This offer has now expired, but you can view an even better current KeyBank checking bonus by clicking here.
Offer at a glance
- Maximum bonus amount: $300
- Availability:Â AK, CO, ID, IN, ME, MI, NY, OH, OR, UT, VT, or WA only
- Direct deposit required:Â Yes, a total of at least $1,000 within 60 days of account opening. Almost any ACH transfer should trigger this requirement, click here to see what has worked in the past.
- Additional requirements:Â Combination of five debit card purchases and or bill paymentsÂ
- Hard/soft pull: Soft
- Credit card funding: Up to $100
- Monthly fees:Â None – $18, waive-able
- Early account termination fee:Â $25 if closed within 180 days of opening
- Expiration date: October 9th, 2015
Contents
The Offer
- Receive a sign up bonus of $300 when you open a Key Advantage®, Key Privilege®, or Key Privilege Select Checking and receive a direct deposit of $1,000 or more and a combination of five debit card and/or bill payments within 60 days after account opening
- Receive a sign up bonus of $100 KeyBank Hassle-Free Account or other qualifying checking account and Make a direct deposit of $500 or more and a combination of five debit card and/or bill payments within 60 days after account opening
The Fine Print
- All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them
- Offer is available to new bank clients who have not had any type of account with KeyBank within the last 12 months
- Direct deposit transactions are limited to payroll, Social Security, pension and government benefits, although in the past other direct deposits have triggered this bonus.
- Bonus will post within 90 days of meeting the requirements
Avoiding Fees
Hassle Free Checking Account
The best account to open for the $100 bonus is the Hassle Free Checking account which has no monthly fees or monthly minimums.
Key Advantage Checking Account
This is the best account to open for the $300 bonus, the monthly fee is $18 and is waived for the first three months. After that you need to do one of the following to avoid the $18 monthly fee:
- Maintain a minimum of $10,000 in any combination of checking, savings, CDs, retirement deposits, investments (including annuity balances reflected on your Key Investment Services LLC (KIS) account statement)4, credit cards1, loans2, and lines of credit2, OR
- Have a KeyBank mortgage automatic payment deduction of $500 or more each statement cycle, OR
- If you are a Key@Work program member and have at least $1,000 in cumulative direct deposits each statement cycle
Early Account Termination Fee $25
If you close your account within 180 days, you are required to pay an early account closure fee of $25
Our Verdict
In the past KeyBank has offered $200 for the Hassle Free account, so I’d only recommend signing up for the $300 bonus. The difficulty is keeping the account fee free, if you have $10,000 spare you can deposit it into the account at the end of the third month and then close the account at the end of the six months to avoid the early account termination fee of $25. You’d lose out on about $25 in interest compared to a 1% checking account, but that isn’t too bad considering the $300 bonus.
The other option would be to complete the bonus requirements as quickly as possible and close the account as soon as the bonus posts, you’d need to pay the early account termination fee of $25 and possible one months fees of $18 as well.
We’ve added this bonus to our best of list due to how large the bonus it is and how easy it is to meet the direct deposit requirements. You can also view all of the current bank account bonuses by going here. One last thing to keep in mind is that some people are being targeted for a further $50 when they haven’t used their KeyBank checking account for awhile.
Any datapoints of actual payouts? Fulfilled requirements on 10/16, opened late September.
Hi James, both my wife and myself opened accounts in September. She completed requirements at the end of September and I completed mine at the very banning of October. Both did Capital One 360 transfer of $1000 which showed up as direct deposit. We both had our bonuses posted today, showing yesterday’s date as the deposit date. I suspect you may have yours today as well and if not, there should be one last set of bonuses deposited in December.
I am going to call this on a bust for me. Opened account on 7/14. Direct Deposit was ACH from capitol one 360. completed 5 debit by 8/10. It is now 10/31 and nothing. I am now having to pay the monthly fee as well. Can you close the account online?
In my opinion, you might want to wait, until there are other data points for one more month. Since it seems like they are batch depositing for everyone.
I have a $300 email offer from KeyBank from August that is expiring in a week. It doesn’t say anything about being limited to the states mentioned here. Should I be okay for the bonus then even though I don’t live in one of those states? Does Serve or PayPal work for the direct deposit?
To anyone thinking of downgrading to avoid the account closure fee, bad news: it doesn’t work out that way.
To “downgrade” to the no-fee account, you actually need to apply for a new account and then they close your old one. I figured out at the end of a long process with their reps that you will still incur the early account closure fee if you try to do this.
“Downgrade” is one way to manage monthly fee. I downgrade PNC virtual Wallet with performance spend ( $25 or $5000 balance) to VW ($5 or $500 balance) after I got my $300 bonus. You can also downgrade from Huntington 5 ($5 ) to hassel free account( no fee). May be there are other banks which allow you to downgrade which I do not know.
What is the “Relationship Rewards membership fee – $30 annual fee (optional)”
I signed up for the Key Advantage MM Checking – will I get charged a $30 AF?
cheers
If I closed a Key Bank credit card in 12 months, am I eligible for the $300 bonus?
This is a checking bonus, so I imagine you’d be fine.
I found out the hard way that this is not true. After waiting the 90 days, talking to multiple customer service reps, and then waiting another 7 weeks, and talking to another customer service rep, I was informed that when they say “any accounts”, they include credit cards in that. Even the fact that my credit card account used to belong to HSBC, and was transferred over to Key when HSBC left my area didn’t help(I brought up the fact that this checking account was the first account I had ever opened with Key bank, to no avail).
So, no bonus here. If you have or had a credit card with Key in the last 12 months, you can’t get this bonus.
I wish I read your comment before I opened Key checking account.
No $300 bonus for me because I have credit card account. Other banks seem OK with credit card. This teach me a lesson that I need to read requirements very carefully. Do not assume anything.
Thank you for taking time to alert others.
Just found out new requirement I’ve not seen before:
Offer is available to new bank clients who have not had any type of account with KeyBank within the last 12 months. Only residents of Ann Arbor MI, Alaska, Cincinnati OH, Columbus OH, Dayton OH, Idaho, Indiana (Central and Northern), Maine, Toledo OH, Utah and Vermont are eligible for this offer.
Requirement changes with each Bonus. I just emailed $300 bonus coupon (EDGF0317, exp. date 4/21/17) and it said you can not have any CHECKing accounts within 12 months, not mentioning ANY accounts ,ie credit card which I was denied the bonus last year
because I had Key credit card account..
At this time there is also a $200 bonus with same requirement.
mine hit on 9/24 as well.
Yeah, bulk for sure. Mine was the 24th too. I misspoke on the 25th. Anyone thinking of downgrading Advantage to Hassle Free? Thinking of doing that to avoid the monthly fee and then hope for a $50 inactive offer? Of course, closing would be best for churning purposes. But if it pays out $50 now and then might be easier to just keep around…. do those $50 offers come around a lot?
For those who have had bonuses post was your direct deposit payroll or an ACH. If ACH from where?
I forgot to mention in my post, but my direct deposit was payroll.
Account opened 7/10.
Bonus posted 9/24.
It seems like they’re processing these bonuses in bulk.