Bank of America has launched a new cash-back reward program called "Add it Up," where money is deposited in your bank account when you shop from partner retailers. For example, they offer 1% cash back on every dollar spent at Newegg, and 5% for every dollar spent at CompUSA. [Dallas Morning News]
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why can't they just focus on trying to be a good bank instead of pushing these gimmicks on us?
Great deal.....first time I have ever seen a cash back program that works with your debit card. As much as I shop at TigerDirect/Compusa, Overstock.com, Dell, and New Egg, I will be saving a bundle on teh discounts and cashback!
BoA has had 2.5 years to clear up the issue with having Matthew Shinnick arrested just for asking to verify a check, and was even given the opportunity to split the difference with Clark Howard, and still has not.
I thought CompUSA folded. Still, this isn't incentive enough to do any business with Bank of America, not with all of the stories I've seen around here.
I don't know if anyone has noticed this yet... But these are the same merchants used in:
FatWallet.com
QuickenPicks.com
uPromise.com
It's just another "referral program" ... So, for the same "rewards" back, you can use Fatwallet or QuickenPicks, and not have to deal with B of A.
Upromise is the same, and offers perhaps more, but can only be used towards education (tuition)
CompUSA's still around? "Funny" story, I was down in Natick, MA today and drove past where a CompUSA closed about 3 years ago. The building's still vacant.
I hope the Violent Femmes will be doing the theme song.
"I've given you a decision to make,
Things to lose, things to take.
Just as she's about ready to cut it up:
She says, "Wait a minute, honey, I'm gonna add it up!"
Add it up! Add it up! Add it up!
CompUSA??? Really?
Gordon Gano's gonna be PISSED.
Is it me.. or does 1% of every dollar spent on NewEgg.com mean 1 cent?
Id have to spend 1000 bux to get 1 dollar from BOA ? Is that right?
@Chong Soh: No, you'd have to spend $100 to get $1. It's not huge, but it's free money if you shop there anyways. If you don't want it, I'll take it.
But the down side is that you have to bank at Bank of America.
Not enough to keep me from continuing my switch to local credit union after being a Bank of America customer for 14 years. If I won't shop @ Walmart then I can't bank here. Please no one tell me anything bad about Costco...
Wanking on America, as always.
My dad does freelance graphics design work, and said he was tempted to create and print out $500 and $1,000 Circuit City gift cards using his commercial grade laser printer and leave them in random places around town the day after CC closed for good. I thought that was a hilarious idea.
The CompUSA brand name was bought by TigerDirect, so some stores still remain and some TD stores were renamed CompUSA.
Well hell I wish I had seen this earlier this afternoon when I bought about $50 worth of stuff at Newegg...
@Onion_Volcano: Because these gimmicks make them a lot more money than focusing on being a good bank does.
I thought they were going under. Now they can give money away? I've pulled all my savings out of their bank because I'd rather not have it all locked up when they fail.
You know what the government will do when they nationalize Bank of America?
They'll implement cashtake: when you spend money, it'll take 5% of your money.
I have a BoA card with a decent rate on it now. There aren't any pitfalls if I sign up for this? I wouldn't buy something unless I'd have been using my debit card anyway, so one extra transfer is worth it if the savings can go into my ING account.
Thoughts on this?
Yea so this doesn't work for customers in WA or ID, just like everything else that is good that Bank of America offers, like instant transactions, debit transactions here in WA (Or ID) don't post until like a week later. O BTW US Bank offers this program that is like exactly the same, most of the merchants are the same too
Why don't I pay for my newegg stuff with Discover? That way I get 1% cash back (or more) and I have a whole month interest free to pay.
I can't believe how stupid banks are. If they really want my business they would put up or shut up.
The only credit cards worth having for daily purchases are Discover, Costco Amex, and Amazon Visa. The only cards worth having for balances are Chase.
Yeah, at least you can get $10 off that Core i7 Extreme...
Nothing special about this. It's just another online cashback program like the ones that have been on the internet for years now...i.e. Fatwallet.com, MS Live Cashback, Ebates, as well as programs that some credit card companies even run to allow you to gain points for CC rewards programs. And it's online-only....you aren't going to get cashback for shopping instore at Walmart/Home Depot/etc.
BTW Live Cashback in particular will have just as good, and probably better deals than Bank of America's cashback program. For instance they offer 2% back at Newegg (as opposed to 1% at BofA) and 5% at TigerDirect (which is just CompUSA.com without the brand name).
@CaptZ: RBS Citizens bank (New England super-regional bank) has a program called Green$ense in which they give you $.10 back each time you use their billpay system to send an electronic payment rather than a check or use your debit card instead of paying with a check, etc. I get several dollars back a month for that and it's been around for about 6 months now.
