Blue Federal Credit Union 3.5% APY Account (Up To $15,000)

Update 4/1/20: All tiers have been reduced by 0.5%. Maximum rate is now 3.5%

Keep in mind that they are ChexSystems sensitive.

Offer at a glance

  • Interest Rate: up to 4% APY
  • Minimum Balance: None, $25 initial deposit
  • Maximum Balance: $15,000
  • Availability: Nationwide, as far as we know.
  • Direct deposit required: See below
  • Additional Requirements: None
  • Hard/soft pull: Soft
  • Credit card funding: Limited to $500. Only Visa, Mastercard or Discover. American Express not accepted.
  • Monthly fees: None
  • Insured: NCUA

The Offer

Direct link to offer

  • Receive an interest rate of up to 4% APY on balances up to $15,000 when you open an Extreme Checking account with Blue Federal Credit Union. The Interest rate you receive depends on the number of points you have with Blue FCU under their ‘Rewards For Life‘ program. To receive the increased rates, you must do the following (if you fail to meet these requirements, you’ll earn 0% APY. Balances over $15,000 will earn 0.25% APY if the requirements are met):
    • Have an automatc deposit or withdrawal set up for the account
    • Make 10 debit card purchases per month
    • Be enrolled in eStatements
  • As mentioned before, the APY you receive depends on the number of points you have. Here are the different tiers:
    • Silver (0-5 points): 2%
    • Gold (6-8 points): 3%
    • Sapphire (9+ points); 4%

blue federal

Earning Points

You earn points for any of the following things:

blue federal

Let’s see how easy it is to get these points. To begin with you should be able to get the following points:

  • Year of membership: 1 point
  • Checking account: 1 point
  • Relationship balance of 5k+: 1 point

They have another savings account that earns up to 4.99% APY, but I don’t think that gives you any additional points. Their credit cards aren’t very interesting as there is no sign up bonus and cards earn 1x points. Their share certificate rates aren’t fantastic either. Pretty much everything else is a loan product, how useful they are depends on the rates they offer and the current rates you may be receiving.

The Fine Print

Avoiding Fees

There is no monthly minimum balance required or any monthly fees. If you’re new to Blue Federal Credit Union then you are required to pay $10, $5 goes to the Blue Foundation as a donation and the other $5 is used to set up your membership. There is no early account termination fee according to their fee schedule.

Our Verdict

That 4% rate is really tempting, but it’s just way to hard to even get close to it. 3% might be achievable for some people, but even the 2% rate is better than most accounts and the maximum balance of $15,000 is good as well. If I was setting up this account this is what I’d do:

  • Enroll in eStatements
  • Set up an automatic withdrawal for the interest that exceeds $15,000 every month (this will mean I don’t have funds earning just 0.25% APY and also satisfy the withdrawal requirement)
  • Make 10 debit card purchases monthly (using one of these tips)

Pretty easy bonus. We will add this to our list of the best high interest accounts. If you’re more into checking/savings sign up bonuses click here instead.

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77 Comments
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Mister
Mister (@guest_1429810)
August 22, 2022 07:10

Now showing 1-2%

RoamingRedPanda
RoamingRedPanda (@guest_1203731)
June 10, 2021 00:37

Dropped again…now it’s 1/2/3%

Diego
Diego (@guest_1290405)
November 27, 2021 15:48

And now it’s down to 1/1.5/2%

HoKo
HoKo (@guest_1008066)
July 1, 2020 17:17

 William Charles Interest range is now 1.5%-3.5%

Eugine
Eugine (@guest_950073)
April 1, 2020 21:41

interest rate tiers lowered by 0.5% –> 1.5% silver, 2.5% gold, 3.5% sapphire

Navi
Navi (@guest_942960)
March 20, 2020 14:42

They tried to do a credit pull from my blocked Experian credit report. I received an error code 200 and called to see if there was any work around to this. There isn’t. The representative also confirmed that they would run my ChexSystems report when this one would normally go through. 🙁

Terry
Terry (@guest_770714)
June 16, 2019 16:46

Interest is compounded monthly as opposed to daily. This brings the actual dividend down considerably.

JD
JD (@guest_1075811)
October 19, 2020 23:08

APY is APY. How often it’s compounded doesn’t change the actual APY, but, if you close your account mid-month you will lose the entire month’s interest.

RB
RB (@guest_497522)
October 20, 2017 14:53

Skip if you are no a US Citizen or a Green Card holder.

JASON
JASON (@guest_481441)
September 22, 2017 13:24

I cannot find anywhere else to advise this: my Blue Fed account was targeted to enter a promotion last month, using debit card to make purchase $750 to get a $20 gas card of my choice. I used Google Wallet to complete the POS transaction without actually buying anything. Offer ended by 8/31/2017. Received email today that asks me to go to this website to redeem my reward. A gift card pin was sent to my email on file. The website to redeem the gas gift card of value $20 is https://www.redeemyouraward.com

Don’t know how to get targeted though. Doesn’t park too much money in the checking account either. Not bad considering $750 in CC gives $15 cash back by using a 2% CC. $20 gas card might have value slight over cash value $15.

JASON
JASON (@guest_481446)
September 22, 2017 13:25

By the way, it’s not related to the topic of the checking offered by Blue Fed.

Vince
Vince (@guest_393251)
April 21, 2017 11:30

Just tried to open a BCU account and the max I could put in via CC was $500 total,

Robert
Robert (@guest_376342)
March 24, 2017 18:57

I just opened the a new account and funding was limited to a total of $500 total for all accounts when using a credit card or ACH. So I ended up only opening the checking and will try the adding some of the other accounts later and will report back if it allows me to do any further cc funding.

LC
LC (@guest_387016)
April 10, 2017 14:00

let us know what happens