Update 5/2/24: Bonus is back up to $300.
Update 2/28/24: They have changed what qualifies for the direct deposit. This is important for the ongoing $20 monthly bonus (this bonus has been reduced to $10).
Changes go into effect April 1:
We are changing the method we utilize to identify qualifying direct deposit transactions for the Loyalty cash rewards when you make qualifying direct deposits each month. Starting April 1st, 2024, transactions will be identified through a qualifying direct deposit.
Qualifying Direct Deposit:
- A direct deposit from an employer payroll, payroll provider service, or benefits payer (such as Social Security or Military Pay),or pension, and must be clearly identifiable to Laurel Road as such.
Non-Qualifying Deposits:
- Person to Person payments such as but not limited to (Zelle, PayPal, Cash App, or Venmo). Mobile check deposits, cash loads or deposits, one-time direct deposits, such as tax refunds and other similar transactions.
Update 1/9/24: Bonus reduced to $100.
Update 7/5/23: Extended until Extended to 1/8/24.
Update 1/13/22: Deal now good through 01/12/2023.
Update 8/1/22: Bonus has begun posting for people.
Update 6/24/22: This link works for non nurses.
Offer at a glance
- Maximum bonus amount: $300 + $20 per month for first year
- Availability: Nationwide
- Direct deposit required: $2,500+ within 60 days
- Additional requirements: See below
- Hard/soft pull: Soft pull
- ChexSystems: No, Chexsystems sensitive
- Credit card funding: Unknown
- Monthly fees: None
- Early account termination fee: $25, 180 days
- Household limit: None listed
- Expiration date: December 31, 2022
Contents
The Offer
- Laurel Road is offering nurses and non nurses a $300 bonus when you open a Laurel Road Loyalty Checking account and complete the following requirements:
- Make one or more direct deposits totaling at least $2,500 within 60 days after account opening
- You can also earn a $20 bonus each month for the first year (second statement cycle through 13th and $10 each month thereafter) when you meet the following requirements:
- Make one or more direct deposits totaling at least $2,500 within 60 days after account opening
The Fine Print
- You must open a Laurel Road Loyalty Checking account by 12/31/2022 at 11:59 p.m. (ET) and make one or more qualifying direct deposits via an Automated Clearing House (ACH) transaction into the Laurel Road Loyalty Checking account totaling at least $2,500 within the first 60 days after account opening to receive the $300, which will be deposited into your account within 60 days of meeting requirements.
- Qualifying ACH direct deposit transactions include most payroll, Social Security, pension and government benefits deposits.
- Limit one bonus per qualifying account and per individual.
- If you were the primary owner on any Laurel Road checking account within the prior 24 months before opening the new checking account, you are not eligible for the bonus offer.
- The value of the bonus will be reported to the IRS on Form 1099-INT. If you close your account within the first 180 days of account opening, you will be charged a $25 account early closure fee.
- Accounts closed at the time of bonus payment are not eligible
- $540 can be earned by qualifying for up to $240 in rewards your first year combined with the $300 welcome bonus.
- Primary account holder is eligible to earn monthly rewards of $20/month from the second through thirteenth statement periods, which is considered your “first year.” From the fourteenth statement period onward, the eligible reward will be $10/month for as long as the Laurel Road Loyalty Checking account (“Account”) is open.
- To earn monthly rewards, you must make qualifying Automated Clearing House (ACH) direct deposits into the Account totaling at least $2,500 during the statement period.
- Qualifying ACH direct deposit transactions include most payroll, Social Security, pension and government benefits deposits.
- Rewards will be deposited into your Account in the statement period after they are earned.
- Only one Loyalty Checking account per primary account holder.
- Primary account holder is eligible to earn monthly rewards of $20/month from the second through thirteenth statement periods, which is considered your “first year.”
- From the fourteenth statement period onward, the eligible reward will be $10/month for as long as the Laurel Road Loyalty Checking account (“Account”) is open. To earn monthly rewards, you must make qualifying Automated Clearing House (ACH) direct deposits into the Account totaling at least $2,500 during the statement period. Qualifying ACH direct deposit transactions include most payroll, Social Security, pension and government benefits deposits. Rewards will be deposited into your Account in the statement period after they are earned.
