Update 8/15/23: Deal is back and valid until 12/31/2023.
Update 1/12/23: Bonus has been increased to $250 on both accounts + bonus points. Spend requirement is now $200 instead of $100. Valid until 2/15/23 now.
Offer at a glance
- Maximum bonus amount:Â $250
- Availability:Â Must be a resident of DE, MD, NJ, PA
- Direct deposit required:Â No
- Additional requirements:Â See below
- Hard/soft pull:Â Soft pull
- ChexSystems:Â Unknown
- Credit card funding:Â Â Can fund at least $500 with a credit card
- Monthly fees:Â Yes, $10 or $25 monthly fee (avoidable)
- Early account termination fee:Â $25, 1 year
- Household limit:Â One
- Expiration date:Â December 31, 2020
Contents
The Offer
- Firstrust Bank is offering a bonus of $250 + 5,000 points when you open a FirstPaySM account or $250 + 10,000 points FirstPaySM Premier Eagles Checking and complete the following requirements:
- Make a purchase of $200 or more
The Fine Print
- Bonus points will be paid to all new FirstPaySM and FirstPaySM Premier Eagles Checking accounts opened from 10/16/2020 to 12/31/2020. FirstPaySM Eagles checking customers will receive 15,000 bonus points. FirstPaySM Premier Eagles checking will receive 20,000 bonus points.
- Limit 1 per household.
- Bonus points may be redeemed for advertised gift card value. I.e. every 5,000 bonus points can be redeemed for $50 gift card.
- New customers will be eligible after first Visa® purchase of $100 or more is made within 60 days of new account opening. Bonus will be paid within 60 days of purchase.
- Points can be redeemed through scorecardrewards.com. Points will be eligible to be redeemed for gift cards 60 days after new account opening. Card must be registered to redeem.
- Offer can be withdrawn at any time without notice.
- All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them
Avoiding Fees
Monthly Fees
FirstPay Checking Account
To avoid monthly maintenance fee ($10), account is required to have one of the following each month: $500 minimum daily balance, monthly direct deposit, 10 debit card purchases or 5 online bill payments.
FirstPay Premier Checking
To avoid monthly maintenance fee ($25), account is required to have one of the following maintain $5,000 combined balance in deposits accounts or have $50,000 in consumer loans and lines of credit balances.
Early Account Termination Fee
There is an early account termination fee of $25 if closed within a year.
Our Verdict
We’ve previously seen a $276 checking bonus, that required a direct deposit but was easier to keep fee free (same requirements as the current $150 bonus). This offer might be worth considering for those that don’t like to worry about meeting the direct deposit requirement, otherwise it could make sense to wait for a bigger offer to return. We will add this to our best bank account bonus page.
Hat tip to Novacat05
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 7/15/22: Deal is back to $150/$200 and valid until 03/31/2023.
- Update 5/12/21: Deal has been reduced to $50/$100.
- Update 1/31/21: Deal has been extended until May 31, 2021. Hat tip to reader Vlad
Any data points on funding with a US bank credit card (i have biz leverage)?
I received a bonus last year for a different promo and eventually closed out. This new promo says one per household. Does that mean one per household for this new one or one per household for all promo’s, past included? I emailed them but no reply.
I got denied for this account back in January due to Chex (8/3 & 14/6), but I was approved this time around (3/3 & 8/6)
PSA – If you are getting an “unable to validate your info” error when trying to enroll in online banking via web browser, try downloading their app and using that for enrollment. For whatever reason, this was successful for me.
I did this bonus at the start of the year when it was $250 cash + 5000 Rewards points.
I now have 5050 miserable Rewards points stocked up and nothing great to use them on.
Here are some redemption options to give you guys an idea:
3600 points = $25 cash back via ACH
6500 points = $50 cash back via ACH
9500 points = $75 cash back via ACH
5500 points = $50 gift card to Amazon, Home Depot, Darden Restaurants, Best Buy, etc…
3200 points = $25 gift card to Apple
2700 points = $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble
Various points for merchandise knick knacks that I would never buy, but maybe you could find something you like?
Points systems make me want to vomit, but I guess it’s part of the game.
