KeyBank Relationship Rewards – Overview & Review

A reminder about opting out of KeyBank’s Relationship Rewards to avoid the $40 annual fee is a common bullet point in our write-ups of KeyBank Checking Account bonuses. If you were wondering whether KeyBank Relationship Rewards might be worth that $40 fee, or you just want to marvel at a painstakingly constructed but ultimately terrible program – this review is for you.

update, 1 minute after post: mere serendipitous chance resulted in this post going up right after a KeyBank checking bonus—I swear!

How Much Does Relationship Rewards Cost?

There may or may not be an annual fee for the program, depending on the type of account you have with KeyBank. KeyBank has an excellent FAQ on this topic, but here’s the information in a slightly more compact form. Note: except for “Credit Card(s)”, all products are checking accounts.

Fee ↓	Personal Product	Private Bank Product	Business Product
$0	Privilege, Privilege Select, Sweep, Credit Cards1	Checking, Money Market Checking	Rewards, Sweep, Credit Card2
$30	Advantage
$40	Hassle-Free, Express, Student		Basic, Interest, Money Market Checking

1. All credit cards issued by KeyBank on or after May 24, 2013, and bearing a plastic number with the first 6 digits of 524924, 519945, 552356. Includes Key2More Rewards MasterCard, Private Bank MasterCard, and KeyBank Platinum MasterCard.
2. Business Rewards MasterCard issued by KeyBank on or after May 24, 2013, and bearing a plastic number with the first 6 digits of 519731.

How Do I Earn Relationship Rewards?

KeyBank has an excellent PDF (“KeyBank Relationship Rewards Points Guide”) on this topic, but here’s the information in a slightly more compact form.

Requiring an Enrolled Checking Account

Amount	Per ?	Monthly Cap	Yearly Cap	Personal	Business
1	$6			Debit Card1	Debit Card1
100	Transaction	1,500		Online Bill Pay2, Automated Debit/Credit3, ATM Deposit, Mobile Deposit	Online Bill Pay2, Automated Debit/Credit3
50	Statement	50		Online Statements	Online Statements
500	Year			Birthday Bonus
5,000	Year			Preferred Credit Line
5,000	Year		15,000	Silver Money Market Savings4,5	Silver Money Market Savings4,5
10,000	Year				Commercial or Small Business Line of Credit
10,000	Year		30,000	Certificate of Deposit4	Certificate of Deposit4
15,000	Year		45,000	Gold Money Market Savings4,5	Gold Money Market Savings4,5
15,000	Year			Loans6
25,000	Year			Home Equity Loans, Home Equity Lines of Credit	Key Equipment Finance Loan/Lease, Commercial Term Loans, Key Merchant Services
50,000	Year			Mortgage

1. 200 bonus points per month for the first 3 months in program (from day of enrollment) if you make 3 or more transactions per month.
2. 2,500 bonus points per month for the first 3 months in program (from day of enrollment) if you use Online Bill Pay 10 or more times per month.
3. ACH, including Direct Deposit and international ACH. 2,500 bonus points per month for the first 3 months in program (from day of enrollment) if you deposit $500 or more per month.
4. Points earned will be reported to the IRS on a 1099-INT.
5. Money Market Savings accounts must be open for 3 consecutive months to qualify.
6. Auto, Boat, RV, Motorcycle, Unsecured personal loan, unsecured home improvement loan, or other collateral secured installment loan.

Requiring an Enrolled Credit Card

Amount	Per ?	Monthly Cap	Personal	Business
5	$1		Key2More Rewards Credit Card1	Business Rewards Credit Card2
10	$1		Private Bank Credit Card3
50	Transaction	750	Recurring Payments4	Recurring Payments4
50	Statement	50	Online Statements	Online Statements

1. 5,000 bonus points if you make 5 or purchases in the first 60 days and have a personal checking account in good standing. 10,000 bonus points if you have a Privilege or Privilege Select checking account.
   25% bonus to points earned in a month if you spend between $1,000 and $1,999. 50% bonus to points earned in a month if you spend $2,000 or more.
2. 5,000 bonus points if you make 5 or purchases in the first 60 days and have a business checking account in good standing. 10,000 bonus points if you have a Business Rewards checking account.
   5 additional points for every $1 spent on gas, restaurant, and telecommunication purchases.
3. 50,000 bonus points if you make 5 or purchases in the first 60 days and have a personal checking account in good standing.
4. KeyBank reserves the right to determine which purchases qualify for recurring payments.

What Are Relationship Rewards Worth?

In ye olden days, KeyBank Rewards Points could be redeemed for about 1¢ per point (in increments of 10,000). After the change to KeyBank Relationship Rewards Points in 2013/2014, they are now worth nothing.

Okay – more precisely, they are worth 0.2¢ per point as a statement credit. The Key2More Rewards credit card? A 1% card that goes up to 1.5% if you spend more than $2,000 per month. The yearly bonus on a Gold Money Market Savings Account? That you have to pay taxes on? That requires a $30,000 minimum daily balance, and a Key Advantage Checking Account (or better) [I think] to avoid an $18 monthly fee? That gives you a 0.37% APY (including the current 3-month promotional interest rate of 1.3%) (less than the 0.399% APY I get with my CU’s checking account at 1/6th the minimum daily balance)? Literally $30. Outrageous! Egregious! Preposterous!

It’s possible that points are worth more for gift cards or travel. I tried calling the KeyBank Rewards Center (at 1-888-333-7780) to find out if points might be worth any more on travel, but I was hung up on as soon as my call began connect to a representative—as if 0.2¢ per point wasn’t dispiriting enough!

Our Verdict

The KeyBank Relationship Rewards Program is very comprehensive and seemingly well thought-out, in terms of rewarding customers for banking activity. It is also a transparent ploy to wow customers with the number of points they can earn, even though the points are worth nothing. I don’t usually take personal offense at bad programs, but I’d rather earn nothing for my banking activities than an insultingly paltry sum.

Adhering to a more mathematical analysis, it is obviously worth enrolling in Relationship Rewards if you wouldn’t have to pay anything extra. The break-even points for a $30 or $40 annual fee is 15,000 or 20,000 points, respectively—so if you’d earn more than that in a year, you might consider skimming a little profit from your banking activities. Though it isn’t stated for non-savings accounts, I would assume that many of the activities would constitute taxable income, so that it is certainly something you’d want to inquire about.

Points value aside, KeyBank has done an extremely good job of making information about their program available, so it’s probably at least worth looking in to if you bank with them. They even have a pretty good Rewards Calculator on their website.

If you have any more information about the program, feel free to drop it in the comments below and I will update this post.