Offer at a glance
- Maximum bonus amount: $150 Visa gift card
- Availability: Must open in-branch; Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia have branches
- Direct deposit required: No
- Additional requirements: None
- Hard/soft pull: Soft
- ChexSystems: Unknown
- Credit card funding: N/A since you must open in-branch
- Monthly fees: None for savings
- Early account termination fee: Bonus forfeit, six months
- Household limit: One per company
- Expiration date:
June 1st, 2017June 30th, 2017
Contents
The Offer
- First Tennesee currently has a bonus for a $150 Visa gift card if you open a Business Checking or Business Savings account (according to the fine print you can only do one of these).
- Open BizEssentials® Basic Checking with an opening deposit of $500 & get a $150 Visa gift card
- Open BizEssentials® Savings with an opening deposit of $2,500 & get $150 Visa gift card
The Fine Print
- Offer Details: Offers above expire 6/1/2017.
- Offers are non-transferable and cannot be combined with other offers.
- Limit one gift card bonus per company.
- Bonus gift card will be mailed to customer 4-6 weeks after account funding, and will be reported as income on Form 1099-INT for deposit accounts.
- Checking and Savings opening deposits cannot be transferred from existing First Tennessee accounts.
- All offers subject to bank approval.
- Checking Offer: To receive bonus gift card, you must present a copy of the offer certificate at a financial center and open your account with a minimum opening deposit of $500. Customer agrees to maintain account in good standing for a minimum of six months.
- Savings Offer: To receive bonus gift card, you must present a copy of the offer certificate at a financial center and open your account with a minimum opening deposit of $2,500.
- As of 2/16/2017, the Annual Percentage Yield (APY) for BizEssentials Savings was .05% for any balance amount. APY is variable and is subject to change without notice. Customer agrees to maintain account in good standing for a minimum of six months.
- FSR: For gift card, use Coupon Redemption System, Checking offer promo code CKSMBS, Savings offer promo code SMBSSV. Visa® is not a sponsor of this promotion. The Visa® Gift card is a prepaid card welcome everywhere in the U.S. Visa® Debit cards are accepted.
- All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them
Avoiding Fees
BizEssentials Checking, $7.50 Monthly Fee
This is waived if you have a minimum daily collected balance of $5,000.
BizEssentials Savings, $0 Monthly Fee
No monthly fee.
Early Account Termination Fee
The fine print states that the account must be kept open and in good standing for 6 months. We can assume that they will take the bonus back if you don’t fulfill this requirement.
Our Verdict
Savings bonus is actually better as it’s easier to avoid the monthly fee. There is no deposit requirement length for either bonus so you should be able to open the savings account with $2,500 and then withdraw it and still get the bonus and pay no monthly fee.
Technically, there is no explicit state limitation indicated on this offer, but you need to open the account in-branch, which limits its availability. For example, the only First Tennessee branch in Texas is Houston, making this uneconomical for most Texans.
How good this deal is will really depend on what is required to open the account (in terms of documents), how long opening the account takes and how close you live to a branch. Until we know the answer to this it’s hard to consider as one of the best business checking/savings bonuses.
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
- Banks That Allow/Don’t Allow Out Of State Checking Applications
this bank does not have any locations in TX…
This can be stacked for another $150 in visa gift cards.
First sign up in branch using DoC’s link.
Then, fill out this form:
https://www.referlive.com/firsttennesseebiz/newcustform/BF5A1511XCCE/14/0890058P2J43EU6
Requirements:
1) Open First Tennessee BizEssentials Checking
2) Fund with at least $500
Not sure it can actually be stacked, can anybody confirm? Also in general please don’t just randomly post your referral links.
Will,
I’m thinking about doing this and personally hope it will stack like the personal ones.
I can’t find any data points either way like the personal ones.
Keep me updated if it works
I do believe it would work to stack this. Just need to fill out the referral before opening the checking account.
Under the ReferLive login, it specifically states you can “Simply refer your friends to open a new retail or business checking account at First Tennessee Bank.*”
If anyone would like to try, see my link below. Thank you in advance. My account will be open until at least November, so the referral link below is active.
https://www.referlive.com/firsttennesseebiz/newcustform/0897d06bc897f764e6abfec664190b9ee16/14/08900587PFHRCYA
Also, Doc, expiration of the promo is now June 30th. Please update article. Thank you.
Long shot but is your link still valid for business accounts? If so, anything to know to get this to stack properly?
Or if you closed your account, were you able to close your account through SM or Phone? Thanks.
New Link: https://www.referlive.com/firsttennesseebiz/newcustform/0897d06bc897f764e6abfec664190b9ee16/14/08900587PFHRCYA
Haven’t seen an issue stacking, other than people that were in the wrong state. If your concerned about not getting the normal promo because you did the ReferLive (RL), I think it is safe to open the checking, then RL signup, out of order, on the same day. But other way around is the normal, RL, then open checking account. RL only validates/updates monthly, so it take awhile to see results. Sometimes RL fine print terms are stricter than bank’s checking promo, so please be aware of that, for $ amounts, or number of transactions/DD’s.
When I have closed FT accounts, did it through SM after zeroing. I have only had personal accounts, but RL gives me the ability to refer Businesses, which is freaking awesome!
Updated
Is your link still active?
Yes, technically it changed. That one is SO’s. I responded to your questions, but comment awaiting moderation.
Thanks. Do you mind emailing it to me? Was going to open tomorrow so just in case your comment doesn’t get posted before that.
rahulvidya11101 at gmail dot com
Thanks again.
Yes, my link is still active and will be as I’m keeping the account.