$150 for Citizens Bank Checking Account - No Direct Deposit Required

Update: As pointed out by a commentator, you will get a hard credit pull for opening this account.  This can affect your credit score and ability to open new credit cards in the short term.

There are often bonuses available for opening new checking accounts, but most of them require direct deposit.  I assume that most people are not interested in constantly going to HR to change where their Direct Deposit is going so I don't post them.  Here is one that doesn't require Direct Deposit.



$150 Bonus for opening a Citizen's Bank Checking Account.  Here are the requirements:

1. Register online
2. Open your first new One Deposit Checking account or other first new personal checking account by 3/31/14
3. Make an additional deposit (excluding the opening deposit) OR five qualifying debit card payments or purchases by 5/31/14
4. Get $150, which will be deposited in your account by 7/31/2014

A One Deposit Checking account requires a minimum of $25 to open.  In addition, there is no monthly fee as long as you make one deposit each month.  There is no minimum as to how much you must deposit.

The terms and conditions don't seem a mention any penalties for withdrawing the money after 7/31/2014 so I assume that's when you can close the account without penalies, but I don't know.

2013 Free Money Roundup

Disclaimer: I do not receive a referral fee for any of the links below with the following exceptions: Top Cashback and Betterment

The first 4 months of 2013 have been a decently lucrative start for me and my wife for Free Money (though she would rather not know how I accomplished it for plausible deniability - kidding of course).  The opportunities have been in great abundance and also very lucrative this year!

I am aware that this is not actually free money.  Time and work are involved and everyone has to make their own calculation whether a deal is worth it to them

I don't write this to gloat, rather to show everyone what I've done so that you can try and replicate the same thing yourself in the future.  Obviously, you can pick and choose which ones you think are worth it and which ones are not.  Some you can still do now and some are dead deals, but new ones are always popping up, but you usually need to jump on them to get full value.

Instructions in how to leverage each deal are found at the provided links.

Vanilla Reloads and Blue Bird

• Total of $315.75 - Unfortunately, these deals ended at the end of March.
• Chase Freedom - $63.15 - Chase Freedom was offering 5% back at drugstores, including CVS with Vanilla Reloads up to $1,500 of purchases.
• 7,500 ultimate rewards points, which I value at more than 1 cent per point, but they can be redeemed for cold, hard cash at 1 cent per point so we'll call that $75.  $11.85 in fees for a total of $63.15
• This is from January (I also paid part of my tuition on this card during this bill)
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• Citi Dividend - $252.60 -  Same thing as Chase Freedom except the limit was $6,000 in purchases, instead of $1,500.
• $300 in rewards and $47.40 in fees is a total haul of $252.60 over 3 months

Chase Gift cards and Blue Bird

• Chase Freedom - $20 a month (only $20 so far)
• Chase recently started selling $500 gift cards with no fees whatsoever.  They need to be bought with a Chase credit card.  I bought $2,000 of them last month so that was 2,000 free ultimate rewards points. 24,000 free points a year is pretty good to me, hopefully it lasts.
• The statement hasn't closed yet so I don't have a picture to show you yet.

Top Cashback and Blue Bird

• American Express and Visa Gift cards through Top Cashback shopping portal - $167
• There was one day recently where you could get 2.5% back on a purchase $3,000 of american express gift cards ($75).  The next week, I used the $3,000 to buy 3 Visa gift cards of $993 dollars each (accounts for the fees) and got another 2% back ($60).  Add 2% from Fidelity American Express ($60) and you get $195 in rewards and $27.95 of fees  for a net profit of $167
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New Credit Card Sign up Bonuses

• American Express Blue Preferred - $150 Sign up bonus for spending $1,000 in first 3 months

• $1,000 on Vanilla reload in the first month
• Already received $150 statement credit
• I already have this card.  I got it for my wife because there is a $6,000 yearly limit on the great rewards.  In addition, I will close my card so that I can be eligible for a new bonus.
• There is an annual fee of $75, which is not waived the first year.

• Citibank AAdvantage - 30,000 miles after spending $1,000 in first 3 months.  I value AA miles at least at 1 cent a mile, so it is a minimum of $300 towards AA flights.  I won' t count this because I cannot redeem the miles towards cold, hard cash.

• $1,000 on vanilla reloads in the first month
• Still waiting for the bill to settle to get my miles
• Annual fee is waived the first year

Better Balance Rewards Credit Card

• I signed up myself and my wife for the Better Balance Rewards Credit Card along with fee free checking accounts.  I expect to get $60 a quarter ($10 a month for me and $10 for my wife), basically for free.
• I already have them on autopay (you have to call up) and I hope to get one automatic bill a month to be paid by these cards so that I never have to think about the card and it is always generating the $10 a month for the both of us.
• It has only been two months so I don't have anything to show for it yet.

