[Expired]Santander $150 Checking Account Bonus

Offer has now expired, you can view the best current bank bonuses by going here.

Offer at a glance

• Maximum bonus amount: $150 
• Availability: Nationwide
• Direct deposit required: Yes, one time $500 (see what counts here)
• Additional requirements: None
• Hard/soft pull: Soft, see below
• Credit card funding: Up to $500
• Monthly fees: $5, waivable
• Early account termination fee: No bonus if closed within 90 days
• Expiration date: 12/31/15 

This offer is not available to current Santander customers.

The Offer

Direct Link

• Receive $150 bonus doing the following: Open a Santander checking account, receive direct deposits totaling $500, and keep account open for 90 days.

 

You can either open the account online (and get to do the $500 credit card funding) or print out a coupon via the above link and bring it in-branch to open.

The Fine Print

• Offer is not available on Extra20 Checking account or student account; all other accounts are eligible for the bonus, including Basic, Simply Right and Premier
• Offer is not available to current or former Santander customers who had a Santander checking account between 10/1/2014 – 9/30/2015
• Minimum $25 needed to open the account
• Bonus is considered interest and will be reported to IRS on Form 1099-INT
• One bonus per person
• Bonus paid within 30 days after meeting all requirements
• Offer valid until 12/31/15

Waiving Fees

This bonus is valid on the following three account types: Basic, Classic, and Premier (not on Extra20 or Student accounts).

• Basic – This account has a non-waivable $5 monthly fee. $3 for NY and NJ.
• Classic– This account has a $10 monthly fee. Waivable with $750 balance or $500 monthly direct deposit.
• Premier – This account has a $30 monthly fee. Waived with $20k in combined balances.

Update 11/22/15: They’re now switching over the Classic account to be called Simply Right Checking and the $10 monthly fee is waived by making any transaction, including deposits, withdrawals, transfers or payments. Unclear if $750 monthly balance will keep the fee waived as well.

Direct Deposit Requirement

Direct deposits include deposits made by your employer or a federal or state government agency or retirement benefits administrator and generally payments made by corporations or other organizations. It does not include deposits to your Account that are made by an individual using online banking or an Internet payment provider such as PayPal.

It used to be easy to fulfill Santander’s direct deposit requirement with an ACH transfer, but they’ve cracked down on it and now not everything works.

Note that only $500 total needs to be direct deposited. The total can be a sum of multiple direct deposits. Also, you don’t need to keep doing the direct deposit after you hit the $500 requirement in order to get the bonus.

Also note that the official language leaves room for “payments made by corporations or other organizations” to count as direct deposit. They just don’t want people sending themselves money from another account. If you are an Amazon seller or get paid from your favorite shopping portal via ACH or many other things like this may work, depending how it codes.

Hard Pull

In the past, all Santander accounts have been a soft pull (confirmed many, many times). There is one report of a hard pull for this current offer. My strong guess is that the data point isn’t accurate or is an anomaly; we’ll update this post when we can confirm. Please let us know.

Our Verdict

$150 is average/good for a bank bonus and this one is even better due to the fact that there aren’t many requirements involved and it allows $500 in credit card funding as well. There is a small risk of hard pull as noted above, but hopefully we’ll get some data points on this soon to clear that up.

Here’s what I’d do if I wanted to go for this bonus:

• Open the Simply Right Checking account (not the basic).
• Fund it the max $500 with a Barclay or Chase card that has a cash advance limit of $0 or close to $0.
• Do a $500 direct deposit. This will meet the direct deposit requirement and it will waive the first month’s monthly fee.
• Withdraw most of the money and set up an automatic bill pay (to a credit card or whatever) of $1 monthly to keep the account fee-free.
• Wait 90 days from account opening, then wait another 30 days for bonus to post.
• Close account.

Note that if you have $1500 in monthly direct deposits, you might consider opening the Santander Extra20 account after closing this account or just skipping this bonus and doing the Extra20 right now. (You’ll get $80 over the 4 months instead of the $150 you get under this bonus. $80 is less than $150, but for the extra $70 it may not be worth it. Hopefully, this makes sense.)