Bank of America Student Rewards — Rewards, Fees & 2026 Review

This counts only Bank of America cards, not cards from other banks. Crossing any one of the three thresholds is described as an automatic decline that a reconsideration call will not reverse, which makes it worth counting carefully before you apply. Bank of America has not posted the rule anywhere, though phone representatives are reported to have confirmed it, and sources from late 2025 through September 2026 all describe the same three numbers. Business cards appear to sit outside the count, but that part is not confirmed.

Unlike 2/3/4, this one counts new accounts at every issuer. The looser threshold is said to apply if you hold a Bank of America deposit account or a Merrill investment account, which is the practical reason people open a checking account first. The evidence here is thin and worth knowing about: it traces back to a single 2019 report citing an unnamed source, and has been repeated since without fresh confirmation. Current sources call it non-strict and cite plenty of approvals above the line. We found no sign of a separate 24-month version despite it sometimes being described that way.

The pattern is consistently reported, but the exact wording varies from card to card: 24 months since opening on some, since closing or since the last bonus on others. That is a shorter window than the 48 months at Citi and Capital One. It reportedly does not apply to business cards. Because there is no single bank-wide sentence to quote, read the specific card's terms rather than assuming the general pattern covers it.