BofA Checking $ Credit Card

I think you will find several advantages to consolidating all your accounts (including credit accounts) to one bank.

1 - Only 1 bank to go to for all your banking needs.
2 - You can easily do a transfer online, in the branch, or over the phone to make your credit card payment with NO possibility of bouncing your own BofA check.
3 - I like the photo card for their Debit cards as well as Credit cards.
4 - FREE ONLINE BILL PAY! This costs $5 per month with WaMu but free with your BofA account (at least in CA)
5 - Your BofA credit card can be linked to your checking account for overdraft protection. This can protect your account from "the check that got away", or from a bad check that you deposit that gets returned NSF. It protects you and your account status with them. Believe it or not, but your account affects future credit decisions that your bank may make in your behalf.

Just some ideas. Especially if you have no real reason to stick with your current bank, I think there are plenty of incentives to switch your banking relationship.

 

I agree with everything David said, and if a branch is close to your home or work, go for it. BofA is great. They financed my first car when no other bank would, and they didn't bend me over. As soon as I get my last derog off of TU, I'm definitely applying for a BofA cc.

 

I have a BofA Visa and was thinking of opening an account there. I just checked online and it says they pull a credit report for opening new checking accounts.

Does anyone know if this is a hard or soft?

 

When I opened my checking a couple of years and they didn't pull any credit report. All they checked chexsystem for bad checks.

Ron.

 

It specifically says now that they check your credit history AND your prior banking relationships (which I assume is Chex).

 

I emailed them with this exact same question and this is the reply I got:

"We perform a full credit inquiry, and it is necessary for each account that you apply for. Thank you for considering Bank of America.

 

I'm not considering them any more...

 

Neither am I. Chase and I are friends again. I was upset with them over their credit card they gave me and was going to pull my banking, but chase did the right thing.

 

I have to BofAs credit cards and my Checking acct is with Wamu. No problems ever. I have made my payments online from my Wamu account.

I think it make no diference if you have or not your banking account with BofA.

 

The substantial overdraft protection I would get by linking the credit card and the checking account would be a huge (but expensive if ever used) benefit.

 

DaveLV,

Having the credit cards and checking account at the same bank:

1) you can transfer payment from checking to credit card.
2) you can link to credit card for overdraft protection.
3) they gave me 4.25% BT checks until paid off.
4)they give you better rate for credit card.

By the way, I didn't use my BofA credit card as overdraft protection and use line of credit for overdraft protection.


Ron.

 

While there are advantages to having everything at one bank, there are disadvantages as well. Something happens with one of your accounts and they hit all of them with credit limit decrease, APR increase, or just close the accounts.

I've had a checking account with what is now BofA (went through several mergers including NationsBank) since 1970. I had overdraft protection, and did periodically use it. Then they closed that account on me. I also had two Visa accounts and a line of credit. When I was having some problems (got stuck with about $70K of debt in a divorce), they decided to cancel one of my credit cards, lower the CL and raise the APR on the other, and cut the line of credit in half.

Fortunately, I had credit cards with several other banks at the time or I would have been in even worse shape than I was.

So, I'm not saying don't put all your eggs in one basket, just saying be careful when you do.