[Expired][MA Only] Webster Bank $350 Personal and $350 Business Checking Bonus

This offer has now expired, you can view more bank account bonuses here.

Offer at a glance

Maximum bonus amount: $350 personal and $350 business
Availability: Valid for branches in these places: Cambridge, Boston, Lexington, Newtown, Needham, Burlington, Brookline, Wellesley, Quincy. [Branch Locator Here]
Direct deposit required: Required (for personal bonus)
Additional requirements: Yes, see below
Hard/soft pull: S oft
Credit card funding: None
Monthly fees: $21.95, waivable
Early account termination fee: $15 if closed within 90 days
Expiration date: September 2, 2016

Contents

1 The Offer
- 1.1 Personal Offer
- 1.2 Business Offer
2 The Fine Print
3 Avoiding Fees
- 3.1 Personal
- 3.2 Business
4 Our Verdict
- 4.1 Personal Bonus
- 4.2 Business Bonus

The Offer

There are no direct links to these offers; we’ve included images at the end of this post.

Personal Offer

Webster Bank has taken over the Citi branches in Boston and to celebrate they are offering a $350 bonus on their Premier Checking account when completing the following requirements:

Have a direct deposit for three consecutive calendar months by 1/31/17, AND
Have an average account balance of $10,000+ during the month of January 2017

Business Offer

Receive a bonus of $350 when you open a Complete Business Checking and one of the following:

Make 10 debit transactions (using PIN or signature), OR
Make 5 online bill payments

The Fine Print

Offer valid for residents of MA, CT, RI, and NY
In the fine print it says that the banker must enter the code “Boston- July/August” for both the personal and business accounts
Cannot have had an account open with Webster in the previous 60 days
Qualifying requirements must be completed before January 31, 2017
Direct deposit requirements are limited to payroll, social security, pension & government benefits (Paypal excluded)
Limit one per household
Minimum opening deposit of $500 on both accounts
All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them

Avoiding Fees

Personal

There is a $21.95 monthly maintenance fee, waived with $10,000 in combined average checking, money market and savings balances during your monthly statement period or $50,000 adding CD, home equity and installment loan balances as of the end of your statement period.

Business

This account also has a $21.95 monthly maintenance fee that’s waived if you have a $7,500 monthly average balance.

Note that military and veterans might get a monthly fee waiver. (I can’t tell if all accounts get the waiver or only some.)

Our Verdict

Personal Bonus

They complicated this offer a bit since last time around by requiring a direct deposit. This bonus is better than the $250 bonus available in MA, NY, RI and CT as well, but that offer can be done online and those requirements are easier; this bonus which is tougher and requires going to a branch in Massachusetts.

When doing this $350 offer, you’ll have to park $10,000 in the account to keep it fee-free or eat the $21.95 fee for a number of months. Either way, it takes a serious bite out of the value of the offer. I’d think the other offer is better for most people since it works on the lower-level checking accounts which have lower fees.