Deal has now ended, but you can view more great bank account bonuses by clicking here.
Update 5/15/20: Extended until 6/1/20
Offer at a glance
- Maximum bonus amount: $200
- Availability: Nationwide
- Direct deposit required: None
- Additional requirements: Deposit $15,000 for $150 bonus, or $25,000 for $200 bonus
- APY: 1.25%
- Initial Deposit: None
- Hard/soft pull: Soft
- ChexSystems: No for Online Savings
- Credit card funding: None
- Monthly fees: None
- Early account termination fee: None mentioned
- Expiration date: Open by 6/1/20 Deposit funds by 6/15/20
- Insured: FDIC
Contents
The Offer
- Apply for your first Discover Online Savings Account by 6/1/20, AND
- Enter offer code MD20 when applying, AND
- Deposit a total of at least $15,000 into your account by 6/15/20 to earn a $150 Bonus, OR
- Deposit a total of at least $25,000 into your account by 6/15/20 to earn a $200 Bonus.
- According to this datapoint cumulative deposits will work, YMMV as always. Lots of DP suggesting this works now.
The Fine Print
- Offer not valid for existing or prior Discover savings customers or existing or prior customers with savings accounts that are co-branded or affinity accounts provided by Discover (this bit is new)
- Account must be open when bonus is credited.
- Bonus will be credited to the account by 11/4/19.
- Bonus is considered interest and will be reported on IRS Form 1099-INT.
- Offer may be modified/withdrawn.
Avoiding Fees
Discover’s Online Savings Account does not have any fees, nor any minimum balance requirement. You can withdraw any funds you wish after fulfilling the $25,000 (or $15,000) deposit requirement.
Early Termination Fee
There is no mention of an early termination fee according to the Online Savings Account Guide. You must, at minimum, leave the account open until the bonus posts, or November 30, 2017.
Our Verdict
The deposit requirement increasing to $25,000 shouldn’t matter too much as it looks like cumulative deposits work anyway. The best part of this deal is that there is no deposit minimum length so you should be able to deposit the (or $15,000) and then immediately withdraw it. In the past the bonus has posted 5–15 days after the deposited has been received but recently it has been taking much longer. A lot of people like these Discover bonuses because they also offer a decent APY (1.25% currently), although there are better APYs available. This is one of the best savings account bonuses currently available.
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
Deal History
Quick note: The bonus usually isn’t extended as such, but a new deal with a new promotion code comes along and we just use the verbiage ‘extended’. Obviously no guarantee they will continue to do so.
- Update 4/7/20: Extended until 5/11/20.
- Update 3/2/20: Deal has been extended until 4/6/20 (hat tip to reader Pat)
- Update 2/4/2020: Deal has been extended until 3/2/20
- Update 1/7/20: Deal has been extended until 2/3/20.
- Update 12/3/19: Deal has been extended until 1/20/20
- Update 11/6/19: Deal has been extended until 12/2/19
- Update 10/8/19: Deal has been extended until 11/4/19.
- Update 9/10/19: Deal extended until 10/7/19
- Update 8/6/19: Deal extended until 9/9/19
- Update 7/2/19: Deal extended until 8/5/19
- Update 6/5/19: Deal has been extended until July 1st, 2019. I’ve updated the promo code and expiration dates below.
- Update 6/5/19: Deal has been extended until July 1st, 2019. Updated the promo code.
- Update 4/2/19: Deal has been extended until June 5th, 2019.
- Update 3/5/19: New code and now valid until April 1st, 2019.
- Update 2/5/19: New code and valid until 3/4/19 now.
- Update 1/16/19: Yesterday there was a small issue with the promo code, that has now been resolved.Update 01/15/2019: There is a new working link and code. This time good for applications through February 4th, 2019.
- Update 12/04/2018: There is a new working link and code. This time good for applications through January 14th, 2019.
- Update 11/03/2018: There is a new working link and code. This time good for applications through December 3rd, 2018.
- Update 10/09/18: There is a new working link and code. This time good for applications through October 31st, 2018.
- Update 09/10/2018: There is a new working link. This one is definitely not an affiliate link of any type.
- Update 07/20: There is a new working link that doesn’t look like it’s a NerdWallet link, but might be an affiliate link for another site.
- Update 07/12/18: There is a new working link that is valid until 7/31/2018. This is another NerdWallet link and they will get comission if you use it. I personally don’t like NerdWallet as they are affiliate link focused and don’t always post the best deals. That being said I want my readers to have the best choice possible so that’s why I’m adding it. If anybody finds a non NerdWallet link let us know. You might also just be able to use promo code SAVE718E1 or SAVE718E2 and it should work. We don’t receive anything if you use the NerdWallet link or any other bank account bonus or credit card link as we believe remaining independent is important.
- Update 06/05/18: Bonus has been extended until 6/29/18
- Update 05/18/18: Gadget & rediff found a new working code: SAVE518E1. This means NerdWallet won’t get paid when you use this code. This link should also work, but not sure if it’s one time use or not.
- Update 05/09/18: Deal is back and valid until 6/4/18. New promo code is NW518. Sadly I think this is an exclusive offer to NerdWallet and they get paid if you use this link. Personally I hate NerdWallet because I find they suggest inferior offers on a regular basis but this Discover Savings bonus is a great deal. I’ve tried to get Discover to agree to give money to charity instead of paying out affiliate commissions but they never respond.
- Update 03/27/18 : Deal has been extended until 05/04/2018. New promo code is SAVE318D2. Hat tip to reader Gadget.
- The Discover savings bonus has been extended again until April 2nd, 2018.
