[AL, AZ, CA, CO, FL, NM & TX] BBVA Compass Build My Savings Account: Receive Up To A 6% Matching Bonus

Offer at a glance

• Maximum bonus amount: 6% match, up to $750
• Availability: AL, AZ, CA, CO, FL, NM & TX only
• Additional requirements: Must have a starting deposit and regular deposit, must keep funds invested for at least 6 months
• Hard/soft pull: Mixed reports
• Credit card funding: $300, no AmEx allowed
• Monthly fees: None
• Early account termination fee: $25 if closed within 180 days
• Expiration date: None listed

We’ve recently looked at the NBA credit card from BBVA Compass (5x everywhere) & their build your own rewards program (choose your own 3x category), while researching those posts I also came across their “Build My Savings” promotion that offers up to a 6% matching bonus.

The Basics

Direct link to offer

• Set up an automatic savings plan from your BBVA Compass checking account
• BBVA Compass will match up to 6% per year (a limit of $250 in matching per year for three years)

Matching Bonus

The matching bonus you receive is dependent on three factors:

• Opening balance
• Transfer amount (per month)
• Savings term

To get the full 6% match you need to open with a balance of $5,000+, transfer $1,500+ per month for a term of 36 months. You can use this calculator to determine what rate you’ll receive. Opening balance and savings term seem to have biggest weighting, for example if you open with $5,000 and transfer $350 a month (minimum required) for 36 months you’ll receive the full $750 bonus.

Key Information

• This account does earn interest, at a rate of 0.05% APY
• If you make a withdrawal from this account a $10 fee is charged
• This bonus is treated like interest and will be taxed

Comparison To Highest Interest Checking Account

Let’s compare this deal to a high interest checking account in a few different scenarios:

Scenario 1:

• Opening deposit of $5,000
• Monthly contribution of $350
• Term of 36 months

With the BBVA account you’ll end up with a matching bonus of $750. In total your account should have $18,350 in it (and around $15 in extra interest).

If you used an account that earned 1% APY you’d have $17,946.75. If it was in a 5% APY account then you’d end up with $19,384.55. Given that there are a lot of rewards checking accounts that offer this 5% APY rate, you’d likely be better off using theses – although they do require a little bit more work to ensure they earn this rate.

Scenario 2:

• Opening deposit of $1,000
• Monthly contribution of $100
• Term of 36 months

BBVA Compass would earn a bonus of $162 and you’d end up with a total of $4,762 in savings. A 1% APY account would end with a total of $4,686.09. A 5% APY account would end with a total of $5,042.32.

Our Verdict

If you can get a decent interest rate (and this is pretty easy to do with a rewards checking account or high interest prepaid) then you’d likely get a better return than this 6% matching, if you’re only getting an interest rate of 1% then this bonus might be a better bet. Personally I’m not going to bother with this bonus as I already have funds tied up in the market and high interest accounts, I have added this bonus to our list of savings account bonuses, the best of which can be found here.