Many checking accounts offer sign-up bonuses to try and entice more people into creating an account with a specific company. However, these sign-up bonuses typically don’t just automatically apply to your new account. Instead, you often have to qualify for the bonus, oftentimes by doing certain things that are very common between companies. Here are four of the things that you should check for if you’re trying to qualify for a checking account sign-up bonus.
- Deposit a Certain Dollar Amount Within a Certain Period of Time
This is one common way to qualify for a sign-up bonus. Essentially, with this qualification, you need to make deposit a certain amount within the first few months of having your account. This dollar amount may vary dramatically; the Chase Business Account, for example, has a $2,000 requirement, which needs to be completed within the first 30 days of enrollment.
- Have a Certain Daily Balance Average
This is a requirement that’s often tied to the first requirement. This requirement is essentially to avoid people making a deposit, then immediately withdrawing the money, allowing them to meet the requirement with extremely minimal effort. However, a daily balance average, which will typically be assessed over a slightly longer period of time, ensures that you actually keep the money in the account. Often, the balance average is the same as the deposit requirement, though they may also differ slightly.
- Make a Certain Number of Qualifying Transactions
Qualifying transactions are another way that you might qualify for a sign-up bonus. The meaning of “qualifying transactions” may change from bank account to bank account, but it’s common for them to include debit card purchases, mobile check deposits, ACH credits, and wire transfers. Debit card purchases are usually the easiest to complete, so it might be a good idea to default to these for your qualifying transactions.
- Complete the Bonus Before the Expiry Date
This is just something to keep in mind. Often, when a checking account offers sign-up bonuses, it will be a limited-time bonus that you can only get within a specific amount of time. You need to make sure that you complete your sign-up bonus before the bonus itself expires. Any time you see a sign-up bonus being advertised for a checking account, make sure you check when the bonus expires so that you can sign up before that expiry date.
Conclusion
A checking account will often have less restrictive requirements for a sign-up bonus than a credit card, which will typically require that you make a certain dollar amount of purchases over the first few months. However, the requirements for you to utilize a checking account bonus will vary from account to account. If you want to make sure you’re able to get the best sign-on bonuses, you’ll want to follow these four tips, which will help you get the most out of your sign-up bonus and prepare for it before you actually sign up.