- 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
Early Account Termination Fee
$25 if closed within 180 days
Our Verdict
Not sure how they determine if you’re a nurse or not. Unlike the other recent bonus this does not require refinancing. Good deal if you’re eligible, we will add this to the highly specific bank bonus section.
Hat tip to SDubbs
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 couldn’t get past the first application screen that asks for your name, address, ect., It would immediately say “Woops We Hit a Speedbump” and to call them.
I had called Laurel Road and had tickets made in the last few weeks. They called me today and told me Engineering has found that my “Hit a speedbump” Error was due to my application being denied. Wouldn’t give me a reason for denial.
BUT then I found this comment:
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/unknown-location-restrictions-keybank-200-checking-bonus/#comment-1884560
It allowed me to open a Key account AND a Laurel Road account tonight.
Use Incognito/Private Window in your browser when applying!
Now I’m going to see if you can actually get both of these bonuses at the same time, there are mixed DP’s in the comments.
06/29/24: opened Loyal Checking account
07/11/24: pushed $2,524.23 from Schwab CMA (did not trigger bonus)
08/02/24: $2,500.00 payroll DD (rewards bar showed qualification for the one-time $300 bonus and the first $20 monthly bonus a couple of days later)
08/16/24: $2,500.00 payroll DD
09/03/24: received the $300 and the first $20
Planning to keep the biweekly payroll DD until the end of 2024.
DP for real DD:
Opened 7/1/24
$2500 DD on 8/8/24
$320 bonus posted on 9/3/24 ($300 welcome bonus + $20 DD bonus)
When using a Chase Business checking acct to spoof other banks, is there a specific Chase business account that tends to work better than others, or are they all the same in terms of efficacy?
FINALLY got approved for one of these. I’ve trying to open on since last October, when they approved my savings account but denied the checking on the app. I’ve been applying every 1-2 months with Chex frozen, and they kept telling me to unfreeze it. I actually fell for it twice, until I saw
Gadget 🕵️♂️ Bank Bonus Geek 🔗’s comments about Chex pull = denial.
I had been getting denied for most online opening for identity issues, but actually got a few surprise approvals this month. The only things that were different were only TransUnion was frozen (Experian and Equifax were unfrozen for other pending apps) and I applied as a “new customer.” It just made me log in right before submitting.
So, Offer at Glance on this page, says: ChexSystems: No, Chexsystems sensitive. If LR is not pulling the Chex report, how are they sensitive? Any idea how sensitive they are? I am planning to open this next week.
Laurel Road is a weird one. A lot of people get approved without getting a Chex pull. (Likely, Key Bank is pulling EWS) However, others get a Chex pull, and I’d venture to say nearly all that get a Chex pull get denied.
Voyager
I applied for account 3 days ago and the webpage said application is pending/ under review. However, I never received an email saying the same and have not heard anything since. Is this normal for this bank?
yes
I had this happen before and they never sent ANY e-mail or follow-up at all. Just never heard back whatsoever in any capacity.
Applied again a couple weeks later and instantly approved.
TreasuryDirect still works as direct deposit as of September 3.
So confused. I opened a Treasury Direct account just for this bonus but can’t figure out how to use it. Can you help?
First you need to add a bank account that you want to draw funds from, using the routing and account numbers. In TreasuryDirect, select ManageDirect then “Update my bank information” under the heading “Manage My Account.” You can tadd your Laurel account later. If you open a bank account, wait a week before linking to it from TreasuryDirect.
Then I just transfer funds and it will count as a direct deposit? What about all this talk of c of I and t bills? Don’t I have to utilize one of those for it to count as a direct deposit?
You may be confusing a DD and a QDD. Any transfer is technically a DD. However, only some (ie TD) count as a QDD for Laurel.
Several months ago, basically anything counted as a QDD but they cracked down at some point as they were likely tired of giving out so much free money.
The C of I is a no-interest holding account that you can use to buy treasuries later or to deposit into another bank account. There is a five-business day hold on funds pulled into the C of I account. You can move any amount of money in and out of C of I.
