ABOC Cards Unveil 2021 Bonus Calendar

ABOC is sprucing up its 5x bonus categories for 2021, keeping some familiar ones in place while adding in new ways to earn extra rewards.

New 5X bonus categories for 2021

Here are the bonus categories for 2020 and 2021:

ABOC bonus rewards categories for 2020 and 2021
	2020 categories	2021 categories
Q1 (Jan. 1 – March 31)	Recurring payments (including utilities, cell phone plans, cable, insurance payments, streaming services and subscription services).	Groceries. Drugstores. Health and wellness: fitness clubs, beauty and health spas, and hospitals and medical providers. Veterinary services.
Q2 (April 1 – June 30)	Groceries. Transportation expenses: rideshare services, gas and mass transit.	Home improvement (including gardening stores and home furnishings). Warehouse clubs. Costco.com. Walmart.com. Target.com.
Q3 (July 1 – Sept. 30)	Entertainment (including movies and theme parks). Travel purchases: airfare, cruises, car rentals, hotels, timeshares and travel agency services. Transportation expenses: gas, tolls, rideshare services and mass transit.	Dining (including restaurants and fast food). Travel: airlines, rental cars, hotels, timeshares, cruises and travel agencies. Transportation: gas, tolls, mass transit, taxis and ridesharing services. Entertainment (including movie theaters, tourist attractions and theme parks).
Q4 (Oct. 1 – Dec. 31)	Holiday shopping (including superstores, department stores, electronics stores, Costco.com and Amazon.com).	Dining (including restaurants and fast food). Food delivery services (including DoorDash and Grubhub). Groceries. Liquor stores. Amazon.com.

Old favorites, with a nod to new spending habits

Overall, the bonus categories paint an aspirational picture for 2021: self-care and feathering your nest for the first half of the year, and a potential return to travel and holiday celebrations in the latter half.

Groceries, dining, travel and transportation are back again, joined by categories that acknowledge the shift in consumer spending during the COVID-19 pandemic, like home improvement, wholesale clubs and medical services. Veterinary services is a new category we haven’t seen on a rotating bonus card before, but anyone who added pandemic pets to their household can attest to how quickly one trip to the vet can max out the $1,500 limit for the quarter.

Things to keep in mind about ABOC cards

Unlike those other 5x cards, the ABOC cards don’t require you to activate or opt into your bonus categories every quarter. As long as you register once on ABOCRewards.com, you’re automatically eligible for the 5x bonus every quarter going forward.
The ABOC cards aren’t ideal cash-back credit card options. They earn points (not cash back) that are worth 1 cent each when redeemed for travel. Cash back is a redemption option, but at a point value of less than a penny apiece — a worse rate than the other 5x cards listed above. Point values vary when redeeming for gift cards and are usually higher in value when you opt for a larger gift card.