapest funding a bank has. A customer who keeps $100,000 in a checking or savings account is lending the bank that money at whatever rate the account pays, and the bank redeploys it at a higher one. The spread on $100,000 is worth far more to the bank than a few hundred dollars of extra card rewards costs it.
That is why the bonus scales with balances rather than with spending, and why the top tiers demand sums most households do not hold in cash. The programs are deposit-gathering products wearing a rewards badge.
Two things follow that are genuinely useful to a reader.
The offer is stable. Because it serves a core funding need rather than a marketing budget, this kind of benefit tends to persist longer than a promotional bonus. Building around it is less risky than building around a transfer bonus or an elevated welcome offer.
The bank is indifferent to how you spend. Unlike category bonuses, which push you toward merchants the issuer has struck deals with, a balance-based multiplier applies to everything. That makes it unusually clean if you qualify: no categories to track, no quarterly activation, no caps except the one U.S. Bank states explicitly.
The flip side is the one already covered. You are being paid to accept a deposit rate, and if that rate is poor the payment may not cover the gap.
Where transferable points fit
One structural point worth making, because it changes the comparison.
A cash back bonus is a percentage of a fixed thing. A transferable points currency can be worth more than a cent per point when moved to an airline or hotel partner, which means a card earning fewer "points" can out-earn a boosted cash back card in practice.
So comparing a 4 percent cash back card against a 2x transferable-points card is not a comparison of 4 against 2. It is a comparison of 4 cents against whatever 2 points are worth to you, which depends entirely on how you redeem. Our comparison of transferable currencies covers how the major programs differ once the points are in your account.
If your redemptions are consistently ordinary, cash back plus a banking bonus is likely to win. If you reliably get outsized value from transfers, it likely does not. Our guide to Wells Fargo's transfer partners covers one bank that offers both shapes.
What to do this week
Four steps, and the first one is free.
Check the tier you are already in. Log in and look. A meaningful number of people qualify for a bonus tier through balances they already hold and have simply never noticed the rewards bonus applying, or failed to enroll where enrollment is required.
Check whether you are paying a fee your tier waives. Monthly maintenance, ATM, foreign transaction. These are small individually and add up annually.
Price the deposit before you move money. What is the balance earning at the bank, what could it earn elsewhere, and is the difference smaller than the rewards bonus. If not, do not move it.
Do not restructure your finances for a rewards bonus. This is the failure mode. The bonus is a percentage of card rewards, which for most households is a few hundred dollars a year. That is not a reason to hold six figures at a rate you would otherwise reject.
Our guide to how welcome bonuses work covers the other side of card economics, where the money is usually larger and the commitment shorter.
A note on how these programs change
One habit worth building, because this is a category where the terms move quietly.
Balance thresholds, bonus percentages and spending caps on relationship programs are adjusted more often than card earning rates, and the changes rarely arrive with an announcement. A tier that paid a certain bonus when you set it up may pay a different one now, and the bank has no obligation to tell you in a way you will notice.
Set a reminder to re-read the terms once a year. It takes five minutes, and the specific things to check are the balance required for your tier, the bonus percentage attached to it, and any cap on the spending the bonus applies to. Any of the three moving changes the arithmetic in this article.
That is also the reason every figure here carries a date. These are the terms as the two banks published them on September 4, 2026, and the method for pricing them will outlast the numbers.
This article contains affiliate links. If you apply through our links, we may earn a commission at no cost to you, which helps us continue sharing points and miles strategies with the community.
Sources
- Bank of America — rewards tiers, read 2026-09-04: Member at no minimum balance with a "10% rewards bonus on eligible cards", Preferred Plus at "$30K+ in combined balances" with 25%, Preferred Honors at "$100K+" with 50%, and Premier at "$1M+" with 75%, plus the monthly maintenance fee waivers and the Premier waivers on ATM fees, wire transfers and foreign currency fees
- U.S. Bank — Smartly Visa Signature program rules, read 2026-09-04: "2 Points for every $1 spent in eligible Net Purchases" as the base; Smartly Earning Bonus tiers of 2.5 points at $10,000-$49,999.99, 3 points at $50,000-$99,999.99 and 4 points at $100,000 or more; "Smartly Earning Bonus applies to a maximum of $10,000 in eligible Net Purchases each Card billing cycle"; and the qualifying balance as a 30-day average of end-of-day ledger balances
- U.S. Bank — Smartly Visa Signature card page, read 2026-09-04, for the card's base cash back rate and the Smartly Savings pairing referenced in this article
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