Deal has ended, view more bank account bonuses by clicking here.
Update 8/21/20: Today is the last day for this bonus. There’s also a $400 bonus.
Offer at a glance
- Maximum bonus amount: $200 checking + $50 savings
- Availability: Nationwide (apart from a few states)
- Direct deposit required: Yes, $500+
- Additional requirements: See below
- Hard/soft pull: Soft
- ChexSystems: No
- Credit card funding: $500 Visa only and personal cards only (you can also fund savings account for another $500)
- Monthly fees: None
- Early account termination fee: One year, bonus forfeit
- Household limit: None
- Expiration date:
November 19th, 2019 February 28, 2020August 21st, 2020
Contents
The Offer
- BBVA Compass is offering $200 when you open a new qualifying checking account and receive a qualifying direct deposit of at least $500.
- You can also get a further $50 by opening a savings bonus by opening a new savings account. The savings account balance must be $1,000 or more on October 31st, 2020. Keep in mind you can only do this savings bonus if you do the checking bonus, and must be opened at the same time.
The Fine Print
-
- Eligible accounts include BBVA Online Checking and BBVA Easy Checking (Easy Checking available in AL, AZ, CA, CO, FL, NM, and TX only). Account must be opened online by clicking either the “Open Checking Now” or “Open Bundle Now” button above.
- A qualifying direct deposit is a recurring paycheck, pension or government benefits (such as Social Security) from your employer or the government. The following deposits are not qualifying direct deposits: interest payments or transfers from your investment accounts; payments received from payment apps such as PayPal, Venmo and other similar payment service providers; tax refunds or other one time payments from the government. You must be a new BBVA consumer checking customer who has not had a BBVA consumer checking account open within the last 12 months or closed due to negative balance to be eligible for the bonus. The promo code SB2020 must be applied at account opening.
- How to Qualify for the Additional $50 Savings Bonus: You must meet stipulations for the $200 Checking Bonus to be eligible for the $50 Savings Bonus. The Online Savings account must be opened at the same time as the checking account through this landing page using the “Open Both Now Button”.
- The BBVA Online savings account holder must be an account holder on the new BBVA consumer checking account. You must be a new BBVA savings customer who has not had a BBVA consumer savings account in the past 12 months or closed due to negative balance.
- The cash bonus(es) will be deposited into the new checking account within 90 days of meeting the bonus requirements described above. Accounts must be open and in good standing with a balance greater than or equal to $0.00 at the time of payment in order to receive the new account bonus(es). We reserve the right to deduct the bonus amount if the account is closed within 12 months of opening. BBVA Employees are eligible for each bonus.
- All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them
Avoiding Fees
Monthly Fees
If you live in AL, AZ, CA, CO, FL NM or TX then the best account to open is the BBVA Compass ClearChoice Free Checking as this has no monthly fees to worry about. Otherwise open the Clearconnect checking account which also has no monthly fees to worry about. There is a $3 fee on ClearConnect for paper statements, so make sure you opt for paperless statements.
ClearChoice Saving: has a $15 quarterly fee if the balance falls below $500. ClearConnect Saving has no monthly fees.
Early Account Termination Fee
Account needs to be kept open for one year or bonus is forfeit
Our Verdict
Pretty similar to the recent offer, but this time with no household restriction. This means your spouse should be able to do this deal even if you’ve done a previous deal. Very good bonus and we will be adding this to the best nationwide bank bonuses.
Hat tip to reader Brian C
Useful posts regarding bank bonuses:
- A Beginners Guide To Bank Account Bonuses
- Bank Account Quick Reference Table (Spreadsheet) (very useful for sorting bonuses by different parameters)
- PSA: Don’t Call The Bank
- Introduction To ChexSystems
- Banks & Credit Unions That Are ChexSystems Inquiry Sensitive
- What Banks & Credit Unions Do/Don’t Pull ChexSystems?
- How To Use Our Direct Deposit Page For Bank Bonuses Page
- Common Bank Bonus Misconceptions + Why You Should Give Them A Go
- How Many Bank Accounts Can I Safely Open Within A Year For Bank Bonus Purposes?
- Affiliate Links & Bank Bonuses – We Won’t Be Using Them
- Complete List Of Ways To Close Bank Accounts At Each Bank
- Banks That Allow/Don’t Allow Out Of State Checking Applications
- Bank Bonus Posting Times
Post history:
- Update 1/31/20: Deal is back nationwide (ht Steve).
Only for TX, AZ, CA, CO, AL, FL, NM. If anyone knows of a nationwide link, please let us know.They increased the savings requirement from $300 to $500, and I’m not seeing a mention of using a promo code (I suppose it tracks automatically by using the landing page). Updated a few other minor details below as well.
Don’t think investment accounts work anymore because disclaimer says investment accounts don’t work
DP – Bonus-earning and account-closing data points:
– 2/10/2020 – Account opened
– 2/14/2020 – $510 transferred in from Paypal
– 5/20/2020 – Failed. No bonus received.
– 2/22/2021 – Requested that account be closed (via phone call).
– 2/23/2021 – Account closed
DP: Alliant “DD” did NOT trigger the bonus for me. All rules were followed.
