Bank of America auto pay: How to set up AutoPay for your credit cards

If you’re like me, you want to manage your finances as simply as possible, with minimum room for human error. To me, this includes setting up auto pay on every new credit card I open.

Over the years, I’ve found Bank of America’s auto pay set up flow to be one of the worst out there. It took me much longer than I care to admit to finally set up auto pay on these cards, despite that fact that my oldest credit line and my checking account is through Bank of America.

So, for all the people out there who find Bank of America’s auto pay process just as counterintuitive as I did, here’s a step-by-step walk-through of how to stop paying your credit card bills manually and make sure that you never miss a payment.

Setting up AutoPay

Once you’re logged into your account, navigate over to the Payment Center, under the “Bill Pay” tab at the upper left-hand corner of the screen.

On this page, you’ll see a list of your Bank of America credit cards, along with any other payments you might have set up. A semi-recent update to this page is that it will be obvious which accounts have auto pay set up, and which don’t. I’ve already set up auto pay for my most used card, but my other card, highlighted below in red, doesn’t have the green “ON” indicator.

Clicking on the AutoPay button opens up a smaller menu. If you haven’t set up AutoPay before, you’ll just see the singular option below. If you have it already on, however, you’ll be able to go in and change your existing AutoPay options.

Click on “Set up AutoPay” and a pop up window will appear. “Set Up Based on the eBill” is the option to go to if you want to pay your balance in full, every billing period.

If you’ve never set up an eBill, you’ll have to go through an extra click, but it’s fairly straight-foward. The below screenshot is from when I set up eBills last year, so it may look a little different for you.

Once you’ve set up eBills and opted for AutoPay via eBill, you get the option below. If you don’t bank with Bank of America and need to pay funds from a different institution, the “Pay From” section will look different from what I have.

To pay your balance in full every month on the billing date, the options you’ll want to select are Delivery By: Due Date and Amount: Account Balance.

If you choose an Amount option other than Account Balance, you’ll get a ‘warning’ pop up that will tell you that the option may make you subject to interest, which I like. The difference between “Amount Due” and “Account Balance” aren’t immediately obvious, so I’m glad Bank of America does this little gut check on my behalf.

Once you’ve hit “Start Sending Payments”, that’s it, you’re done! As simple as a piece of counterintuitive pie.

If you’re curious about what cards other than Bank of America I keep in my wallet, hop on over to my “What’s in my wallet post” where I explain which cards I have, and why.