Bank of America Launches a Revamped Travel Portal — How It Works

Bank of America just launched an updated Travel Center, and it gives eligible cardholders a new way to plan, book, and pay for trips without leaving Mobile or Online Banking.

The platform is powered by Rocket Travel by Agoda, which is owned by Booking.com.

If you carry the right card, you now have access to a much larger pool of inventory than the old portal offered, along with some payment flexibility that wasn’t there before.

What You Can Book (and What You Can’t)

Bank of America’s new Travel Center is touting close to 1 million travel options worldwide. That breaks down into more than half a million hotels, flights from over 170 airline partners, ground transportation from more than 170 car rental companies, and north of 400,000 activities.

The 4 categories you’ll see are hotels, flights, cars, and activities. Notably, there’s no option to book cruises, so if that’s your thing, you’ll still need to look elsewhere.

The flight search has a nice touch: You can mix and match airlines for your departure and return, which isn’t something every bank portal lets you do. Hotel pages now show images, amenities, and reviews, so you’re not booking blind. You can even combine your rewards with a credit or debit card payment on a single booking, which helps when your points balance won’t quite cover the whole trip.

Access depends entirely on which card you hold:

• Bank of America^® Premium Rewards^® credit card and Bank of America^® Premium Rewards^® Elite Credit Card holders can book with points and/or card payments through both the app and Online Banking.
• Bank of America^® Travel Rewards Credit Card holders can pay with their card through Online Banking.
• Bank of America^® Customized Cash Rewards credit card and Bank of America^® Unlimited Cash Rewards Credit Card holders can book with card payments by pulling up the Travel Center through Erica or search.
• BankAmericard^® Credit Card holders can use points and/or payments online.

Logging in and heading to the portal asked me whether I wanted to browse with my points-earning card or my cash-back card, but my Alaska Airlines co-branded credit card wasn’t an option. That tracks, since the Alaska card doesn’t earn Bank of America rewards, and the Travel Center is built around the bank’s own currency.

Now for the downsides: You can put points toward all or part of a booking, but if you pay entirely with points, that transaction won’t earn points. Pay with your card, or split the cost, and you can rewards on your spending.

Points used on a canceled booking are refunded immediately, while other refunds can take 7 to 10 business days. Additionally, you can’t add a hotel or rental car loyalty number inside the portal, so you’ll need to sort that out with the property or agency at check-in.

A Heads-Up on Geographic Restrictions

Where you are physically located matters. I’m currently in Peru, and when I opened the Travel Center, hotels were the only category I could actually book. Flights, cars, and activities were restricted, citing local regulations.

If you run into the same wall while traveling abroad, you’ll need to call BofA Travel for booking help.

Final Thoughts

The refreshed Travel Center is a solid upgrade, with far more inventory, better hotel detail, and the ability to blend points and cash in a single booking. There are limitations, though. You can’t book cruises, and the utility of the site goes down while traveling abroad, which is a bit odd for a travel portal.