After spending too much time on the forums, I almost started to believe the ultimate purpose of using credit cards was to find myself a side hustle: studying transfer partners, waiting for award releases, calculating cpp, and finally, just to prove points are worth something, taking a trip to a place I never even wanted to go.
So here's my recommendation for the BoA Unlimited Cash Rewards. Its virtues are simple: credit limit, churning, and Fed points.
First, the credit limit. If you can get a high limit, swiping really is a pleasure. Spending is tiring enough already—no need to perform CPR on your available credit after every single purchase. At least in a side-by-side comparison, the credit limits BoA offers are several times what other banks will give. The "Unlimited" modifies "Cash Rewards," not the bank's love for you.
Next, churning. For a churner, a sense of security starts with a wide enough lane: give a big enough limit, and you don't have to constantly pay it down, restore the limit, and spend again—riding like you're in the Tour de France. As for actually churning, check the DPs yourself and set your own pace. The bank won't stop you, and BoA really does take a beating.
Finally, and most importantly: Fed points.
This points system is genuinely advanced. No need to hunt for redemptions, no research, no calling customer service, no involuntary vacationing.
You can use them at the grocery store, you can pay rent. Other people's sweet spots require a three-thousand-word guide; the Fed point's sweet spot is called "cash."
Some say cash back lacks imagination. True—you lose a lot of that "theoretically worth eight thousand dollars" joy, and are left only with actual money in your account. Quite a shame.
This card suits people who've moved past the stage of "arranging their life around using points." Not so many graduation trips, not so many business-class flights you absolutely must experience once—you just want to swipe, get cash, and keep living your life.
After playing the credit card game to the end, you realize your truest loyalty is to the Fed.
The whole point of a cash-back card is to bring card rewards out of the realm of guesswork and back into everyday spending. If you're after something stable and simple, it really is less of a headache than many systems that require careful calculations—but only if you already have a banking relationship with BoA.