This offer has expired, you can view more checking bonuses here.
Offer at a glance
- Maximum bonus amount: $500
- Availability: AZ, IA, IL, WI, CO, NM only
- Direct deposit required: Yes, three required no minimum specified
- Additional requirements: Yes, see below
- Hard/soft pull: Soft
- ChexSystems: Unknown
- Credit card funding: None
- Monthly fees: Waivable
- Early account termination fee: 90 days or bonus forfeit and $25 fee.
- Expiration date: December 31st, 2016
The Offer
See below for direct link in eligiblity
- Open a new account with Bank & Trust and receive a bonus of up to $500, bonus is broken down as follows:
- Register for eStatements by March 31, 2017 to receive a $65.00 bonus
- Have a minimum of 45 debit card purchases post to your new checking account within 90 calendar days to receive a $135.00 bonus [Read: How to meet debit card transaction requirements]
- Have a minimum of three (3) direct deposits post to your new checking account within 90 calendar days of account opening to receive a $150.00 bonus
- Open a qualifying savings account within the promotional bonus period and maintain a $5000 average balance for 90 calendar days from the open date of the savings account to receive a $150.00 bonus
Eligiblity
This deal seems to be available across a lot of different state specific ‘bank & trust’ brands. Here are the direct links:
- Arizona Bank & Trust (AZ)
- First Community Bank (IA, IL)
- Dubuque Bank & Trust (IA)
- Illinois Bank & Trust (IL)
- Wisconsin Bank & Trust (WI)
- Centennial Bank & Trust (CO)
- New Mexico Bank & Trust (NM)
The Fine Print
- Bonuses only apply when opening a new checking account during the promotional bonus period.
- The promotional bonus period is 10/1/2016-12/31/2016.
- If the account is closed by the customer within 90 calendar days after opening we will deduct bonuses received at closing. Closing the account will negate any unearned bonuses.
- A $25 account closing fee may also apply.
- Each bonus item is eligible for a maximum of one payment.
- All bonus dollars will be paid to the newly opened checking account.
- If multiple checking accounts are opened during the promotional bonus period under the same primary owner name, the bonuses will be paid to the account that was opened first.
- An IRS 1099 form may be issued.
- Register for eStatements by March 31, 2017 to receive a $65.00 bonus. The bonus will be paid within five (5) business days after you enroll in eStatements. Existing customers currently enrolled in eStatements will not qualify for the eStatement bonus.
- Have a minimum of 45 debit card purchases post to your new checking account within 90 calendar days to receive a $135.00 bonus. The bonus will be paid within five (5) business days after your 45th debit transaction posts.
- Have a minimum of three (3) direct deposits post to your new checking account within 90 calendar days of account opening to receive a $150.00 bonus. The bonus will be paid within five (5) business days after your third direct deposit posts.
- If multiple checking accounts are opened during the promotional bonus period under the same primary owner name during the promotional bonus period the direct deposit and debit card transaction requirements can occur on any of the new checking accounts.
- Open a qualifying savings account within the promotional bonus period and maintain a $5000 average balance for 90 calendar days from the open date of the savings account to receive a $150.00 bonus. Qualifying savings accounts under the same primary owner name, where available, include Regular Statement Savings, Passbook Savings, or High Yield Savings. The bonus will be paid to the checking account within five (5) business days after the savings account has been opened for 90 calendar days.
- All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them
Avoiding Fees
You need to keep the accounts open for at least 90 days otherwise you’ll forfeit the bonus. There is also a $25 early account termination fee if you close within 90 days according to the fee schedule. The easiest checking account to keep fee free is the free checking account with eStatements, you just need to enroll in eStatements (required for $65 bonus anyway) to avoid the $2.5 fee.
They don’t publish the interest rates on the savings accounts but regular is fee free with $100 balance and passbok is fee free with $500 savings, high yield is free with $10,000 in savings (more than required for the bonus).
Our Verdict
You need to provide your details for a banker to get back to you, but should be able to open in branch pretty easily. Because of the huge size of this bonus I think it’s worth the hassle of the bonus requirements, thankfully keeping the account fee free isn’t such an issue. We’ve added this to our list of the best checking and savings bonuses. They are also offering a $200 money market bonus, but that is only available to existing cardholders.
Please share your datapoints about this bonus in the comments below.
Useful posts regarding bank bonuses:
- A Beginners Guide To Bank Account Bonuses
- PSA: Don’t Call The Bank
- Introduction To ChexSystems
- Banks & Credit Unions That Are ChexSystems Inquiry Sensitive
- What Banks & Credit Unions Do/Don’t Pull ChexSystems?
- How To Use Our Direct Deposit Page For Bank Bonuses Page
- Common Bank Bonus Misconceptions + Why You Should Give Them A Go
- How Many Bank Accounts Can I Safely Open Within A Year For Bank Bonus Purposes?
- Affiliate Links & Bank Bonuses – We Won’t Be Using Them
- Complete List Of Ways To Close Bank Accounts At Each Bank
This has expired.
Updated post.
I just signed up in Denver. An interesting thing I didn’t see mentioned here, and maybe they only recently changed it, but the offer in the branch said that the 45 transactions have to be signature transactions. The banker told me that if I’m at the grocery store just hit credit instead of debit and it will come up as a signature transaction.
Well hopefully not. I just completed my 45 Amazon reloads. I’ll report back if the bonus posts.