- Offer has been extended again. You must now open it by 02/28/18 and deposit by 03/14/18
- Originally posted on September 19th, 2017. Reposting on November 2nd, 2017 because the offer has been extended. The $200 offer now requires a deposit of $25,000 instead of $20,000. Bonuses for AAA & AAII have not been extended yet.
Any idea when the saving account bonus will be back for new discover saving account?
They’ll probably bring it back once they’ve finished coding against the bonus being triggered by the transfer/delete trick. Just my guess.
My memory is terrible and I know I ran across this answer before but can’t find it anymore.
What’s the limit of external accounts you can add to Discover Savings at one time? It won’t let me add more than 8 at one time right now. I’m stuck on an endless loop of verification after trying to add another account, and it just goes back to the previous screen to choose verification method even though I already entered the verification code correctly.
Here’s one that you commented on:
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/discover-savings-150200-bonus-1500020000-deposit-new-exp-103117/#comment-962587
Thanks. I have no idea what’s going on and Via SM, Discover didn’t tell me anything indicating something was wrong other than to clear cookies, close browser, blah blah. I think I’m going to bite the bullet and delete one to see if it lets me add another one. I’m just afraid if I delete one, I “permanently” remove that slot and therefore will only have 7 linked after that.
That will be a bad loss not to be able to use Discover to link anymore
Gadget
Deleting an external account and trying to add another one did nothing but the same endless verification loop. Now I only have 7 external accounts linked instead of the 8 I had originally. *sigh* I will have to call in to get this fixed.
For some reason, my app is broken to link external accounts. Linking via desktop works fine. I am not banned or flagged. Thank goodness.
I had something similar. I called, talked to 3 reps, none could help. They finally submitted a ticket to have it looked into further. Someone from Discover called me and took care of the issue in about 5 minutes.
My linking fixed itself (or by someone) a while ago. Annoying nonetheless.
What exactly is the “transfer out delete” trick and what’s the benefit of it? I keep seeing comments about it but don’t see it mentioned in the original post.
I opened my account around 5/27, and my deposit into Discover for 25k arrived on 6/9. If I withdraw the 25k today on 6/9, will I still get the $200 bonus?
Why would I want to initiate the withdrawal and then cancel it immediately? When can I follow through with the real withdrawal in that case?
Thanks!
I think people are saying deposit 5k, withdraw and redeposit etc. No need if you have the 25k
The “trick” was to transfer out some amount, say $5000, then cancel the transfer, and the ledger would show a +$5000 when the transfer cancelled and it would count as a $5000 deposit.
Used MD20 Promo Code, here are my datapoints:
Date Transaction Description Amount
6/4/2020 ACCOUNT PROMOTION $200.00
6/3/2020 CANCELLED ACH [Bank B] $12,501.18
6/3/2020 ACH WITHDRAWAL [Bank B] ($12,501.18)
5/29/2020 INTEREST PAID $1.18
5/29/2020 ACH DEPOSIT FROM [Bank A] $12,600.00
5/25/2020 ACCOUNT OPENING
Is it worth to keep the Discover saving account? Are their rates used to be competitive as to Marcus / Synchrony / AMEX HY?
The thing I dont like about Discover is it takes 5 business days before they send the PUSH transfer to the external bank while immediately deduct the fund from the Discover side – so you lose 5 or 7 days of interest. AMEX HY and Marcus when they PULL from external bank they start the interest accrual on the date the PULL is initiated, even though they still hold the fund for 3 to 5 business days before funds become available – when the fund is available has no impact to us, but when the fund becomes part of the current balance therefore earns interest, can be quite meaningful especially when the APY is much higher and the sum is fairly large.
Are people keep their Discover accounts once the one and done bonus deal is in the past?
I use Discover as my main hub.
I keep it. There are no fees and the interest rate is solid.
Just tired to open using the offer code MD20, displays error that the code has expired.
I got the same error today.
right, i did too and called them on the phone number on the offer link. they said the code hasn’t expired and had us try MG20 and MH20 after consulting with their web support team, none of which worked. so, they asked me to go ahead and submit the application and transferred to some one else that could apply the bonus manually when they see the deposit made. they were also going to look into why all the codes say “expired” online. so, call them, if the code still doesn’t work today.
I just got the same error too.
I called Discover and two separate people said the code should still be good and that I should just put in my application. We went ahead and tried to set up an account over the phone but MD20 wouldn’t work for them either. Then the rep read through a bunch of messages and realized that their marketing team put a hold on the code, so it appears that MD20 was pulled early, even though the official site and their promotion information still says that the code is good until June 1st.
I got the same error, yesterday as well
Same result…
Same
Mine did same. Started it a few days ago and it accepted it (but did not submit yet) but as of 2 days ago expired.
hi im new, how do i transfer money as a direct deposit to discover to make this bonus, can i just transfer it from my checking out account, this is my first time.
Yes, you transfer the money from another bank directly into this account.
Just received this email. I won’t attempt the transfer delete trick.
Congratulations! You have qualified to receive a $150.00 account opening bonus which you will receive within approximately 2 business days.
Don’t forget – you still have a chance to earn the additional $50.00 if your account has a total deposit amount of at least $25,000.00 by June 15, 2020.
How soon are people closing their Discover accounts after getting the bonus?
They aren’t closing. It’s once in a lifetime and they are very useful.
Im ok with the Savings account bonus being once in a lifetime. Just trying to limit the number of bank accounts I have open.
This is a good one to keep. Competitive rates, functional site/apps, good service, and ACH pushes sometimes work as DD for other banks.
Just tried the transfer and delete trick and after the second time it says request cannot be processed
Never mind, I tried it again and it worked,