Bank of America Advantage Savings

Bank of America Advantage Savings is the only consumer savings account the second-largest US bank offers, and it is priced like a bank that knows most customers will not shop around. It pairs cleanly with BofA's Advantage Banking checking accounts, the Keep the Change round-up program, and roughly 3,700 branches, but the interest rate is a rounding error. The standard rate is 0.04% APY across all balance tiers, per Bank of America's published rate sheet effective August 11, 2026. Rates are set by state (the figure here is from the Maryland sheet), and some markets pay as little as 0.01%. At 0.04%, a $10,000 balance earns about $4 per year; the same deposit at a 4% online bank earns around $400. Enrolling in Preferred Rewards nudges the rate up by tier, but every published boost still leaves the yield below one tenth of one percent. The $8 monthly maintenance fee is the highest among the big four banks' basic savings accounts. It is waived for the first six months after opening, and after that if you keep a $500 minimum daily balance, enroll in Preferred Rewards, are under 25, or hold a linked Advantage Relationship Banking account. Opening requires a $100 minimum deposit, more than Chase ($0), Wells Fargo ($25), or Truist ($50) ask. Miss the waivers and the fee consumes $96 per year, which no realistic balance can out-earn at 0.04%. There is one structural reason to hold cash here: Preferred Rewards. Advantage Savings balances count toward the program's combined-balance thresholds, which start at $20,000, and higher tiers unlock genuine value through boosted credit card rewards and Merrill investing perks. Customers optimizing a BofA rewards card at the Platinum Honors tier sometimes accept the dead savings yield as the cost of holding the tier. Everyone else should treat this account as a transfer bucket, not a store of value. Keep enough to satisfy the fee waiver if you want the checking relationship and branch access, and put the actual savings in a high-yield account: on a $25,000 emergency fund, the gap between 0.04% and 4% is roughly $990 per year, every year, for identical FDIC coverage.