You can also buy a treasury bill (T-bill), such as a four-week bill and earn interest. You can draw the funds from a source bank (or the C of I) and have the funds deposited to the destination bank on the maturity date. The four-week bills are issued and mature on Tuesdays and can be bought in increments of $100. You can buy a T-bill with a nominal amount of $2500 and the treasury will draw a little less than that amount from the source bank; at maturity, the treasury will deposit $2500 into Laurel Road.
It’s Treasury Direct, not the U.S. Treasury Department (“the treasury”), that debits the purchase price from your designated bank account. It’s the U.S. Treasury Department,” not Treasury Direct, that deposits the maturity payment to your designated bank account.
Treasury Direct is only acting as a broker in the purchase of the T-bill. The advantage of using Treasury Direct instead of a retail brokerage to purchase a T-bill is that the maturity payment gets deposited to the bank account you specify instead of to your brokerage account.
Careful relying on this if you’ve got a time crunch. I opened a Treasury Direct account a week or so ago, all was well, even did trial deposits successfully to link it to First Horizon.
Treasury Direct weirdly will only let you deposit $1,000 at a time, but will let you schedule successive scheduled transfers for $1,000 back to back to back.
I deposited $1k, then another $1k the next day, with three more $1k transfers scheduled, then suddenly Treasury Direct locked my account but gave me no notice. I only became aware of it when I went to login today and received a message before even getting to my OTP and password entry to call them.
I called them, and they claimed I was sent an e-mail “yesterday” (I wasn’t – checked junk/spam/everything) but claimed I need to submit the form F5444. This is a notorious process that can take MONTHS, and in the meantime all your funds are locked up.
Just be aware and plan on this if you’re going to rely on Treasury Direct to try to trigger this within a short duration.
Did you mean TD site can only pull $1000 at a time into CofI?
Yes
But you can pull $1k as many times as you want to on the same day….
“Careful relying on this” is rather vague. By “this” I assume you mean purchasing a CofI, not purchasing a T-bill.
I’m not aware of any limit on the size of the T-bill you can purchase via TD. You can purchase a T-bill in any multiple of $100 (up to $10 million) by designating one of the bank accounts you’ve added to your TD account. You just have to have sufficient funds in the designated bank account on the settlement date to pay the purchase price.
Yes, C of I. I said as much in the follow-up comment I made on 9/6.
However, regardless, Treasury Direct horror stories of the locked out account regarding the mailed-inform aren’t specifically related to C of I vs T Bills or anything.
So no I don’t mean the warning is only for C of I. The warning is for opening a new Treasury Direct account at all and relying on it to be able to push funds to a bank by X date with a new Treasury Direct account.
The purpose of TD is not to transfer money from one bank account to another. The purpose is to let you buy and hold Treasury securities and have payments from those securities deposited into your bank account.
From what I’ve read, the people getting locked out of their recently opened TD account have never purchased a Treasury security through TD. They’ve only pulled money into a C of I through multiple transactions.
I just learned that some banks* let can add your TD account as an external account via trial deposits. If you can make your TD account an external account, you can then push funds from your bank account to a C of I in your TD account. The only transaction limit would be your bank’s outgoing ACH transfer limit. There would be no hold on redeeming funds pushed into a C of I.
I believe that by funding a C of I through pushes rather than pulls, you avoid the risk of being locked out of your TD account.
The TD account number you provide is your regular TD login account number without the hyphens. E.g., A-123-456-789 -> A123456789
The TD routing number is 051736158.
* Elements Financial is one such bank.
I understand the purpose of Treasury Direct. No actions I had taken thus far in any way “alerted” Treasury Direct I was using it for the purpose of “transferring money from one bank to another”. Every action I have performed with Treasury Direct is a bonafide legitimate action/option enabled and promoted directly by Treasury Direct. This is like implying people are abusing the Fidelity CMA here too.
