There is now a better $225 bonus available.
Offer at a glance
- Maximum bonus amount: $150
- Availability: Nationwide
- Direct deposit required: Yes, one time $500 (see what counts here)
- Additional requirements: None
- Hard/soft pull: Soft, see below
- Credit card funding: Up to $500
- Monthly fees: $5, waivable
- Early account termination fee: No bonus if closed within 90 days
- Expiration date:
June 30th, 2016September 30, 2016December 31st, 2016January 31st, 2017
The Offer
- Direct Link
- Simply Right Checking: https://www.
santanderbank.com/us/pages/ personal/checking-accounts-04 - Basic Checking: https://www.
santanderbank.com/us/pages/ personal/checking-accounts-05 - Premier Plus Checking: https://www.
santanderbank.com/us/pages/ personal/checking-accounts-06
- Simply Right Checking: https://www.
- Receive $150 bonus doing the following: Open a Santander checking account, receive direct deposits totaling $500, and keep account open for 90 days.
You can either open the account online (and get to do the $500 credit card funding) or print out a coupon via the above link and bring it in-branch to open.
The Fine Print
- Offer is not available to current or former Santander customers who opened a Santander checking account between 01/01/2016 – 12/31/2016
- Bonus is considered interest and will be reported to IRS on Form 1099-INT. If multiple accounts are opened with the same signer, only one account will be eligible for the bonus
- Direct deposits include deposits made by your employer or a federal or state government agency or retirement benefits administrator and generally payments made by corporations or other organizations. It does not include deposits to your Account that are made by an individual using online banking or an Internet payment provider such as PayPal
Avoiding Fees
This bonus is valid on the following three account types: Basic, Classic, and Premier (not on Extra20 or Student accounts).
- Basic – This account has a non-waivable $5 monthly fee. $3 for NY and NJ.
- Simply Right Checking: $10 monthly fee is waived by making any transaction, including deposits, withdrawals, transfers or payments. Unclear if $750 monthly balance will keep the fee waived as well
- Premier – This account has a $30 monthly fee. Waived with $20k in combined balances.
Our Verdict
This offer isn’t as good as the Extra20 offer they used to offer, but this is no longer available and I doubt we’ll see that come back. $150 seems like their new standard offer. I think this offer is worth completing (and we’ve added it to our best bank bonus page). Here is how I’d complete it:
- Open the Simply Right Checking account (not the basic).
- Fund it the max $500 with a Barclay or Chase card that has a cash advance limit of $0 or close to $0.
- Do a $500 direct deposit. This will meet the direct deposit requirement and it will waive the first month’s monthly fee.
- Withdraw most of the money and set up
- an automatic bill pay (to a credit card or whatever) of $1 monthly to keep the account fee-free.
- Wait 90 days from account opening, then wait another 30 days for bonus to post.
- Close account.
We’ve also added this to our bank bonus database. Please keep in mind Santander has been cracking down on what counts as a direct deposit, go here for recent data points.
Hat tip to Maximizing Money
