Earn $10,000 each year just by staying (somewhat) organized!

Introduction

Banks offer promotions that pay customers to open a new account and/or complete other tasks – sometimes up to $600 per account. You can take advantage of those promotions across several institutions and earn some serious cash. Think about what you could do with an extra $300… would you be willing to jump through 20-30 minutes of hoops in order to earn that money?

So How Do I Earn a Bank Bonus?

Most of the time, you’ll need to open a new account and fulfill some requirement related to your employer/government direct deposit. Opening an account is simple (more on that later) but what about the direct deposits?

If you work for a medium-to-large corporation, changing your direct deposit is usually pretty simple. Most companies have a portal for you to change your direct deposit. There’s simply no reason not to make that direct deposit work for you!

If you can’t easily change your direct deposit or don’t have one, you can still earn many bank bonuses! Many banks will accept other forms of transfers – like transfers from a brokerage or even another bank account – as a “Direct Deposit”. This varies bank-to-bank, but you can still make a lot of money without a direct deposit!

So what are you waiting for? Let’s earn some money!

Step 1: Create a Good Setup

To get started, you’re going to need a few things.

First, you’ll need a hub account. A hub account is your “home-base” – it’s the bank you actually use. You’re going to be making a lot of transfers, and it’s a lot easier to keep track of everything when all your money ends up in one place. For a hub account, I recommend Wealthfront Cash Account. Wealthfront is known for its robo-advisor services (which are great), but it also offers a great Cash account, which essentially acts as a checking account. Because Wealthfront is focused on getting your investment account, they offer really nice perks for their Cash account: a very high interest rate (4.5% in Oct 2024), same-day transfers, two ATM reimbursements per month, and more. Whenever possible, I keep my cash here. Open with a referral for a bonus!

If you have an investment account, I highly recommend

I’d also recommend opening a Schwab Brokerage account. Many banks will accept transfers from Schwab Brokerage as a “Direct Deposit”, and it’s free, easy-to-use, and has great customer service. You can pair it with a Schwab Checking Account, which has no foreign transaction fees and unlimited ATM rebates. Again, open with a referral for a bonus!

Finally, open accounts with the various Shopping Portals (Swagbucks, MyPoints, Rakuten, TopCashBack, etc.). As their name implies, these are primarily used for shopping – you could get some percentage back on spending at certain retailers. However, they also periodically offer pretty significant bank bonuses! Yet again, open with a referral for a bonus!

Now that you’ve got your acccounts set up, it’s time to go hunting.

Step 2: Find Bank Bonus Offers

The best place to look for Bank Bonus offers is DoctorOfCredit.com and reddit.com/r/churning.

Start with the national banks at the top of Doc Credit’s Best Bank Bonuses Page. These are typically the easiest to complete: you don’t have to worry too much about eligibility, and there is plenty of information from other Doc Credit users on their experience. Find one with a large bonus and easy requirements (i.e., not too many direct deposits). Let’s start with Bank of America.

Before you open the account, check out the comments section, experienced users will post Data Points, also known as DPs, which summarize their experience. Let’s dissect one for US Bank’s $450 bonus:

8/27 Account opened with $250 WF Active Cash funding (coded as purchase)
9/6 $4000 push from Fidelity CMA
9/11 $4001 push from Fidelity CMA
10/10 $450 bonus posted

The first line indicates this user opened an account at US Bank on August 27th. Many banks allow new customers to fund their accounts with a credit card, and some use this option to earn credit card rewards. In this case, the user funded their account with $250 from their Wells Fargo Active Cash card, which has 2% back, earning them $5. This has nothing to do with the US Bank Bonus, and I wouldn’t recommend it for new users. You can cause a headache for yourself if you fund the account with a credit card and your credit card company treats it as a “Cash Advance”, which typically comes with fees and no rewards.

The second line indicates that the user transferred $4000 from their Fidelity Cash Management Account (CMA), which is analogous to the Schwab Checking Account, on September 6th. This transfer was a “push”. A “push” means you initiated the transfer from the bank providing the funds. A “pull” means you intiated the transfer from the bank receiving the funds. You’ll almost always use “pushes” to trigger direct deposit bonuses.

The third line similarly indicates another push. Users may wish to push