This post contains a list of brokerage bonuses that are/aren’t churnable (can be done more than once). As always look at the specific terms of each offer but this should be a good starting point. Remember to share your own datapoints as well in the comments below.
Can churn
- Chase/JPM (CPC offer): 12 months from enrollment
- Chase self-directed: 12 months from enrollment
- Citi wealth management: 1 offer per year (brokerage or IRA)
- E-trade brokerage:
- Fidelity:
- Merrill:
- *Schwab brokerage: *can churn by matching other firms (brokerage and IRA)
- WellsTrade (WF Premier offer): 12 months from bonus (brokerage or IRA)
Cannot churn but has targeted offers:
Cannot churn
- Ally Invest (sometimes there are targeted offers that can be churned)
- Tradestation: limit 1 cash bonus
- HSBC brokerage (HSBC Premier offer)
- TastyTrade
Hat tip to reader catcat for the initial datapoints
Webull can be churned if you check with their customer service and they make your eligible for a new promo. I received their $1200 promo, then the 2% match promo, and lately the $750 promo as well.
do you close out your account first or is it a new offer on top of existing account? I’ve heard rumor of the latter
Wellsfargo is effectively once per 16 months from enrollment day. Been burnt a couple of times as they are very strict…helpful to keep some buffer there
Technically not churning, but even better: For E*Trade, after I got the opening bonus, I got targeted for “increasing my balance”, with the exact same bonus structure as for new accounts at the same time.
Interesting was this an email, did the call your or did you call in, and do you remember when this was; don’t think i ever got that before
Isn’t Citi now once a year per their new terms?
My experience is with CPWM only, which requires an advisor, and not with CSI. The current CPWM terms do not explicitly state “once per quarter” nor do they state “once per year”. And they are the same (minus the dates) as when I last participated in them, which was Q4 2024 (December 2024) and Q1 2025 (January 2025).
I took a brief look at the CSI terms as well and don’t see language about it being “once per year.” It’s possible that something changed though and not stated in the terms I linked. I will know soon enough when I contact my advisor for another offer next month (Q4 2025).
It is CPWM only. I think you haven’t read the new terms for Q3
Note: We reserve the right to prohibit a client from future CPWM bonus offers when we decide the client has acted inconsistently with the intent of this offer, which is to establish or continue an ongoing investment relationship with Citi Personal Wealth Management (“CPWM”). We will periodically review your CPWM account activity to determine if gaming behavior is present (gaming behavior includes, but is not limited to, any client that receives a cash bonus and within 3 months of bonus payment, removes a substantial portion of the New-to-Citi funds; or participates in multiple bonus offers and removes their funds shortly after receiving the bonus payment). The client will be notified that they are ineligible for future CPWM bonus offers.
Please share where you are seeing once per year in the terms because I’m not seeing it.
Yes
I didn’t say once a year churn. I said you can’t move funds with them now for at least 7 months. So just consider 8 months to be on the safer side.
I haven’t personally taken out funds from one quarter to use in the next quarter’s promotion because I use different funds each time and cycle between traditional IRA, rollover IRA, Roth IRA, and taxable accounts.
So essentially I do end up leaving funds in there for 6+ months for each account but am still able to participate in the overlapping offers more than once per year because I use different funds.
Yeah we can afford to get funds from elsewhere but main thing is your fund is stuck for at least 7 months.
New terms for CPWM mention about not withdrawing funds and gaming with in 3 months of receiving the bonus. Otherwise they will mark you ineligible for future bonuses.
They pay the bonus itself 3 months after you meeting the 1 month holding requirement. So, basically you hold your funds for at least 6 months.
It’s not explicitly once a year. It is like holding your funds for at least 7 months with them. You can churn them after that.
What does churn mean here?
Means they can be done more than once.
I know that I have done Tastytrade twice with success.
I have found that some brokerage accounts don’t quite close. They still show up as open with 0 balance even after years. Do these firms still allow to open an additional account with the promo attached?
Second question, how does Schwab match? Do you just call them and open a new account, or tell them that you are moving assets out of Schwab and they give you a retaining bonus?
Interesting. Tastytrade told me once per lifetime and I didn’t even do a big bonus, just the free shares of stock.
For Schwab, you need to find a financial consultant who is on board.
My experience with this is to first call Schwab about new assets to bring in and the offer details from the other brokerage (public link or screenshots if targeted). There is a dedicated team that handles this and they would do their research on the offer. If approved, they will email you with the promotion terms and confirm your enrollment.
Keep an eye on the hold times because I’m not sure if they match that and Schwab hold times are generally for 1 year. Except when I matched to the E-trade IRA offer, the hold was only 45 days instead of 1 year at E-trade.
Just one DP but for me they stopped responding to my match requests after 2. I did Individual + Roth in 2024, and when the hold period was over for the matched Individual offer, I requested a match to keep my money in the account. Their team never replied to me so I went with the competing offer and moved money out.
Did you use the same login? I’ve noticed TastyTrade still keeps the old login active (with no accounts) after full ACAT transfer out
I used a different email address and created a new login. it has been a few years though.
Schwab will match most bonuses from major brokerages. Very good if you are using bonds to meet the deposit requirement.
yeah, they matched Merrill for $1k
Like how? You talk with them when you open a new account with Schwab? Or when you try to transfer assets out from their side, their website offers something?
They always call me after an ACAT from another brokerage offering to match the bonus. You might try to ask for a “retention specialist” through the chat or on the phone.
$16k for last years webull offer finally hit today, one more year for the remaining $16k. def best deal out there by far.
Not sure where your data from E-Trade came from. People have done E-Trade many many times. The only limitation, as far as I know, is you can only work on one promo at a time.
Also I’ve done Merrill multiple times also.
Good to know about Merrill. I would like to do the that IRA offer again but am unsure if I can use the same PR1000 code and what the churning time period is.
I don’t remember. Check the E-Trade post from last year where people kept enrolling in the new promos when they had the $200 for 1k or whatever it was.
I have opened a new E-Trade account for every offer, so I guess it was for ‘new accounts’
Do they not have a 12 month holding period limitation?
Pretty sure most of the e trade offers I did had 6 months hold requirements.
Do all these new E*Trade accounts stay under 1 login or separate logins?
1 log in. Why would you need a separate login? It’s all tied to your SSN. I had like fou ancient $0 accounts before I started closing them
For E*trade you can call in and get an existing customer promo applied once per promo period as well to get around the 2 new account lifetime limit
I don’t know what this “lifetime limit” you are talking about is. I’ve had more than 2 accounts and the only reason I opened them was for bonuses. Nothing special about me as far as I know
My last new account bonus was rejected. I called a bunch of different times and each time they said the system disallowed it. This was about 2 weeks ago. One rep was nice enough to let me know about another non advertised existing customer promo code and applied that one for me instead
Yea I spoke to one rep today and he did mention about directly manually applying a promo to an existing account rather creating a new one. Although it had different tier and bonuses.
do you happen to remember the tiers or if it’s been posted before?
Source is just the linked comment? What is the difference between the 2 chases?