Of course you could get an Amex Blue Cash and, after spending $6500, get 5% cash back at grocery stores, drugs stores and gas stations and 1.5% cash back from EVERYWHERE ELSE.
@Vanilla5:
CompUSA is owned by TigerDirect now. They have some decent deals online sometimes.
Dooley: You can probably double dip by using Fatcash and BoFA then. Get some cash from FatWallet and BoFA.
I have an AMEX "Open" card. It gives 5% back on office supplies, cell phone bills, gas, 3 - 5% on various merchants (5% on Hertz, 3% on Delta Scarelines, etc.). 1% back on everything else.
Of course they're about to change gas from 5% rebates to 3%, so boooooooooo on that.
Just check out the fine print. My former bank tried to hawk a similar program to me. Their program is administered by a third party, so by signing up, I had to give permission for the bank to share my spending habits with that company, and that company could share it with their "marketing partners." One-two cents on the dollar at mostly obscure internet retailers wasn't worth it to me to share my spending habits and open myself to spam and junk mail.
I just spent $700 on a new computer at newegg...dagblamit!
You know,the cheese in a trap looks pretty good to a mouse,too. I fail to see how this is any different...
The article seems to act like it's some sort of revolution. Wamu had bonus bucks, which put a percentage toward your credit card balance. You can earn extra rewards points from Wachovia by using their online site (hmmm, all failed banks) I use ebates since I shop online all the time and they have almost every store I buy from
Yup, I already have fatwallet, live.com, and GM card's Bonus Shop (same thing, but it goes towards GM card earnings instead of cashback). I really don't need BofA getting in on it, but whatever. Also, it looks like BofA's is not stackable with anyone elses since you have to go through the BofA website to get to the vendors' websites with the cashback enabled. I'm not 100% sure how it works, but I think the majority of the cashback is actually given by the retailer...
USE A CREDIT UNION. Why have the gains on your dollars go to stock holders? At a credit union, you are the stock holder.
@wezelboy: Or any other cash-back card that offers a grace period. I get 1% cash back on all of my purchases with my USAA cash back card and have never paid any interest on any of them.
You know, I've seen a lot of people complain about BofA, but I've been using them for years (I had my first savings account with them when I was 16 -- so 11 years now!!) without a problem. Whenever I call, I get excellent customer service, and once I had check fraud, and another time PayPal tried to screw me over, and BofA took care of both with little effort on my part.
@wezelboy: Actually, Chase is worth watching on the cashback front lately too--for instance, they've now got the 10% cashback from Zappo's that Discover used to have (may only be for a short time, but that was still a lot back on the purchase I made). I love cashback stuff--combines with other promotions and sales, and peels a layer further from the price for things I would have bought anyway.
@CoarseLive: I bank at a credit union. But I prefer credit cards to debit cards, and my CU's credit card simply isn't competitive. I save quite a bit of money by using outside cards instead.
@B: Well, since it's BoA, maybe another clip from the song would be better suited.
"Day---- after
day---- I get
angry....."
Yeah, you get 1 or 2 percent and they get 3,4,5 or more percent. They are the biggest winner.
PEOPLE - JUST USE FATWALLET.COM or QUICKENPICKS.COM
You will get the SAME discoutns from the SAME merchants.
And the BEST PART is that you DON'T HAVE TO USE BofA
Let me repeat that...
You can get the SAME discounts but you DON'T have to use Bank Of America.
And, here's a bonus for you...
Use Fatwallet.com or Quickenpicks.com -- And pay with your Discover (or any other "cash back" card) and you will get both the DISCOUNT plus your regular CASH BACK for your credit card.
And, again...
You DON'T have to use BofA
I'd never bank anywhere that actively sought illegal aliens as customers.
@Dooley: The discount amount can be quite variable, actually, so I'd say it pays to be aware of all the deals available to you and to shop to get the best one. And I'm pretty sure you can't get the merchant-specific cashback from your credit card and from fatwallet or quickenpicks, just the low basic one; so it's better for me, for instance, to use Discover for 10% back from Barnes and Noble than for 4% through FatWallet. But the latter has discounts at places that my credit cards don't, so it's good to shop through there for those purchases.
@cynical_bastard: No "they" don't. Compusa is dead and gone, compusa.com is just a skin on tigerdirect.com (EWWWWW!) and there are stores in Florida that are branded Compusa but those are also just old TigerDirect stores rebranded.
Tiger Direct (which is a bunch of scammers) bought the Compusa name.
Whether "real" Compusa were a bunch of scammers before anyway, is an exercise left to the reader.
@West Coast Secessionist: For some fun, go to a product page on compusa.com, now go in the URL and change the domain to tigerdirect.com -- Last time I tried this it worked... The name of the site changes, everything else stays the same.
I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to grab circuitcity.com too.
They should offer $1000 back if you shop at Circuit City just to see how many fall for it.