[Expired] [NY & NJ] Flushing Bank $200 Bonus – Checking Account with Direct Deposit

Deal has now expired, view more checking bonuses by clicking here.

Reposting because you can open online and a complete checking account qualifies.

Offer at a glance

• Maximum bonus amount: $200
• Availability: NY  & NJ
• Direct deposit required: Yes, $250+
• Additional requirements: 5 debit card purchases of $25+ and 5 bill-payments of $25+
• Hard/soft pull: Soft
• Credit card funding: None
• Monthly fees: None
• Early account termination fee: $20 if closed within 90 days
• Expiration date: None specified

The Offer

Direct Link

This offer does not have any online landing page. It’s being promoted in local NYC circulars (past couple of weeks). Here’s a copy of an ad that someone sent me:

• Receive $100 for opening a Complete Checking Plus account and receiving a recurring direct deposit of $250 or more. Must be completed within 90 days of account opening.
• Receive $50 for the completion of 5 debit card purchases. Each purchase must be $25 or more. Must be completed within 60 days of account opening.
• Receive $50 for completing 5 online bill-payments. Each bill-payment must be $25 or more. Must be completed within 60 days of account opening.

The Fine Print

• New Complete Checking Plus account with new money only.
• Existing checking customers are not eligible.
• ‘Existing customer’ is defined as anyone who currently has a Flushing checking account or who has had one within the past 24 months.
• One Complete Plus checking account per household.
• Minimum deposit to open Complete Plus checking is $100.
• No minimum balance required to be eligible for bonus.
• Tax refund checks do not qualify as direct deposit.
• Compensation will be credited to the checking account on or about the end of the month following the completion of fulfilling the Direct Deposit, bill-payment and debit card requirements.
• A 1099 will be issued.
• Other fees and restrictions may apply.
• Offer subject to change at any time.

Avoiding Fees

Update: According to the comments, the complete checking account will qualify. This account has no monthly fees.

As noted, this offer is only on the Complete Plus Checking account, not on the Complete Checking version. Complete Plus account comes with a $10 monthly fee if the balance is beneath $5,000. For balances $5,000 and above the fee is waived.

Our Verdict

This sound like a pretty good offer, except the part about the monthly fees. One easy option is to just deposit $5000 to keep it fee-free. The website states that the Complete Plus earns ‘competitive interest rates’. I haven’t been able to find on the site what they are, so I don’t know how the rates match up with high-interest accounts.

We also don’t know if there’s an early termination fee, so we can’t calculate how many months of high-yield interest we’d be forgoing or how many months of $10 monthly-fees we’d be paying. For simplicity sake, let’s assume we’d keep the account open for 6 months and pay the $10 monthly fees, we’d end up with a profit of $140. If you go with the $5,000 option, you’d probably be better off, though we don’t know exactly how much since we don’t know the current interest rate that Complete Plus will earn.

One other thing that’s not clear is how to open the account: The ad sounds like it can be opened online (‘visit flushingbank.com’), but I contacted Flushing and they seemed to indicate that this is not so. I asked them a couple of questions, which they didn’t really answer well, but they did indicate that it needs to be opened in branch. One interesting thing is that in their reply (a couple of days ago) they wrote: “When you open a Complete Checking account at one of our local Flushing Bank Branch’s you can get up to $200…”, seeming to indicate that the Complete Checking is also eligible. I’d guess that this was just a vague use of words and the Complete Checking is not eligible. In any case, they were clearly aware of the bonus, so you any branch you go to will probably be able to take care of it for you. That being said, it would be smart to call your nearest branch first to verify.

[IMPORTANT UPDATE 2/2/15: According to an email I received today, opening an account online is eligible for the bonus. Here’s a look at the email:

This is important because it means that anyone in NY or NJ can do this bonus, even if they aren’t close to a branch. It’s also more convenient for all of us. It may be worthwhile getting this in writing (as I did) so that in case there’s a problem you could use the email as confirmation that the bonus is available online.]

For accounts opened online, it says on the landing page that accounts can be opened by residents of NY and NJ. If a NJ resident finds himself in NY, they should be able to go into a Flushing branch and open an account with this bonus. [UPDATE: Per the above, a NJ resident can simply open an account online.]

Another point is the direct deposit, we don’t know if ACH transfers will trigger the direct deposit requirement. To be safe, it would make sense to do a real employer direct deposit.

Here’s how to go about completing this bonus:

• Call your closest Flushing branch to verify that the offer is available. [UPDATE: Per the above, you should be able to open an account online as well.]
• Go into the branch and be sure that the banker notates the account with the bonus offer. Try to get some kind of written confirmation or email to verify that the account is eligible for the offer. Maybe try to verify if there’s an early termination fee for closing the account within 6 month.
• Deposit $5,000 in the initial funding and park that money there to keep the account fee-free. No longer needed
• Set up a recurring ACH transfer of $250. For more security, have your employer change part of your direct deposit so that $250 per month goes to this Flushing account.
• Complete 5 bill-payments of $25 each to credit card bills or other bills.
• Complete 5 debit card purchases of $25 each.
• Wait for the bonus to post at the end of the month.
• Wait 6 months to negate the possibility of an early termination fee, and close the account.

You can also take a look at these other Flushing Bank bonuses:

• [NY & NJ only] Flushing Bank $200 Business Checking Bonus (No DD) + Samsung Galaxy Tab A 16GB WiFi tablet For Depositing $15,000+
• $100 Flushing Business Checking Bonus
• [Expired] $150 Flushing Checking Account Bonus
• NYC Employees and Affiliates $150 Flushing Bonus