Good afternoon everyone, happy Q4 and happy Bilt Rent Day to those who celebrate! Unfortunately, I need to pause the celebrations for a quick moment of silence. My longtime companion, the Bank of America Alaska Airlines Business Credit Card, was quietly closed yesterday. I discovered the closure while downloading my latest Bank of America Atmos Rewards Ascend statement. To my surprise, my Alaska Airlines Business credit card was missing from my online account. When I called Bank of America, the rep confirmed that my credit card had been closed due to inactivity.
What surprised me the most was the lack of warning or communication from Bank of America. Other credit card issuers usually send an email or letter if inactivity might lead to an account closure (often with a 90 day warning). But in this case, there was no notification, just a sudden disappearance from my online account. And as a reminder, this wasn’t a no annual fee credit card, I paid the $95 annual fee back on November 1, 2024, so the card hadn’t even made it a full year.
To be fair, this card had been collecting dust in my drawer for a long time. The only reason I kept it was for the $99 Alaska Airlines Companion Fare each year. For my Alaska Airlines purchases, I prefer to use my Atmos Rewards Ascend and new Atmos Rewards Summit credit cards, which both earn me the 10% Bank of America relationship bonus due to having a Bank of America checking account.
Still, I assumed Bank of America would happily keep billing me the $95 annual fee forever, but apparently not. The rep offered to transfer me to the Sales Department to apply for a new business card, but I declined the offer. My plan is to finish the $6,000 minimum spending requirement on my new Atmos Rewards Summit credit card first and then apply for a Atmos Rewards Business credit card in the future.
Going forward, I’m going to set a quarterly reminder to make a small charge (like a $5 Amazon gift card reload) on every credit card I want to keep active. That small purchase should save me from another unexpected account closure. If you’ve had a similar experience (or if you’ve been warned about inactivity on your Bank of America credit card), please share the details in the comments section. Have a great day everyone!
I guess you could have charged a pack of gum to the card occasionally to keep some activity.
Yes, I wish I could go back in time and make a purchase on the card every couple of months. Live and learn.
How long did you go between purchases, a full year? I do 5 months on all cards.
I think the only transactions on this credit card over the last 11 months were the $95 annual fee and the $95 payment. 5 months sounds like a good / safe length of time between purchases.
I’m pretty sure that some companies don’t consider the annual fee as activity.
Are you still in California? I assume that California Code, Civil Code – CIV § 1747.85 which requires 30 days written notice before closing an account, doesn’t apply to business cards.
I try to avoid inactivity closures by having a last purchase date column in my spreadsheet of my active cards. Every few months, I look at the oldest dates, and update the last purchase date or make a $1 payment on my internet bill.
Since I’ve gone to up to 18 months between transactions I haven’t had any closures.
You might be right about both things. I looked at my BofA AS Biz CC statements from the last few years and my last real purchase was in June 2022. After that, the only transactions were the annual fees and payments of the annual fees in 2022, 2023, and 2024.
There are a few other CCs that I have that I never put any spend on and only have the annual fee and lament of the annual fee. I should make a purchase on those accounts to ensure there is activity on the cards.
Just keep in mind it might not be worth it to actually keep the next one you get long-term. All the new Alaska cards require $6000/year to get the companion code. So on the other hand, if you do decide to keep it, you won’t have to worry about inactivity…
Ya, I don’t think I’ll keep the new Atmos Rewards Business card long term since I don’t plan on spending $6,000 per year to get the Companion Fare. My wife and I each have the grandfathered Alaska Airlines CC that doesn’t require $6,000 spending.