Contents
The Offer
Direct Link to offer (keep in mind this is targeted)
- Alliant Credit Union is sending some people an offer to get a $200 bonus when opening an Alliant checking account by 8/31/25 and then receiving a direct deposit within 90 days of $3,000 or more.
Our Verdict
Decent offer, made better if it stacks with the $150 Rakuten offer for new Alliant checking customers. Rakuten does not lead you to the correct landing page, but I think there’s a good chance it will track regardless by clicking through Rakuten and then navigating to the landing page to open the account.
Was it targeted based on receiving an email?
Targeted.
8/26 Opened both links in Rakuten and email. Applied via the email link.
8/27 Got approved. Transfer 3k from SOFI.
8/28 Money has hit the account. No track from Rakuten yet.
Tried Sofi, Wise, Fidelity. Hope one of them worked.
Current member (with savings account but not checking account). Targeted for the offer. Applied with Chex frozen, went pending, approved a day later. So far, Rakuten did not track (and I do not expect it to — though my situation is odd, in that I did get a Rakuten bonus for opening the savings account earlier this year).
Applied for the checking account (not targeted but the $150 Rakuten offer) with a current savings account and chex frozen. They asked me to unfreeze chex at the end of the app and had me upload SSC, then went pending. And they did pull chex… weird. Wonder what the trigger for pulling chex is? Did move to new address recently.
Any chance you accidentally opted in to overdraft protection?
It is possible, is there a place to check in the account?
Wanted to point this out in the Rakuten terms:
Existing Alliant Credit Union members, customers who are joint owners of an existing Alliant Credit Union account, and former Alliant Credit Union members are not eligible for Cash Back.
Seems like if Rakuten enforces this, you would not be able to stack it with the $200 Alliant bonus which requires you to be an existing member. Always a chance they wont check it though.
Not sure if anything has changed, but that restriction in Rakuten terms wasn’t enforced for me a few months back: #2082136
Thats good news!
Does anyone have idea what would count as a DD for this bank?
chase biz my boy its the gold standard. use a referral.
Trouble is, this requires you to keep an open deposit account with Chase, which many would consider suicidal.
Really? Never had an issue with Chase in decades of using them.
There are about a bazillion SD DPs related to having open deposit accounts at Chase. If you are MSing your Chase cards, I would suggest you seriously reconsider your deposit relationship.
Not an issue, don’t know why. Didn’t even have an issue with getting CSR/bonus after having several Sapphire bonuses and had done the Ink thing every 4 months for years.Only regret is that I’ve never been able to churn their deposit accounts because I use them.
The issue is that Chase can raise fraud flags for totally innocent bank txers, and when they do, they will look into every account you have with him (and every account any of your AUs have with them). What you’ve experienced so far is good luck– Chase hasn’t randomly flagged any of your deposit transactions yet. But this is not a form of immunity; any day, a bank txn could be flagged for reasons entirely outside your control, and if, at that time, the analyst sees funny business going on on your cards, you will be axed, as will everyone at your address and everyone who’s ever been an AU on any of your Chase cards. That’s the risk.
(This is, to some extent, unique to Chase, as they got in trouble with the government for having insufficient AML compliance, and their response has been to massively overcorrect.)
I’m targeted for the checking account promo. How do I do this offer? Don’t you have to click on the $200 link to get thr bonus but if it has to be through Rakuten means you might only get 150$?
No DPs so far on whether this works while not targeted, right?
If not, I’ll be a guinea pig I guess. The Rakuten $150 at least means I’m unlikely to come up entirely empty…
A lot of notes about being targeted in this post/thread, but not seeing an explicit description of what being targeted is. I’m looking through the terms of the offer for what it is that notifies you of being targeted. Did you receive an e-mail? Physical mail? I’m a current savings customer and I’ve got nothing that I’m aware of.
Sorry if I overlooked an explanation.
I received and email. I currently have a savings account with them and never had another account with them before.
Any DPs on whether they pull Chex for new accounts of existing members?
(If not, guess we can just apply with Chex frozen…)
I was targeted. Currently have Alliant savings account. I just applied with chex frozen, and received this response “Your Application is Pending
We will email you within 2 business days with the status of your application.”
update: I applied 8/3/25 and went pending. I received welcoming approval email the next morning, 8/4/25. Chex frozen.
Thank you!!