Offer at a glance
- Maximum bonus amount: $150
- Availability: Nationwide
- Direct deposit required: Yes, direct deposits totaling $2,500 within 90 days of account opening
- Additional requirements: None
- Hard/soft pull: Hard
- Credit card funding: Unknown
- Monthly fees: None
- Early account termination fee: None
- Expiration date: August 31st, 2015
The Offer
- Open a TIAA direct interest checking account with the promotional code 65DD150 receive direct deposits totaling $2,500 within 90 days of account opening and receive a bonus of $150
The Fine Print
- This offer is available for a new TIAA Direct Interest Checking account
- This offer is only intended for the addressee of the email that was received, may not be combined with any other offers from TIAA Direct and is not available to existing checking customers (don’t believe this is enforced, as any e-mail will trigger the offer)
- Qualifying direct deposits may include payroll, pension or Social Security checks electronically deposited; funds transfers and checks deposited by mobile device or mail do not constitute direct deposits
- the $150 bonus will be credited to your account within 91 to 104 days of account opening, provided that your account remains open and is not overdrawn or subject to any holds, restrictions, or legal action or dispute on the bonus payment date
- All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them
Avoiding Fees
There is no monthly minimum balance requirement and no monthly fee for the interest checking account. The interest rate is tiered depending on how much you have in the account, but it’s capped at 0.15% so it’s not worth keeping funds in this account. There is no mention of an early account termination fee, but you’ll need to keep the account open until the bonus posts.
High Yield Savings $50 Bonus
There is also a $50 bonus if you open a High Yield savings account and deposit at least $1,000 and keep that level for 30 days. This account has account has a 0.7% APY and no monthly fees. It’s probably worth doing this bonus as well as your
Our Verdict
Given that it’s a hard pull to open, I can’t recommend doing this bonus. You’d almost certainly be better off signing up for a credit card instead. There are also a bunch of other checking accounts with a higher bonus and no hard pull, which would be preferable over this.
As always we’ve added it to our bank bonus page.
Hat tip to reader Shawn P
