Bank of America Promotions and Offer Codes for November 2026

Bank of America rotates cash bonuses on and off its checking accounts, and at the last check no cash bonus was published on the bank’s official site. If a personal or business checking promotion returns, it will most likely follow the patterns the bank has used before. Those patterns are worth knowing in advance, because the requirements start counting from the day you open the account.

The two most recent offer types worked in very different ways:

• Personal checking offers (for example, Advantage Plus and Advantage SafeBalance) paid a tiered bonus based on how much qualifying direct deposit arrived in the first 90 days. You had to apply through a link carrying an offer code.
• Business checking offers (for example, Business Advantage Fundamentals) paid a flat bonus for bringing in new money and holding an average daily balance through a set maintenance window. No offer code was required, but you had to apply online.

All figures below describe past offers, not a current promotion. A relaunched offer could change the thresholds, amounts and windows, whether a code is needed, and which exclusions apply, including any cross-restrictions between personal and business bonuses. Read the live terms before you open an account, and treat any savings account code as unverified until the bank’s own offer page confirms it.

How Recent Personal Checking Bonuses Worked

Recent consumer offers attached the same bonus structure to each tier of Bank of America’s Advantage checking lineup. Because the payout terms were identical across tiers, the choice of account mattered more for its monthly fee than for the bonus.

Bonus tiers tied to direct deposit

The bonus scaled with the total qualifying direct deposits received within the first 90 days after account opening. In the most recent version, the tiers were:

The tiered design means you do not need to hit the top level to earn something. Someone whose paycheck brings in $6,000 over three months would land in the middle tier. Missing the $10,000 threshold by a small amount drops you to the lower payout, though, so it helps to estimate your deposits over the window before you open the account.

What counts as a qualifying direct deposit

The terms defined a qualifying direct deposit as a recurring electronic deposit of income, such as:

• Salary or wages from an employer
• Government benefits, such as Social Security

Several common ways of moving money into an account did not count:

• ATM deposits
• Person-to-person payments, including Zelle and similar apps (a PayPal transfer falls into the same category)
• Transfers from another bank account

This distinction trips up people who try to meet the threshold by moving savings across. A $10,000 transfer from an external account adds to your balance but contributes nothing to the bonus tier. If your income arrives as irregular transfers, or you are self-employed without payroll deposits, the personal offer is harder to qualify for than the headline amount suggests.

The payout timeline

The clock runs from the account opening date, not from your first deposit:

1. Day 0: The account opens with the offer code attached to the application.
2. Days 1 to 90: Qualifying direct deposits accumulate toward a tier.
3. Day 90 plus up to 60 days: If you met a tier, the bank deposits the bonus into the account within 60 days after the 90th day.

In the slowest case, the bonus arrives about five months after opening. The account had to stay open and in good standing until the payout. Closing it early, or letting it fall into a negative or restricted status, could forfeit the bonus. The terms set no minimum period after payout, but closing soon afterward still restarts the 12-month lookback, and any monthly fees charged in the meantime reduce what you keep.

Who was excluded

The main restriction on recent personal offers was a 12-month lookback: you were not eligible if you had owned any Bank of America personal checking account within the previous 12 months. The rule applied to personal checking as a category, not to a specific account tier. So switching from one Advantage tier to another, or reopening shortly after closing an account, did not reset eligibility.

Choosing the Account Behind a Personal Bonus

The tiers differ in ongoing cost and features:

• Advantage SafeBalance is a checkless account. It has no paper checks and is built to avoid overdrafts. It suits someone who mainly uses a debit card and wants the lowest-friction option.
• Advantage Plus is the standard checking tier. It includes paper checks and the usual features of a full checking account.
• The top relationship tier is designed for customers who hold more money with the bank and want the extra perks attached to it.

Each tier carries a monthly maintenance fee with its own waiver rules, typically based on balance, direct deposit or a broader banking relationship. Check the bank’s current fee schedule for the tier before you open it.

Pick the lowest tier whose fee you can reliably waive with the direct deposit you already route to the account.

Business Checking Offers and Offer Codes

The business offers ran on a different model. The most recent version, attached to Business Advantage Fundamentals and its higher-tier sibling, paid a flat bonus and did not require an offer code. The bonus came from opening the eligible account online during the promotion window.

That promotion paid $200 and expired at the end of 2025.

Requirements for the business bonus

The business offer used three conditions, each with its own deadline:

1. Open online. Branch openings did not qualify.
2. Deposit new money within 30 days. At least $5,000 had to arrive within the first 30 days, and it had to be money new to Bank of America. Funds moved from another Bank of America account, personal or business, did not count. They had to come from outside the bank.
3. Hold the balance during the maintenance period. The account had to keep an average daily balance of at least $5,000 from day 31 through day 90 after opening, a 60-day window.

The bonus was then credited within 60 days of meeting the requirements.

The average daily balance test is more forgiving than a minimum balance test, which fails the moment the account dips below the threshold. The average adds up end-of-day balances across the window and divides by the number of days, so a business can pay a large invoice mid-window and still pass.

Hypothetical example: An account holds $8,000 for the first 30 days of the maintenance period and $2,000 for the last 30. The average daily balance is ($8,000 × 30 + $2,000 × 30) ÷ 60 = $5,000. That meets a $5,000 average requirement exactly, even though the balance sat well below $5,000 for half the window.

