No longer working according to this comment.
Offer at a glance
- Maximum bonus amount: $250
- Availability: Must live, work, go to school, or worship in an area served by one of our branches. [Branch locations here]
- Direct deposit required: Yes, $500+
- Additional requirements: Use promo code OPENVAULT
- Hard/soft pull: Soft
- ChexSystems: Unknown
- Credit card funding: $1,500
- Monthly fees: None
- Early account termination fee: None
- Expiration date: December 31st, 2016
The Offer
- Receive a sign up bonus of $250 when you open a new Heritage West Credit Union checking account and complete the following requirements:
- Open a new account with the promo code ‘OPENVAULT’
- Establish a new active direct deposit service. Minimum direct deposit of $500 is required
The Fine Print
- Offers effective 01/04/16 through 12/31/16.
- To qualify, you must establish a new, active Direct Deposit service on a new checking account.
- All Direct Deposit paperwork must be processed in order to be eligible for the credit.
- Account will be credited within 90 days after the first direct deposit posts to the account.
- Minimum total direct deposit of $500 per month in order to receive $250 promotional incentive.
- REFER A FRIEND: A $5 minimum balance is required to open and maintain savings account and to obtain bonus. Bonus will be deposited within five days of account opening. Program must be mentioned at time of joining for account to be credited. Fees may reduce earnings and rates may change. Limit 20 referrals per member. One coupon per eligible member. Cannot be combined with any other offer. No cash value. Not redeemable for cash.
- All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them
Avoiding Fees
Their best value checking account has no monthly fee or minimum balance. I wasn’t able to find a fee schedule so I’m unsure if they charge an early account termination fee or not. Update: No early account termination fee according to this comment.
Our Verdict
HeritageWest is part of Chartway Federal Credit Union and we’ve had problems with them in the past, so keep this in mind. Because of this we won’t add it to our list of the best bank account bonuses currently available. Please feel free to share your experiences with this bonus in the comments below.
Big thanks to reader, David who let us know. Please consider sharing bank bonuses with this site so we can make it even better.
Useful posts regarding bank bonuses:
- A Beginners Guide To Bank Account Bonuses
- 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
View Comments (22)
They gave me a courtesy $50. After I filed a complaint with NCUA, they called and offered another $100.
They gave me $50 as a courtesy and I'm in VA. They said they won't be honoring the $250.
Now I received this email:
"You are supposed to bring in the coupon to a heritagewest branch. It was taken off of our website due to a 3rd party website advertising the promotion without our permission."
Any suggestions how to deal with this company?
They are telling me now that there was no such promotion.... Any success with this company?
confirmed that there's no early termination fee.
"As long as you don’t have a Certificate and your account is not in the negative then there is no early closing fee for account closure."
Where are you getting the $1.5k in CC funding? The link on this page only points to your page about banks DoC isn't sure about CC funding. Are there data points from a previous post?
Reader commentated above...
Wow. It's been a long day. Thanks for pointing that out.
confirmed with banker that they do softpull
There are branches in UT as well, not just VA.
Really? I can't see any on their location search.
Heritage West CU only exists in UT (SLC area)
Chartway CU only exists in VA (Norfolk area).
https://www.chartway.com/about-us/press-room/2013/08/unification
Chartway owns SouthWest Community CU in the SW corner of UTAH also.
So technically bonus is available to either everyone or those only in UT.
I'm waiting on their app acceptance as posted above.
Try 84115 and select only branch locations. You'll see a number of them pop up.
I'm in New York, just applied. The application form is reviewed by person, not through online Chex System. You can donate $10 to become their member in order to open the checking for the bonus. (However, I do not know yet whether my application is approved since it's reviewed by person therefore I cannot say I can still have the account open. I'll update on this.)
There is a prime account automatically added and cannot be removed when applying, applicant can select what other accounts to be added, such as checking, saving, CD, etc. $250 bonus is for checking only, therefore only select one of the 4 types of checking accounts. Below is the fee schedule:
https://www.heritagewestcu.com/rates
I added best value checking that requires no min. balance.
You can fund the new account with credit card up to total of $1500. Min. funding on Prime account $5, min. funding on checking account $15, at the beginning I had to select to donate $10, therefore the $10 is listed there when ready to confirm the funding through credit card. My break down:
Donation: $10
Prime: $5
Checking: $1485
Total: $1500
For other funding methods, max on Prime: $9999, max on Checking: $9999
I fund the account by using Bank of America Travel Rewards Credit Cards (already lower Cash Advance Limit to $200). Since the application is to be reviewed by person, the credit card is not charged instantly.
Received email saying account application has been received. Will keep you posted.
I am in VA but not near a branch.
Do have Chartway branches about 25 miles away.
I did everything the same as Jason did.
The end of the online application just leaves you hanging.
Got the email from them that just says Application Received.
Funded with Chase Southwest Premier.
Standing by.........
Was it a hard credit pull or a soft pull?
So I was accepted but they now say the Open Vault promotion ended on 31 July. Fine print on the terms does say "Offers may change or end at any time without notice." even though it also says offers effective thru 12/31/16. Seems kind of cheesy to me. I declined to open the account without the bonus even though I passed on 1500 SW miles. Not sure that was a good decision.
Recommend updating this offer to DEAD
Updated post, thanks!
Forgot the very important thing to mention, there is somewhere in the application form where asks to enter the promotion code. Please enter before submit. If the account can be open AND bonus does post within 90 days after first $500 DD in the month, that means no area restriction+CC funding + easy bonus.
I was rejected because of "too many inquiries with other financial institutions within the past year", so which means ChexSystems : Yes
I am not living in the area served, but there is an option to become their by giving a $10 donation to the We Promise Foundation, just wondering does it work for this promotion?
It should work, but last time this happened with Chartway they ended up closing all the accounts so becareful.