Is there any downside to opening new bank accounts to take advantage of bonus promos? I saw Chase offering a $200 bonus to open a bank account. And what's to stop me from just opening 4 or 5 for the bonuses?
.
They generally require you to hold a certain amount of cash for a certain period of time in which the cash you could likely receive from just parking it in a money market fund instead is usually better and the interest charge to borrow that amount is usually higher. So unless you can get the bonus just opening an account, you're the one getting scammed.
.
My understanding is that to avoid fees usually requires about $1,300 in a bank. So if I opened like 5 bank accounts and deposited that amount in each and just left it I'd get $1 ,000 for free basically. That's way more than the amount you'd get from money market funds or index funds.
.
They'll outline it 100 % in their advertisement. Most of the ones I saw were complete ripoffs, like you needed 20k or more in the account for 90 days to get the $200 reward.
.
If they're giving you $200 on $1,000 in the account for a week then yeah absolutely take that deal, that's like 400 % annually.
.
Yeah the Chase promo is $200 to open checking account and $1,300 in the bank to avoid monthly fees. I'll revisit the fine print to see if I'm missing...