Restrictions on the business bonus

Two further exclusions applied:

• You were not eligible if you had owned a Bank of America Business Advantage banking account within the previous 12 months.
• Bank of America employees were not eligible.

The business lookback covered Business Advantage accounts and the personal lookback covered personal checking.

Comparing the two structures

The personal offer tests your income flow. The business offer tests idle cash. A business with steady revenue but thin reserves may find the balance requirement harder than it looks. A person with savings but no payroll deposit faces the opposite problem with the personal offer.

How Offer Codes Are Applied

For personal offers, the code was normally embedded in the promotion link and added to the application automatically. Before you submit, confirm that the code appears on the application, because the terms tie eligibility to an application carrying it. If you start an application from the bank’s general homepage instead of the offer page, the code may not attach.

Some practical points for any code-based offer:

• Save the offer terms when you apply: the bonus amount, deadlines and exclusions. Promotions are revised and withdrawn, and the terms that apply are the ones in place when you opened the account.
• Note your opening date. Every deadline counts from it.
• Check the expiration date. A code must be used before the offer expires, but the qualifying window can extend past that date if you opened in time.

Recent promotions included no savings account offer code, and bank bonuses more often attach to checking.

Working Out What a Bonus Is Really Worth

A headline bonus is a gross figure. Its value to you depends on four things: the return relative to the money involved, fees, taxes and timing.

Return on the money involved. In the recent top tier, $500 for $10,000 in direct deposits works out to 5% of the deposit total. That number is not an interest rate. Direct deposit money is not locked up. It arrives and you can spend it, so the real cost is mostly the effort of rerouting your paycheck. The business structure is different: $5,000 had to stay in the account on average for 60 days, and that money could otherwise have been earning interest elsewhere.

Fees. Subtract any monthly maintenance fee you cannot waive over the months you keep the account open. Since the personal payout could arrive up to five months after opening, count at least that many months.

Taxes. In the US, bank account bonuses are generally treated as interest income, typically reported on Form 1099-INT and taxed at your ordinary income rate in the year you receive them. That may be the year after you opened the account if the payout lands in January or later.

Opportunity cost. For balance-based offers, compare the bonus with the interest the same cash would earn in a high-yield savings account or CD over the holding period.

Hypothetical example (business structure): A $200 bonus requires $5,000 held for roughly 90 days, the 30-day funding window plus the 60-day maintenance period. Assume the cash could otherwise earn 4% a year in a savings account, about $49 over 90 days, and the business pays tax at 24%. If the checking account’s fee is waived, the after-tax bonus is about $152, against about $37 after tax in forgone interest. The net gain is roughly $115. If the account charged a fee you could not waive for three months, subtract that too.

How we checked Bank of America

We visited bankofamerica.com on 13 November 2026, connecting from Tallinn, Estonia. The homepage opened normally for us. We scrolled to the footer, where the bank identifies itself as “Bank of America, N.A. Member FDIC” and names Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, a registered broker-dealer and Member SIPC, as the provider of securities products. From there we opened the About Us page. It states that BofA Securities, Inc. and two Merrill entities are registered as futures commission merchants with the CFTC. We also read the California Consumer Privacy Act disclosure, which lists the group’s legal entities.

Prices were easy to find on public pages. The credit card page listed the Customized Cash Rewards card with no annual fee and “a $200 online cash rewards bonus offer,” while the Premium Rewards card carries a $95 annual fee. For deposit accounts, the bank’s pages showed monthly charges of $12/month and $25/month, each waived for Preferred Rewards clients. We saw no checking bonus on any page we opened. Some homepage content sat behind a login wall, and we did not sign in, apply or open an account. The bank’s account fees page repeats the FDIC membership line.

Then the register. On 13 November 2026 we searched FDIC BankFind Suite by web address for “bankofamerica.com”. It returned Bank of America, National Association, certificate 3510, listed as insured since 01/01/1934, with the Comptroller of the Currency as regulator and headquarters at 100 N Tryon St Charlotte, NC 28202. That matches the footer claim.

Customer sentiment is poor. When we read Trustpilot on 13 November 2026, the bank scored 1.4/5 from 3,753 reviews, and 88% of those were one-star. Nobody had claimed the profile. The Wayback Machine’s first capture of the domain dates to 1998-12-12. We never opened an account or moved money, so we cannot say how the bonus rules described above play out in practice. Only the bank’s live offer page can confirm whether a new checking promotion has appeared.

Comparing a Bank of America Offer With Other Banks

Bank of America is a reasonable pick if you already want an account at a large national bank with an extensive branch and ATM network, but it is less often the highest-paying option. Other large banks run checking bonuses with higher top tiers or bundle checking and savings bonuses together, as Chase Bank promotions do.

To compare offers on equal terms, line up:

• The qualifying action: direct deposit, new money, a balance held, or a number of debit card transactions. Pick the requirement you can meet with money you already move.
• The money and time involved: how much must arrive or stay, and for how many days.
• The full timeline: opening, qualifying window, maintenance window and payout lag added together.
• Fees during that timeline, and whether you can waive them.
• The lookback rules, which determine when you could earn another bonus from the same bank.