Wells Fargo has a cashback credit card in their lineup that offers 5% cashback on gas, groceries, and drugstores for the first six months. The card doesn’t usually come with a signup bonus, or rather the 5% offer is the signup bonus, but there have been some reports of targeted bonuses in the past for a $100 or even $200 signup bonus.
Reader Nicholas commented that a couple of months after opening a checking account with Wells, he got targeted for $100 bonus offer on the 5% cashback card after spending $1,000 within 3-months. A little research turned up a similar type of report where a new relationship customer got a targeted offer within a month of starting their relationship.
Moral of the story: unless you’re in a rush, it may be worth sitting for a few months after starting a relationship with Wells and seeing if you get a targeted offer. This will net you an extra bonus and hopefully also enhance your odds of approval.
Due to the Wells Fargo $100 checking bonus, many are eyeing which Wells cards to apply for, and the 5% card is an interesting one.
A few random points regarding Wells checking and credit cards:
- A reader commented on the previous post that there is lingo in the fine print which indicates that the $100 checking bonus is only for customers who have previously given their SSN to Wells for some reason or another, e.g. a mortgage, savings account, etc. “Customer must have a valid U.S. taxpayer identification number on file with Wells Fargo.” This wording apparently disqualifies an entirely new customer. My gut is that this won’t be enforced, but we don’t know that for certain. To be safe, you can open a savings account first and then do the checking bonus, although that seems excessive effort for $100 bonus.
- If you recently opened a Wells checking account without a bonus, you can try sending them a secure message and seeing if they’ll match it. Reader Dan had success with this.
- Regarding credit cards, note that Wells is known to ask for pay stubs to prove income. I’m not sure how this would affect the self-employed who probably don’t have pay stubs. If anyone has experience with this, please let us know.
