The Ally Payback promotion offered a 1% bonus on any new funds brought into Ally, up to $1,000 back on a $100,000 deposit. Lots of us jumped on this deal, either as new Ally customers or as existing customers who added more funds to their accounts. A while back, Ally even sent out a confirmation email with exact details of how much we’ll get.
Today, January 15th, is the last day your funds are locked up. Beginning tomorrow, you are free to transfer the funds out of Ally if you so desire. The bonus will post sometime within the next month, but regardless, the funds are no longer required, just make sure to keep your account open in good standing.
What to do with the funds now?
- Take the lazy approach and leave the funds with Ally. This is actually an attractive option for another reason: Ally has some great interest rates. Specifically, their savings account is currently at 2.00% APY which is competitive, though not the best. And they also offer a no-penalty CD, currently at 2.30% APY (on balances $25k+), which is near the top rate you can get without locking up your money. Keep in mind that when you break a no-penalty CD, you need to break all the funds out of the CD. But it’s really no big deal to break it and make a new one. Ally also has a 2.85% APY 14-month CD.
- Find the best savings rate. The CIT Bank 2.45% APY rate is probably the one I’d recommend at the moment if you want to get even more than the 2.30% Ally rate. There’s also a NASB 2.53% APY option as well. We keep an updated list of Best High-Yield Savings Rates in this post.
- Lock it up in a CD. You can get up to 2.90% APY on a 12 month CD. Higher rates for longer CD’s. Check out our full list of CD rates here.
- Use your money to fund bank bonuses. Bank bonuses often have deposit requirements, and with the new liquidity of this Ally offer ending, you can shift to some of those offers you’re interested in. Check out Best Bank Bonuses in this dedicated post which is updated regularly.
Specifically, I’ll call out here a few bonuses with high deposit requirements which can make sense now:- Sapphire Banking 60,000 Ultimate Rewards points bonus with $75,000 in deposits. Funds locked up there for 90 days. You can put the funds into a money market funds like VMMXX or VSUXX which have a nice return (recently in the 2-3% range), and are considered fairly safe (though not FDIC insured – it’s an investment).
- Capital One Money Market $500 Bonus with $50,000 deposit + 2% APY interest rate. Funds locked up there for 90-100 days. The good thing is that this account regularly maintains a competitive interest rate, currently 2%.
- Citi $400 checking/savings bonus with $15,000 deposit. Funds locked up there for 60 days. Get an extra $100 by doing two direct deposits.Â
- Discover $150-$200 bonus with $15,000-25,000 deposit. No minimum length of deposit. This account also regularly has a competitive interest rate, currently 2.10%.
Personally, I’ve done most of these bonuses making me ineligible. I’m pretty interested in the Sapphire Banking bonus, but the optimal way of doing that one is to first do a regular Chase checking/savings bonus and then upgrade – I’m not eligible for the regular bonus until next year, so we’ll see.
I’ll probably end up leaving my funds with Ally in a no-penalty CD for the time being until something better comes along.