What’s the highest point value you can redeem via ACH to optimize the 35,000 point offer? I am trying to determine the conversion if you were to just redeem the current 35,000 points via ACH. Also, it looks like based on the list you could essentially get $300 worth of Amazon gift cards and end up with 2,000 leftover points which might make the offer worth it to me. After factoring in taxes and the early closure fee it would be around an $185 net assuming 30% tax which is still potentially worth the effort.
Thanks
12,400 = $100 cash back via ACH
10,800 = $100 gift card to Amazon, Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Cabela’s Best Buy, Sephora, etc…
Sorry, I should have included the highest redemptions. I just realized the rewards points bonus is much higher now since there’s no cash. They are strategic to not allow you to redeem that third $100 cash.
Thank you for the info. So yeah, no matter what with the 35,000 offer points will be leftover unless you can find merchandise or something to purchase.
35,000 points
Scenarios:
10,800*3 = 32,400 redemption for $300 in Amazon gift cards. 2,600 points leftover.
12,400*1 + 10,800*2 = 34,000 redemption for $100 ACH and $200 Amazon cards. 1,000 leftover
12,400*2 + 10,800*1 = 35,600 redemption for $200 ACH and $100 Amazon cards. For this, you’d need to generate 600 points somehow.
Yeah and you earn 1 point for every 4 dollars spent. So spend $2400 and get 600 points. I’d rather spend $2400 on a BofA CCR card and get $125 cash back straight away.
The best option is your option 2 where you just throw the leftover 1000 points in the trash when you close the account.
Why wouldn’t you go for the offer for 50000 points?
You could get $400 in Amazon GC and $50 ach. Still debating if it’s worth the effort. But I think I would go for the high offer if I’m going to close the account anyway.
If points take 60 days to post at a minimum you have to keep 5K in there for 90 days (about $65 lost interest in today’s environment) or pay the $25×3 =$75 monthly fee both of which will cut into the earnings. With the basic account you could keep it open for the whole year with very little to do other than make a single monthly deposit.
There’s no cash bonus on the current offer. You just get points on scorecardrewards. Without being able to see what the points can be redeemed for, this doesn’t seem worth the hassle.
Just 1 purchase of $200? And only a $25 early termination fee?
Even if the gift cards have little value to you, I have to imagine essentially paying $25 for a $250 gift card would be something.
So this is effectively spend $350, get $350 worth of bonus points to use on scorecardrewards? Seems easy enough to fulfill the requirements, but can anyone shed some light on the point redemption process? I am looking at the gift card list for scorecardrewards and it’s pretty bad, I wouldn’t buy any of the cards they offer. In this case, it looks like I’m limited to purchasing merchandise. Is the merchandise fairly valued? I can’t see the prices.
Anyone know what a “new customer” means? I didn’t see a definition in the webpage.
Deal is back through 12/31/2023. Same link to the offer
William Charles
Chuck
But this link is to the full terms and conditions
https://www.firstrust.com/personal/checking/eagles/bonus-points/terms
Also, there’s a Chex sensitive DP below on January 28, 2023
Failed DP from PA, my fault for messing it up:
2023/01/17: “Eagles FirstPay” account opened.
2023/01/19: “NEW ACCOUNT DEPOSIT” of $25 posts (my opening deposit).
2023/02/21: Pushed $700 from Ally to “Eagles FirstPay” account to avoid the monthly fee. Coded as P2P.
2023/04/07: Debit card purchase of $200+ posts.
… and nothing else since.
Re-reading the terms, I realized I overlooked “New customers will be eligible after first Visa® purchase of $100 or more is made within 60 days of new account opening.” This means that I should’ve made the purchase on or before 2023/03/20.
Maybe next time…
This was a LONG walk
1/14/2023 Opened with $500 from Chase Hyatt
1/21/2023 Added $208 through ACH
1/22/2023 Tried to pay utility bill for $202, debit failed
1/22-2/26 Called multiple times to get the debit card unlocked, each time rep said fraud team would look into it and get back to me, they never did.
3/16/2023 Got a call that the debit was unlocked – yep three days after the promotional period to spend $200 expired.
3/16/2023 Made utility payment of $202. Sent secure message explaining the situation and asking for bonus. Never got a response.
4/2/2023 Filed CFPA complaint, the only Firstrust they had was Firstrust Mortgage. CFPA said I had the wrong company and closed the case.
4/12/2023 Filed BBB complaint.
5/9/2023 $250 bonus posted.
Did not get the points. I will close the account, and pay the $25 early closure fee.