There are horror stories all over the internet regarding this lockdown and form 5444 – NOT just limited to the C of I option.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bogleheads/s/XG8Sf0EbLe
https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/s/WIngMALsn6
https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/s/8u08XYvcuT
https://www.reddit.com/r/bonds/s/kacKlxXKdT
https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/s/NsFqQIbwCJ
https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/s/e9BWYhJPCl
https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=422458
https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=356280
There are thousands of these threads on the internet. In fact, the vast majority seem to NOT be related to the C of I but people buying actual T bills and bonds.
I do have “push” set up with Treasury Direct with one of my bank accounts. As you mentioned, you’re limited to the bank’s outgoing limits though. Regardless, my warning for the OP still stands and is plenty valid:
Careful relying on Treasury Direct in any capacity as a new user/account for a needed turn around time frame less than a few months.
I replied a few hours ago, with a bunch of web links from personal finance, bonds, Boglehead forums, etc. proving that these issues locked account issues aren’t relegated to the C of I usage, but it doesn’t seem to have actually posted. I’m going to re-post it here as best I can remember with the links removed (just literally Google “Treasury Direct 5444”). Anyway, my original reply:
I understand the purpose of Treasury Direct. No actions I had taken thus far in any way “alerted” Treasury Direct I was using it for the purpose of “transferring money from one bank to another”. Every action I have performed with Treasury Direct is a bonafide legitimate action/option enabled and promoted directly by Treasury Direct.
There are horror stories all over the internet regarding this lockdown and form 5444 – NOT just limited to the C of I option.
*original comment had a bunch of web links here that took me two seconds to find*
There are thousands of these threads on the internet. In fact the vast majority are NOT related to the C of I. I’m glad you haven’t personally had trouble with Treasury Direct.
Yes, I do have “push” set up with Treasury Direct with one of my banks. As you mentioned, you’re limited to the bank’s outgoing ACH limits.
Regardless, my warning for the OP still stands and is plenty valid. So, no, by “careful relying on this” I don’t mean “this” ONLY for the C of I account. I mean “this” by relying on Treasury Direct in any capacity as a new user on a time crunch less than several months at minimum.
Did you include more than 3 tags/links in that comment? If so, it probably went to moderation and
William Charles or 
Chuck will likely post it today or tomorrow.
Yep it has a bunch of links, maybe at least 5-8? I can’t remember exactly.
Probably no point in either of those guys posting it now anyway, lest we basically have a duplicate post with a bunch of links in it that probably wouldn’t change the lecturing tone/mind of the poster anyway.
I take it that you’ve never “met”
Ricki before. Is that correct?
I wonder if Ricki will eventually go through all of the comments in this post and see the comment where I paged them months ago.
Do you think that Ricki will or will not find it?
Correct, I have not “met” Ricki before and I can’t remember seeing the name previously. It would be very ironic if Ricki gets slapped with an out-of-the blue 5444 lockdown just as many thousands of others have.
I do actually recognize you and have thought you to be very helpful on various pages in my short few months here. In fact I think if there’s anybody I would think of off the top of my head as helpful and frequent posters it would be you and Gadget.
Thank you. I am glad to help. 😀
That irony seems unlikely. I already submitted a Form 5444 “TreasuryDirect Account Authorization” last year when TD’s add bank widget wouldn’t recognize the bank account information I was entering to add my then recently opened Chase bank account.
(A TD rep had recommended I submit that form to resolve the problem I was having adding the new Chase account. Rather than waste time trying to make sense of the recommendation, I immediately visited a nearby Bank of America branch where was able to get a medallion signature guarantee for free on my Form 5444. The old Form 5444 did not accept the signature of a notary. However, a couple days after I had submitted the form, a different TD rep told me it can take several days to add a recently opened account, due to several systems needing to be updated before TD could recognize the bank account information. Sure enough, about a week later I was able to add the new Chase account with the add bank widget.)
“Many thousands of others”? Really?
I don’t doubt that you or others were locked out. I’m just trying to identify the circumstances that led to the lockouts.
You seem to want us to believe “many thousands” have been locked out for no reason, and this could happen to anyone, and therefore no one should rely on TD to make timely qualifying direct deposits.
You sound like a fear monger who gets his thrills by sowing fear and doubt. Or maybe you’re just angry that TD locked you out and want to “punish” TD with bad reviews.
