Update: Deal has expired, view more checking bonuses by clicking here.
Update: it does say Eligible customers received a direct communication with the offer and must present the accompanying offer code at account opening. So marking this as targeted for now
Some people have had their accounts closed the day after opening
Offer at a glance
- Maximum bonus amount: $500
- Availability: AZ, CA, CO, DC, FL, GA, KS, MD, MO, NC, NM, OR, OK, TN, TX, VA, WA, WV
- Direct deposit required: Optional
- Additional requirements: See below
- Hard/soft pull: Recent DP all say soft pull, older DPs say hard pull
- ChexSystems: Unknown, sensitive
- Credit card funding: Yes, up to $1,000
- Monthly fees: None-$18, avoidable
- Early account termination fee: Bonus forfeit, 12 months
- Household limit: One
- Expiration date: None listed
Contents
The Offer
- First Citizens Bank is offering a checking bonus of up to $500.
- Earn $500 when you open a new Premier checking bundle and complete the following requirements:
- Maintain a combined Checking and Savings average deposit balance of $15,000 or more for 90 days
- Establish a direct deposit of at least $4,000 per month or make 10 debit card transactions within 90 days of account opening
- Open a new savings account
- Earn $300 when you open a Free checking account bundle and complete the following requirements:
- Establish a direct deposit of at least $1,000 per month or make 10 debit card transactions within 90 days of account opening
- Enroll in eStatements
- Open a new savings account
- Earn $500 when you open a new Premier checking bundle and complete the following requirements:
The Fine Print
- Eligible Accounts: This offer is valid only on accounts where all account owners are new checking customers. A new checking customer is one who is not a current or prior owner customer of a First Citizens Bank checking account. Eligible customers received a direct communication with the offer and must present the accompanying offer code at account opening.
- Bonus Payment Details: To receive bonus payment you must bring all new deposits within 30 days of Account Opening and maintain said balance for at least 90 days after account opening. One offer per household, account funding must be new money not currently held by First Citizens Bank. Free Checking and Savings offers not available to existing First Citizens checking and savings customers, or to customers who have closed, or had their accounts closed within 90 days. If either the new checking or new saving account is closed by the customer within 12 months after opening, we will deduct the bonus amount for those accounts at closing.
- Bonuses to the eligible qualified accounts will be credited, at the bank’s sole discretion, any time within 120 days after all qualifiers have been met. The account must be open and in good standing at the time the bank credits the account. The value of the promotional bonus credit may be considered taxable income and may be reported against the Social Security Number of the primary account holder on an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 1099. Questions concerning any tax effect of this promotion should be directed to a qualified tax advisor. Limit one bonus per customer.
- All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them
Avoiding Fees
Monthly Fees
Free Checking Account
This account has no monthly fees, but you must be opted into eStatements otherwise it auto converts to another account
Premier Checking Account ($18 Monthly Fee)
This monthly fee is waived if you do any of the following:
- $5,000 combined daily balance in Premier Checking, Together Card®, Regular Savings, Bonus Savings, e.savings, Tiered Money Market Savings, Premium Tiered Money Market Savings, CDs, IRAs or an Investor Services Account
- ACH Direct Deposits totaling $4,000 or more into your Premier Checking account
- An EquityLine of at least $25,000
- A consumer loan with original loan amount of $10,000 or more
eSavings (No Monthly Fee)
This account has no monthly fee to worry about
Early Account Termination Fee
There is an early account termination fee of $25 if the account is closed within 180 days. In addition if the account is closed within a year the bonus is forfeit
Our Verdict
The best savings account earns 0.05%, so that is basically nothing. The premier checking bonus is basically an additional savings bonus of $200 for $15,000 (that is also enough to keep both savings & checking account fee free) worth doing for people with the funds available, especially with interest rates dropping across the board. Main issue is that older datapoints say it’s a hard pull to open the account. Even if it does turn out to still be a hard pull, I think more and more people are less worried about this these days and I’ll be adding this to our list of the best checking account bonuses.
Hat tip to LivingInTheAir
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
I opened this account under the 10,000 Swagbucks offer but the points never posted. In-state/footprint in CA. I initially funded both a checking and savings account with $1k each with my B of A Cash Rewards mastercard, and the transaction earned 3% for $60 total cashback. I opened the accounts in late January. Just recently, I received surprise checks in the mail with my remaining balances because they apparently found something concerning in my Chex report and didn’t want to keep my accounts open. I’ll take the nice cashback profit, but I don’t think I’ll ever see the Swagbucks.
They did the same thing but they refunded the card so I lost the points for it…..
Per SB terms, you can combine the $30 bonus for savings and $100 for checking (or separate offers if you want).
I was able to do $2000 in CC funding by putting $1000 in checking and $1000 in savings.
SB says:
Top 3 Things to Know
Allow up to 45 days for award to credit your account.
Must be a new member and sign up between 11/30/21 and 01/31/2022.
Deposit of $50 must be made upon opening account.
They called me to say that they didn’t like how I had account inquiries with other banks, that I look like a victim of fraud, and that they would close my accounts and send me a check. Now to see if Swagbucks credits me or not.
please let us know how it goes. I am considering doing it.
Can you confirm it was only a soft pull? I assume they also do a Chex pull but looks like they are not very sensitive.
Also, wondering if the $300 bonus from this post might come back since that one sounds better than $100 from Swagbucks. It would be better to do the $300 offer first if it came available and then do Swagbucks/Mypoints offers later (if they were still around).
First Citizens has a checking account offer on Swagbucks for $100 reward. Open a checking account and deposit $50.
3/23/20: opened Free Checking w/ $1,000
3/30/20: (10) Amazon debit reloads @ $1.00/each
4/2/20: transferred out everything but $1
7/2/21: sent secure message via online banking regarding no bonus payout
7/8/21: filed CFPB complaint (received no response to secure message via online banking)
7/13/21: $300 bonus posted
Thank you very much.
As a DP for closing out, they would not close by sm but requested that I send a letter that did not need to be notarized. I first zeroed out the balance then mailed the letter. When I tried to login today, I was no longer able to. Said my login ID is currently disabled
Anyone have experience closing this account? SM or phone? The only DP is from 2016 and involved either going into a branch or faxing a form then mailing a notarized letter.
When I asked by sm last year they wanted faxed/mailed documents but I can’t remember if they needed them notarized. I think the easiest way is to zero out the account(s). Then they will close them automatically after a month or so.
Thanks will do that.
Working on that right now. They would not close it by secure message but said I could do it by phone. I called and made the request. Supposedly once that request makes its way through their system, I will receive a DocuSign to close the accounts.
discover it CA limit set to $0, tried funding $1000, didn’t go through.
CFPB worked wonders. Submitted complaint 12/15 and company responded 1/6. Essentially saying that I needed a specific code at account sign up and I did not qualify for bonus, but the company decided to grant the $300 bonus anyway.
FYI: I just realized that my checking account has been hit with numerous international fraud transactions, just reported to the bank. Check your debit associated checking account!
FWIW was able to downgrade to free checking via secure message after the bonus posted. Based on the T&C and account termination penalties, I’m going to leave free checking and savings accounts open with $1 each until one year anniversary.
Also noticed that there’s a $2.99 external transfer fee when originating the transfer from FCB. Going to try to avoid the fee by pulling pull from an external account.