This bonus has now expired, but don’t worry BMO Harris is instead offering a $200 bonus which you can read about here.
Offer at a glance
- Maximum bonus amount: $150
- Availability: Nationwide
- Direct deposit required: $300
- Additional requirements: None
- Hard/soft pull: Soft
- Credit card funding: Up to $1,000
- Monthly fees: $10, waivable
- Early account termination fee: $50 if closed within 90 days, you’ll also forfeit the bonus if you closed the account within six months.
- Expiration date: July 30th, 2015
The Offer
- Open a BMO Harris checking account and receive a sign up bonus of $150 when you receive a qualifying recurring direct deposit of $300 or more
The Fine Print
- Offer is valid for a new BMO Harris Everyday Checking®, BMO Harris Select Checking® or BMO Harris Portfolio Checking®
- Offer not available to existing BMO Harris personal checking account customers or those who have closed a BMO Harris personal checking account within the past 60 days
- Customers may receive only one BMO Harris checking account-related incentive, reward or bonus per calendar year
- Qualifying direct deposits” are recurring direct deposits of a paycheck, pension payment, Social Security payment, or other government benefits payment electronically deposited into your new personal checking account on a recurring basis, at least monthly, from an employer or an outside agency
- First direct deposit must hit account within 60 days of account opening
- They reserve the right to request documentation to support that the direct deposits are qualifying direct deposits
- Bonus will be paid out within approximately 120 days of account opening
- Account must be kept open for at least six months
- You must pay taxes on all bank account bonuses
Avoiding Fees
Your best option is to open the BMO Harris Everyday Checking ($10 monthly fee), the monthly fee is waived if you meet any of the following requirements:
- You receive an external deposit of $500 or more
- The minimum daily balance is $1,000 or more
- You’re a college student and you request a fee waiver. This will result in the account being fee free for a period of four years
- Your BMO Harris Select Checking® account meets its $10,000 minimum Combined Balance requirement, and you have requested we link this account to your BMO Harris Select Checking account to receive benefits under Relationship Waiver. (Monthly maintenance fee waiver is limited to one (1) BMO Harris Everyday Checking account.)
- Your BMO Harris Portfolio Checking® account meets its $25,000 minimum Combined Balance requirement, and you have requested we link this account to your BMO Harris Portfolio Checking account to receive benefits under Relationship Waiver. (Monthly maintenance fee waiver is limited to a total of two (2) BMO Harris Everyday Checking accounts.)
- Your Wealth Checking account meets its $25,000 minimum Average Daily Balance requirement, and you have requested we link this account to your Wealth Checking account to receive benefits under Relationship Waiver. (Monthly maintenance fee waiver is limited to a total of two (2) BMO Harris Everyday Checking accounts.)
Early Account Termination Fee
You need to keep your account open for a minimum of six months to keep the bonus, in addition to this if you closed it within 90 days you’ll be charged an additional $50.
Our Verdict
This is a great bonus and one that I’d recommend most people sign up for. Here is what I’d recommend doing:
- Open the every day account, use a credit card to fund $1,000 (this will earn you credit card points and give you enough in the account to keep it fee free. You can see what credit cards have/haven’t coded as a cash advance here for BMO Harris)
- Set up a direct deposit of $300+ for four months, you can see what has worked as a direct deposit in the past here, you can also transfer money out of the account so your balance sits at $1,000 to avoid losing too much in interest.
- Wait for the bonus to post
- Wait six months, close account
It looks like BMO Harris is another bank that specifically allows you to churn bank bonuses once per year, much like the Chase bank bonuses. We’ve added this bonus to our list of recommended bank bonuses, which can be found here.
Last year BMO Harris offered a similar promotion, but for $200 instead of $150. It looks like people that partook in that promotion should be able to take part in this as long as they received the bonus last year and it’s been at least six months since the account was closed.
My one and only concern with this bonus is that they have the right to request proof that your direct deposit is legit, because of this it might make sense to not do $300 exactly, as this doesn’t look like a real pay check or government benefit. If possible, change your real payroll.
Hat tip to Ethan S
After reading comments from the Maximizing Money blog, it appears that not only people living outside the bank’s branch area are not receiving the bonus, but also people who were not targeted for the offer. It does seem strange that it is a generic code rather than a unique code. Has anyone who didn’t receive a targeted offer receive the bonus?
I would recommend reading the comments of this blog post from Maximizing Money: BMO Harris Bank $200 Personal Checking Bonus. Apparently a number or people who have opened accounts who live outside of the bank’s branch area (Illinois, Indiana, Arizona, Missouri, Minnesota, Kansas, Nevada, Florida, Washington, and Wisconsin) are not receiving the bonus.
Has anyone been able to open an account over the phone? The nearest branch to me is 100 miles away.
you can change the title to $200 now as clicking the offer link now shows a $200 offer instead of $150. you still can’t signup online. though.
New promo/terms?
$200 cash bonus is valid for a new BMO Harris Everyday Checking®, BMO Harris Select Checking® or BMO Harris Portfolio Checking® account opened between July 27, 2015 and January 22, 2016 and is limited to one per account. Offer not available to existing BMO Harris personal checking account customers (including all signers on joint accounts) or those who have closed a BMO Harris personal checking account within the past 12 months of opening a new account as part of this promotion. BMO Harris reserves the right to amend or cancel any part of this offer.
Ya I noticed that. Did anyone try to sign up?
Any updates?
Anyone got the online application to work? I guess we can also apply over the phone and simply provide offer code we got in email.
when i click “open now” it says its unavailable. anyone else have this problem?
i requested the coupon and have my code for the $200 bonus now, i just want to open up the account online and its not allowing me becauase of this error.
any solution?
On your link for methods of working direct deposits, you mention “Discover ACH”. Is this funding via bill pay from Discover Checking? Or is it something else?
Thanks for the tip about requesting the coupon. Now I have until December to sign up. By then I’m sure people will know what does and does not count for DD. Why did you sign up with 2 email addresses?