Offer at a glance
- Maximum bonus amount: $100
- Availability: Nationwide
- Direct deposit required: No
- Additional requirements: 5 debit card transactions
- Hard/soft pull: Unknown
- ChexSystems: Unknown
- Credit card funding: Can fund up to $2,500 with a credit card
- Monthly fees: None
- Early account termination fee: None
- Household limit: None
- Expiration date: 2/28/25
Contents
The Offer
- Harvard Federal Credit Union is offering a $100 referral bonus when the new user opens a new checking account and completes the following requirements:
- New user makes five (5) transactions on their new Harvard FCU debit or credit card within the first 90 days of account opening
The Fine Print
- Referred person must be a NEW member with no existing accounts at Harvard FCU including joint relationships. Former members qualify as a new member provided all their previous accounts were closed at least twenty-four (24) months prior to the new open date. New Member Bonus and Member Referral Bonus will be paid when new member opens an account by February 28, 2025 and completes five transactions on their new Harvard FCU debit or credit card within 90 days of account opening. Harvard FCU reserves the right to withdraw this offer at any time. New Member Bonus ($100) and Member referral ($100) will be deposited to Harvard FCU Shared Savings account within 30 days of when the new member qualifications are met (completes five transactions on their new Harvard FCU debit or credit card within 90 days of account opening). Referring member needs to be in good standing to receive the $100 incentive. There is no limit to the number of referrals a member can make. The charitable donation of $5 per referral will be paid on behalf of each member referral (up to $50 per member) regardless of whether the referee opens an account at the Credit Union. An individual cannot be referred more than once, even if they open multiple memberships. Normal membership eligibility requirements apply. Terms & conditions subject to change without notice. Applies to online account opening only.
- All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them
Avoiding Fees
Monthly Fees
This account has no monthly fees to worry about.
Early Account Termination Fee
I didn’t see any mention of an EATF in the fee schedule.
Our Verdict
Referral requires the new users e-mail, first name & last name. If you want to share your information you can share it in this linked post. Should be worth doing if it’s a soft pull and you can refer a few friends/family.
Hat tip to reader Roman M
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
Starting to see my referral bonuses come in. Got $100 on Saturday (I assume that’s from my account open), $400 today (I assume referrals). I hope there’s more since I had a lot more than 4 people I referred but I’m not sure how many got approved.
I also received 100.00 today for opening my account..but also had one referral should I look to receive a separate 100.00 deposit for that ???
So far I am at about 10% conversion rate [number of bonuses I received/number of people I referred]. I would be shocked if the conversion rate turned out to be more than 20%.
I’m at about 20%. Really can’t expect much more, a lot of people probably got declined.
How long after meeting the requirements did you receive the bonus?
Has anyone referrers received their referral bonus? And did they receive more than one? Not sure if there was anything in the terms limiting the bonus to 1 but I only received a bonus (posted Apr 2). About 5 people emailed to request a referral from the thread.
So either the bonus is limited to 1, the bonus is still pending meeting the requirements or they didnt follow through ie complete their application.
I’m still waiting to receive a referral bonus…will post if/when I receive it.
Received one yesterday…has tagline “member referral” in HFCU email
However, just because you referred 5 people does not mean that you will get 5 bonuses. Assume that some of the people you referred also asked for referrals from others and did not end up using yours. Also assume that 50-75% of the people who used your referral did not get approved. And assume that some fraction of those who did get approved did not follow through and meet the terms, for one reason or another. So if you referred 5, you may only get one or two bonuses in the end.
I referred many people for this bonus because I was the one who originally posted about this deal. I’ve received only one referral bonus so far, and I would be surprised if I got more than a few more.
This doesn’t bother me overly much because I did the referrals primarily to help fellow DoC readers who wanted to apply with a referral from someone reliable — the bonus for me was just a nice cherry on top. But you have to be realistic about the conversion rate in these types of situations.
Your analysis is very spot on. Were you around when there was a mad rush to refer people to DCU?
What I liked about DCU was that they only allowed each email address to be referred once and then you received an error.
Despite that, I still received a very small % (maybe 10% or 20%) of bonuses of the many referrals that I sent out.
1 person even accused me of cheating by being so quick to send them out. Of course, if you know me, you would know that I would never do such a thing so I was quite offended!
Harvard was the very first time I referred anyone for anything on DoC, and I did it because I had been a member for many years and I assumed that there weren’t going to be many (or any) other Harvard FCU members on this blog to do it.
That turned out to be a bad assumption on your part. 😀
You make a great point there. I had a few referrals too and have gotten 2 post about 5 days apart. So it’s either they are trickling in or you wont have a 100% conversion rate because folks were “referral shopping”. It’s also possible people who applied using your email didnt get approved or didnt finish the application for whatever reason (not sure how common that was)
From my memory, Harvard seemed to be quite Chex-sensitive so there’s a good chance that many that applied were denied for an account.
Thanks for clarifying/confirming and reading the comments now it makes sense.
Applied 2/22. Approved 3/7. $100 bonus posted 4/4.
DP:PayPal loads with Debit card track a purchases for the Smart Rewards Cashback Checking. That’s a free $10 per month.
Requirements-
“Earn your rewards by meeting 3 basic qualifications each month: 12 Debit Card Purchases, 1 Online/Mobile Login, and get statements electronically, that’s it!”
3/17 – applied for Share Savings, no referral, entered CC funding details. Residence nowhere near the east coast.
3/25 – online chat asking about status of application, uploaded requested Utility bill for address verification (DL images and selfie submitted during initial application).
3/26 – application was approved, Credit card funding of $2500 on US Bank Triple Cash went through as purchase.
I applied with a referral long before the promotion ended, but they didn’t approve me until well after the promotion ended. I wonder If I’ll still get the bonus.
I’ve did 3 debit charges on Amazon over a week ago and I still haven’t seen it posted… :/
New Member Bonus and Member Referral Bonus will be paid when new member opens an account by February 28, 2025 and completes FIVE transactions on their new Harvard FCU debit or credit card within 90 days of account opening
I only tried 3 so far to make sure my charges will go through. But yeah, I might just go get some bananas at the local grocery store now since I’m not seeing any of the charges post yet
After card activation, my debit card transactions never go through.
I called Harvard FCU and told the issue, they fixed it within a few minutes.
Now my transactions go through without a problem.
I guess the same issue is happening to you and you need to call Harvard FCU.
I had to call as well, the card wasn’t linked to my account. They fixed it quickly.
Keith
I called this morning and they had to transfer me to membership services, which the phone said I was 7 in line. I pressed the button for call back and never got a call back. Now I’m on the online chat to get an answer. Not really the type of customer service and hold wait time I expect from a CU :/
Applied on 2/21 after receiving a referral email, and the application was pended.
Today on 3/5, received a email from Harvard FCU to request uploading some additional documents (DL, utility, SSN, selfie, etc) for verification.
The referral email contains sentence “As a welcome gift we’re offering $100 when you join in the month of February!”
If I applied in February and am approved in March, am I eligible for the $100 bonus?
Additionally, in my experience, this is a small CU and they generally treat members fairly. I’ve been a member for 20+ years, and the couple of times that I’ve had issues, I was able to talk to upper management and get things resolved in a way that I found satisfactory. In other words, if you don’t get the bonus automatically, I think you have a reasonable chance of having it applied manually by arguing that you did everything you could on time, and the rest was out of your control.
I uploaded additional documents and was approved.
I could confirm via secure message that I am eligible for the $100 bonus since I submitted my application in February.
Applied via referral on 2/24. Pending as of 3/5. Anyone got approved recently?