Bonus Banking

A few months ago I received mail from a bank about an offer that I had never seen before. There was also an advertising campaign and the offer was clearly shown on the bank's web site, so this wasn't a special offer for a small target demographic - this was for anyone. The offer was basically:

• Open a new checking account - you must not have had an account at that bank in the past year.
• Deposit a modest sum.
• The bank gives you $200.

Naturally I took advantage of the offer.

I just got mail from another bank with a similar offer. This is crazy. These banks are just giving money away. It seems easy to cash in on these offers and by meeting a few simple requirements, I get to keep the entire $200.

• The modest sum to qualify for the $200 bonus is $500 at one back, $100 at the other.
• Keep the account open for at least 6 months. Early close incurs a $25 fee at one bank and forfeit of the $200 bonus at the other.
• Keep a relatively high minimum balance, or make direct deposits of $500 per month to avoid monthly fees.

Also I didn't sign up for extras which would cost more like special member value programs, paper statements, and paper checks. I make direct deposits and keep the money working, using on-line bill pay to keep these balances low. These are national banks - not some fly by night operation.

I plan to close the accounts after the required 6 month period.

Downsides

• No interest is paid on these accounts (except the bonus which is treated as interest) so there is money tied up here and not in my interest bearing credit union account - this is certainly not enough to offset the bonus.
• Keeping track of cash flow is a little more complicated, but that's what spreadsheets are for.
• Potentially increasing the risk that my personal information could be stolen.

Has anyone else seen this? Has anyone taken advantage of offers like this? If so, have you done it the same bank more than once? Are there downsides I haven't considered? (I'm pretty sure I have found and read all the fine print.)

I guess there must be enough people who open accounts and then keep them open and incur all the fees that the banks can charge to offset the people like me who will simply take the $200 and run.

Go get 'em. I hate banks, always have.

I sure would be certain of all the facts. Can't imagine they are so dumb as to give you an out like that.

Yeah, I got a similar offer from Chase NA. It's a good offer. However, I needed a business account, not another personal account, and the cash offer was only on a personal account. But he's right, it's a very good offer from Chase for a person who can have a 500 direct deposit/month (my federal pension would qualify) to get the 200. And that's really all they want from you; they don't charge you to have a debit card, they give you plenty of transactions per month before fees are charged. Traps: they will charge huge fees for incoming or outgoing wire transfers, your statements are online only, there's a couple other fees for services that are higher than normal. It's worth looking at.

I've seen a few of these but usually the requirement is to have a monthly direct deposit. I already need that DD going into my Wells Fargo account to avoid a monthly fee, and I like the ubiquity of the WF account (ATMs all over the country and my home town, good customer service for 10+ years). I guess technically the account fees at WF would be less than the bonus, but really it's just not worth the hassle, for me. Would rather work on my BJ skillz.

the only down side is that every new account is reported to services like chexsystems. Chexsystems could be an alert on your name and If you actually need a new account or apply for certain lines of credit you could possible be denied for too many accounts.

My OPM account allows 2 allotments to be diverted into other accounts; they don't even have to be in my name. I helped my sister for years that way; I would think you could, if you wanted to and it was a federal DD, send 500/month of it to a second account. OPM doesn't charge for it; they just split the outgoing funds from your main account, and you can change it back any time you want (say in 6 months).