It’s always important to be aware of the latest credit card application rules and restrictions so that you can avoid unnecessary credit card application rejections and formulate a good credit card application strategy. Well, now it looks like another major credit card rule has been created — this time by Bank of America. Doctor of Credit just confirmed that there’s a new rule being enforced for Bank of America credit card applications. This is known as the “2/3/4 Rule.”
The 2/3/4 Rule
With the new rule, Bank of America will only approve you for a maximum number of Bank of America credit cards on the following basis:
- 2 cards per (rolling) 2 months
- 3 cards per (rolling) 12 months
- 4 cards per (rolling) 24 months
Three cards in a 12 month period isn’t a horribly restricting rule so I think Bank of America has struck a pretty reasonable balance here to get rid of credit card churners. DOC also reports that manual override by agents might be possible so this rule isn’t automatic dead end for applications like the Chase 5/24 rule often is.
However, the biggest difference between this rule and the Chase 5/24 rule is that this rule only focuses on Bank of America issued credit cards, while the Chase 5/24 rule considers all credit card accounts opened from all issuers. So this is a far less restrictive than the rule Chase has implemented. Also, so far data points show that business cards from Bank of America might not count for this rule, so that’s potentially another big break for some people.
Bank of America credit cards
Bank of America has a few solid credit cards options. There’s a few different options for cash back credit cards, including the newly released “Premium Rewards® credit card” that comes with a $500 sign-up bonus. And there’s also the ultra-popular Alaska Card which currently offers a 30,000 mile sign-up bonus. Lesser known cards include those for Virgin Atlantic and Asiana. You can find there card options here.
If you were just looking to pick up a couple of cash back cards or some Alaska miles a couple of times a year like many have done in the past, that’s still possible so I don’t consider this new rule a major blow. However, if you were churning Alaska cards multiple times a year this is obviously a bigger hit.
Final word
Overall, it’s no surprise that such a rule is coming down given the past abuses that so many people took advantage of with Bank of America. Between the Alaska cards and MLB cards, Bank of America took some big hits from many people over the past few years and this was the inevitable result. Although Bank of America seemed to have struggled to manage how to deal with churners for a while, it looks like they probably found their solution and luckily it’s not nearly as bad as it could be.
Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned travel expert covering destinations along with TSA, airline, and hotel policies. Since 2014, his content has been featured in publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, and CNBC. Read my bio.