Has anyone who received a BBVA bonus in 2020 got a 1099-INT for it yet? My wife and I each had $200 Checking bonus in Feb 2020 but haven’t got a 1099-INT as of 1/26/21. When I logged into my account and clicked on Annual Tax Statements, it came up as a broken link. My December 2020 account statement shows Interest Paid for 2020 as $0.00. Just wondering how BBVA will report the bonus.
Answering my own question, but the info might be useful to others. I logged into our BBVA accounts today 1/27/21 and the 1099-INT forms are available for both BBVA and Simple accounts. If you did both the Simple and BBVA deals with two players, and had individual and shared accounts, there will be A LOT of 1099-INT forms to download. We have 9 of them altogether.
I only found 4 forms, for my Simple account(s). Nothing for the straight up BBVA accounts.
(I also asked BBVA via SM to close out my accounts and they still appear, it seems like they didn’t close them out right. No monthly fee(s) for my account type/state but they still appear open with $0 balance)
So my statements did end with my close date, so it appears that my accounts are closed, weird they still show up 2 months later and I can still log in.
Both the $200 checking and $50 savings bonuses were deposited to the checking account, and both transaction details make no mention of interest, unlike other small interest amounts that posted in my savings account. Checking earned 0% interest so the statements don’t even have an entry for “Total Interest earned this year”. Savings statements do and show a couple bucks worth of interest, under $10 so that makes sense why I don’t see a 1099 for these BBVA accounts. They don’t consider the deposits posted in checking as interest since that account doesn’t earn interest. Interesting… I guess I won’t be getting 1099s for these BBVA accounts then.
Besides those, we got 7 forms for our 6 Simple accounts.
Got the forms in the mail today: one for my $250 BBVA checking/savings, one for Simple $500 bonus, one for Simple interest(couple hundred, back when rates on $50k for 3 months gave you something), and another for $0.01 interest from Simple…
Dunno why they were messed up online, but all set now.
Nov 17th – account opened, checking and savings
Dec 4th – 1000 DD from capital one 360 (immediately moved it from checking to savings for the $50 bonus)
Dec 11th – $200 checking bonus posted “Mega blitz thank you”
Jan 8th -$50 saving bonus posted
will leave account open for a year with $25 bucks in it just to be safe
My question is, what are they going to do with we just drain the account? If they close the account it does us a favor, and then how would they enforce an early termination fee with no money in the account?
$50 savings bonus hit today 🙂
DP:
11/23: Opened Account
12/1: $501 ACH from Sofi Money
12/17: $501 ACH from Chase
12/21: $200 checking bonus Posted
DoC says that we need to leave $500 in the savings account to avoid a maintenance fee, but I don’t think that’s actually true. Can anyone else verify this for the online savings account? Also, if so, is it better to leave $1 in each account or just zero them out and then close after a year?
He has “ClearChoice Saving: has a $15 quarterly fee if the balance falls below $500. ClearConnect Saving has no monthly fees.”
Do you have the ClearChoice or ClearConnect?
Yes, I have “online savings,” which is why I’m confused by the clearchoice savings or clearconnect savings stuff. But if you have been only holding 50 cents in that account and haven’t gotten a fee, that answers the question for me. Thanks!
You have to transfer in at least $25 per month to avoid a fee. I then transferred it back. I made it monthly automatially and forgot about it. I also can’t find the actual name of the type of account – it does not show online nor does it show on the statements …. I know this because I was charged a “Service Charge Fee” of $15 and a $3 paper statement and was incensed! Apparently I should have known! I was also charged $3 for doing 5 transfers from the savings account. I have always believed that a savings account is allowed by law six per month…..Their response:
We have received your message regarding the fees being charged to your account and wanting a refund.
” Upon reviewing your account ending in *4307, we have verified that your account is under the paperless statement option. However, your account was previously listed for paper statements. (unlikely) As a result, your account was being charged a standard fee.
In addition, we have verified that your account is a BBVA Savings account, in which there are four withdrawal/transactions per quarter (3 months) at no charge. A $3.00 Excess Transaction fee will be charged for each withdrawal transaction in excess of the four (!!!!!) per statement cycle.
For this account type, a quarterly service fee of $15.00 will be charged if the regulations for the account are not met. After careful review, we have verified the fees are valid and no refund will be provided.
To avoid this service fee, your account must adhere to one of the following regulations:
-Maintain an average daily collected balance of $500.00 or more; OR
-Have a monthly internal transfer of $25.00 or more from a BBVA checking account.”
This week I say to them goodbye.
My question is, what are they going to do with we just drain the account? If they close the account it does us a favor, and then how would they enforce an early termination fee with no money in the account?
BBVA offer received via email:
“When you log in to the app at least once a month during December, January and February, we’ll deposit $10 into your account within 90 days.”
Looks like a targeted offer. Email subject line was “Earn $10 for logging in to the BBVA Mobile Banking App”
Thanks for posting this! I got it too, but probably wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t mentioned it!
Whoa, and P2’s offer is $20!
Although this is of note in the fine print: “We reserve the right to debit the bonus amount if the account is closed within 12 months of receiving the bonus.” I’ll probably still drain the account at the 1 year mark (August 2021) and close it. Doubt they’d put up much of a fuss over $10 or $20.
Just received the $200 bonus (12/07). Did a push mid Nov from Cap 1 savings that coded as “–” and I never received an email confirming I met the deposit requirements. Transferred 1k now to the savings for the $50 bonus.