New Checking Account Bonus

• $125 - This is cheating a little bit.  I signed up for this is November of last year, but I didn't get the money until this year, but I did get $125 for free.

Betterment

• $25 - Still active - Add $250 to your Betterment account and you will get $25.  Betterment invests your money automatically.  You allocate percentages of bonds and stocks.  Your principle may appreciate or depreciate.
• To get the bonus, you need to add $250 within 90 days and keep it there for 90 days.  At that point you are free to take your $275, or so, out.

Grand Total = $862

$315 in 5% categories, $20 from Chase gift cards, $167 from topcashback, $150 from sign up bonuses, an assumed $60 from Better Balance card, $125 from checkout account, $25 from Betterment = $852 for 4 months or $213 a month.  Not bad when you don't have a job!

Ask for Fees to be Refunded!

It has been my experience that it isn't that difficult to ask for fees to be refunded, even when they are legitimate fees.

Here is my example from this morning:


I signed up for a checking account from Citizen's Bank for the $125 sign up bonus.  There is a $9.99 fee associated with the account unless you have 5 transactions a month.  Therefore, I go in once a month and withdraw $20 5 times and immediately deposit $100 so that I don't incur a fee.


This morning I noticed that I was charged a $9.99 service fee.  I went over to ask why and it turns out that the 5 transactions are not based on the beginning and end of the month (ie - 5 transactions in February), rather it's based on your billing cycle and mine starts and ends on the 14th.


I had never been explained this, but it was in the details of the brochure I was given and didn't read carefully enough.  I asked if they could make a one time adjustment and they refunded my money without any trouble.  I then proceeded to withdraw $20 5 times and deposit $100 right in front of him ;)


The moral of the story is to ask for fees to be refunded, even if they are legitimate.   The worst that can happen is that they say no.

Citizens Bank Checking Account - $125 Free!

Citizens Bank Checking Account - $125 Free!

Update 1: I was unable to sign up over the internet so I signed up in my local branch for a checking account.  You need to add $250 to start the checking account and get the bonus, but you can then take out the majority of it.  The process took about 45 mins, which is a lot longer than I wanted, but I was able to get a new patient to the dental school out of it!

I am excited to go monthly and continually take $20 at a time out of their ATM's to qualify for the bonus and free checking account and then deposit the money right back into my account.

The teller confirmed that the account needs to be open for 6 months to keep your bonus and not have an early termination fee.

I am always on the lookout for relatively easy and free money.  Some might call it an addiction and while that may be true, at least I'm addicted to something that won't get me into big trouble - although who knows where this wild ride will take us ;)

Around 5 years ago, Chase (and other banks as well) were consistently running promotions that gave you between $100-$200 for opening up a new checking account and keeping it open for six months to a year.  Therefore, I would open and close Chase Checking accounts every 6 months to a year.

Those wonderful days are unfortunately done.  Banks realized that people were opening and closing accounts just for the bonus and they created a system that was more difficult to collect the bonus.  One could only qualify for the bonus (or a free checking account) if you linked a monthly direct deposit.  This meant that if you kept opening and closing, you had to keep asking your employer to change your direct deposit status.  It was just plain annoying - especially for people like me who don't have jobs or direct deposits.

Enter Citizens Banks!

Last week, I was at the grocery store which has a Citizens bank branch inside and I noticed a brochure that said $225 free.  Of course, I looked at it and I found out that Citizens Bank is offering a nice bonus for opening up a checking account with no Direct Deposit required.

If you open up a new checking account, they will give you $125 for free (minimum return of 8.33% on your investment and as high as 250% - as I will explain)


Here is how to do it:

1. Open a new Citizens Bank Checking account by 11/30/2012 - make sure you open a "Green Checking Account" which has the easiest requirements to have no monthly feels
2. Deposit $50 or $1,500 (I will explain) into the account
3. Make 20 qualifying electronic payments which include ATM withdrawals, debit card purchases and online, automatic, check or in-branch payments that post and clear your account by 1/31/13
4. $125 is added to your account by 4/30/2012

You can take money out of their ATM twenty times and deposit it right back at the teller or ATM and qualify for the bonus!

Important information about the checking account:

There is a $9.99 monthly fee  unless you keep a $1,500 average daily balance ($125 bonus/$1500 = 8.33%) or you can make five qualifying payments per statement period.  

From the brochure:

Qualifying payments from your account include ATM withdrawals, withdrawals and payments made in our branches, debit card purchases, checks paid,  and automatics checks paid to third party.

In other words, if you make 5 ATM withdrawals per month (or debit card purchases with no minimums) until the end of Apri and deposit the money right back in your account all you need is to put in $50 and you will end up with a $125 bonus or 250% return on your investment!

They are also offering another $100 to open up a CD or money market account with $10,000 in it.  The problem is that you will only get a 1% return on your $10,000 so it is not nearly as lucrative as the checking account deal.