No doubt you’re hoping I’ll get locked out. You said as much in another post. Your being locked out has made you miserable, and misery loves company.
You say, I replied a few hours ago, with a bunch of web links from personal finance, bonds, Boglehead forums, etc. proving that these issues locked account issues aren’t relegated to the C of I usage … just literally Google “Treasury Direct 5444” … .
I didn’t ask for proof and wonder why you troubled yourself to provide it. From the “proof” you offer, it appears that these lockouts are related to new TD accounts, not established TD accounts.
Elsewhere, you say your “bunch of links” was “maybe at least 5-8.” You remind me of Trump exaggerating with his accordion hands.
Where you wrote, “relegated to the C of I usage,” surely you meant “limited to the C of I usage.”
You say, “There are thousands of these threads on the internet.” Sounds like a Trumpian exaggeration. I doubt that you counted the threads.
When I “literally” (as opposed to figuratively) googled “Treasury Direct 5444,” I found a “bunch of” entries from TreasuryDirect (no surprise there) and a “bunch of” (25) old posts in Boglehead that include “locked” or “5444”; they date from 2021-2023. The Boglehead posts concerned recently opened TD accounts (such as yours), not established TD accounts (such as mine).
One of the posts states, “FYI: they now allow emailing and faxing the form back in addition to mail. I had success earlier this month emailing the form back and the account was quickly unlocked.” That should minimize the “horror” of being locked out.
I didn’t see any “horror stories” in those posts.
These days, many banks rely on 3rd-party security software that automatically locks your account when it detects activity that it’s been programmed to recognize as suspicious. I open many new accounts every year, and I get locked out of one of them within a week or two of opening the account, for no apparent reason.
To anyone who fears the remote possibility of being locked out of your TD account, I suggest submitting Form 5444 before you get locked out.
Lol.
I’ve been mulling over this issue of getting locked out of your TD account for no apparent reason.
While you wait for TD to get around to reviewing your Form 5444, your funds in your TD account are unavailable and earning zero interest. If this happened to me, I’d be pissed. I’d raise hell to get my money back or my account unlocked.
I just verified that TD customer service can transfer you to someone who can escalate your issue. You have to be persistent to get them to admit this is possible. You may feel like reaching into the phone and strangling the CS rep or, at the very least, slapping her silly.
If a bank locked you out of your account for security reasons, you could get the bank to mail you a check for the balance of your account. Maybe you can persuade TD to do the same.
NOTE: The Bureau of the Fiscal Service manages the TreasuryDirect.gov website, which is a web application from the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Also, the US Inspector General investigates complaints against other government agencies. CFPB advised me to contact the USIG. However, I suspect that by the time the USIG got around to reviewing your complaint, TD would already have unlocked your account.
Anyone having any luck linking Fidelity Brokerage/CMA to Laurel Road via manually typing in the acct/routing #s? I tried but now Fidelity is asking for a document for proof but I cant find any statements on Laurel Road. Usually Fidelity would do micro deposits but for some reason its asking for document proof instead of micro deposits. Anyone experiencing the same issue?
I tried to link to Laurel Road in my Fidelity account. I selected linking via trial deposits (not login). After I enter my acct/routing #s, the system asks me for my login info. 🙁
I ended up just deciding to do a real DD by adding laurel bank to my employer direct deposit versus trying to fuss around with fidelity
Per recent DP’s, Fidelity no longer works as a QDD anyway.
L 
marco
I wanted to use Fidelity to pull from LR. Wasn’t going to use it to push to LR (since it doesn’t move the tracker).
I had the same issue getting my LR account in my Fidelity linked accounts, with Fidelity asking for Key Bank login creds that would fail twice before requiring documents. Luckily after a week or two I got a letter from LR with a set of 6 starter checks. I was able to void one to use for document verification and now it’s linked in my Fidelity. Unfortunately can’t link Fidelity in LR because of their 16-digit account number limit, so stuck doing pulls into Fidelity.
Thanks.
Anyone else getting an antivirus alert that the “Get Started” link (under new to Laurel Road – this shows up after clicking “Get Started” on the original page) is infected?