You should be good. Most of my 45 were 50-cent Amazon reloads, with a few small grocery/gas purchases (run as credit, not debit) thrown in for good measure.
Bonus posted within a day or two from completion of the 45.
Posted shortly thereafter. Such an easy and fast bonus.
Was able to trigger the direct deposit bonus for WI B&T with Ally. 2 direct deposits from the trial deposits and 1 from an actual transfer.
What is WI B&T?
Wisconsin Bank & Trust
I filled out the online form for 4 designated locations in my area and have not heard from any of them. It has been over 2 weeks. Can this be opened online? I have opened 13 checking accounts in 2016 (2 twice) and I am hesitant to go into the branch and be rejected. Does this bank use ChexSystems?
Can you add the states for this to the Best Bank Account Bonuses page? It gets me every time. 🙂
I had a shit storm with this bank. I wanted to close out my Citibank checking account that I received a $400 bonus from. I didn’t want to transfer 2k at a time from citi to hit the 5k balance needed in az bank and trust BC that would just be a pain in the ass. Instead I wrote a 5k check from the checks Citibank gave me when I opened the account with them.
Bad idea. Citi denied the check even though I had about 10k in the account BC apparently before you can use checks with Citi bank you have to “activate” check writing. What the fucking fuck? Really?
Az bank and trust put some kind of weird hold on my account which showes it NEGATIVE 5K. I called several times and they did Jack shit until some VP called me to tell me my account would be closed. That 5K hold on the account was removed and the $300 or so I had in the account was clawed back. I walked away with about $150 in bonus money.
My $1 direct deposits and 45 $1 Amazon transactions made me look like a gamer plus the bad check look like a dead beat criminal. This was all due to shitty bank not honoring my check. It was a pain in the ass.
Idk if this will lead to a negative remark on my chexsystems report. I fucking hope not. This was about the 20th bank account I had opened in 2016.
The negative hold is standard for a new account which has a check deposited at AZ B&T. They put a hold on funds for all checks for a period of 1 month from the account opening. Normally your account would have shown both a +$5000 and -$5000 which would cancel out for available balance so you would not be able to withdraw funds that potentially would not clear or have payment stopped in the case of fraud.
The “Held” balance would still count toward the amount available in the account for the purpose of the $5k savings balance and accruing interest. It was only due to the check bouncing that the negative account value occurred in your case. You might have a negative mark for the bounced check, but you shouldn’t for the negative balance which was just a quirk of their computer system.
It’seems probably a little CSS tweak.
Probably but I’m not very good at those sorts of things unfortunately :(.
Long time lurker/reader and first time poster here. I just got back from a branch after opening the checking and savings accounts.
I am planning on using bank transfer ACH transactions for the required three direct deposits. I am assuming, these have to be initiated at the other bank(s) not Bank & Trust. Correct? Do they have to be spaced apart or can they be within days/hours of each other?
For the 45 debit card transactions, can I do gas station, supermarket/grocery store swipes without getting flagged?
Thanks in advance and thanks to DOC for an excellent website for bank bonus offers.
Yes it’s always better to do an ACH push rather than a pull (because you wouldn’t do a pull for your salary). Don’t know if there is any required spacing or not, but probably wouldn’t hurt to make them on different days. And yes to debit card transactions AFAIK, hope that helps!
Thanks Bill. They also signed me up for Generations Gold: http://www.gengold.com.
It can be canceled after period.
I just checked their mobile app and my two bonuses posted. One is $65 for estatements and second is $150 for direct deposit. My direct deposits are initiated but didn’t show up in my account activity yet. They probably are in pending state and don’t show up yet.
P.S.: DOC, why the green background for text with links? Makes it difficult to read.
Funny, only two ACH should have been initiated. Third one is scheduled for 25th — 8 days from now. But the dirdct deposit bonus already posted to my account. Looks like one direct deposit/ACH may be enough.
It has been only 51 hours since I opened my accounts and I already have two of the bonuses posted. This is my quickest & easiest bonus.
That’s part of the theme, we have plans to update it to look nicer but it costs $$$.
Two of the four requirements were incredibly easy. $65 for the estatement sign up (which the banker did for me in branch when I signed up), posted a couple days later, and then the DD requirement, which triggered with Wells Fargo test deposits and one $10 deposit, and posted 1 day later. If you include the time spent opening the account in branch, that’s like 20 minutes of work for $215. Plus, they’re offering $50 referral coupons, of which family members are eligible (they’re not a one per household thing). Super easy money here.
Not sure if I’ll even bother with the extra effort on the 45 debit swipe option. Either way, getting a quick $215 is fantastic.
Just get an Amex Serve or Bluebird card and link your debit card to it. You can do 45 $1 loads to it, and then transfer the money right back to your bank account. Worked great for me and the bonus credited the day after the 45 debit transactions finished posting.
In what time frame u did 45 transfers???
Two days. I did 15 on the first day and 30 on the second.
Thats cool…so no issues if we do like that?? wont they notice these types??
Oh man, that’s sharp — thx for the idea!
Not worth it imo, its a red flag to have amex looking at your serve if you use it to load at WM or such…just go to gas stations in your area a few times and do $1 pumps, or amazon load money to your account for at least 10 transactions.
DP: Discover ACH triggered the Direct Deposit requirement. Got $150 2 days after the deposits were made.