663: Bank Bonuses: How I Make $200/Hr Opening New Bank Accounts

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1:15Now, if you've ever been curious about the side hustle of bank bonuses, Dylan is your guy, dylonsbonuses.com. Dylan, welcome to the Side Hustle Show. Hi, Nick. Pleasure to meet you. Likewise. Now, you've been doing this three years on the side of your day job. This is the podcast where we've been helping people make extra money since 2013. But if memory serves, we've never really done a dedicated conversation about bank bonuses. So let me try and summarize it. Or this is my understanding. Now, banks are hungry for new customers. So they'll actually pay you to join and set up an account, sometimes hundreds of dollars, because they know it's kind of a pain or at least perceived to be kind of a pain to switch banks.

1:55Now, do you recall your first bank bonus or maybe a recent one that comes to mind? You're doing this consistently. I think it's really interesting, not just as a one-off thing. I do remember the first one. When I first moved to Connecticut three years ago, I needed a new bank. Citizens Bank, when I got my new address in Connecticut, they emailed me a little flyer that said$300 for a new checking account,$300 for a new savings account. And I flipped it over. What kind of scam is this? Usually junk mail is like a million. And, well, you know, why are they only promising me? But I read the terms of service.

2:26I looked it up. It's like Citizens is a real bank in Connecticut. I don't think we have that in Texas. It's like five steps. You open an account, you move your direct deposit there. And it has to be like a minimum of 500 a month or whatever it was. And three to six months later, you get 300 for the checking account in cash in the account. And then you get 300 in the savings account in cash in the account. no phone calls, nothing complicated. All you got to do is move your direct deposit over there and keep the account open and you get the money. Okay. So that's the one challenge. If you're doing this consistently is keeping the accounts open and juggling all of the different offers that you have going on, but not a huge barrier or burden.

3:10And since in this case, sounds like you were moving and like, Oh, I was going to switch banks anyways, cause I'm moving. You can open more than one new account. As long as you're able to meet the requirements. I do one a week, every week. I've done that consistently for almost six months. And any problem I've encountered has been small and it's been solvable. Okay. Where do you find these deals? It sounds like, okay, the first one, they sent me a postcard. They sent me a letter in the mail. Where else do you recommend people look for sign-up bonuses like this if they want to dabble? The premier resource is doctorofcredit.com.

3:43that's where you find anything any questions you have they're going to have a frequently asked questions about bank bonuses they're going to any any problem you have there's going to be a brief answer for you yeah i've been on the site before for something else no this is definitely a familiar domain and so i'm on best bank account bonuses for march 2025 and the little scroll bar is so small he must have hundreds listed here at any given time there's going to be like 150 or so Do you just work your way down the list? Do you sort by most lucrative? How do you go about what's something worth going after?

4:20This is kind of sorted straight away for you, okay? Like section one is going to be mostly nationwide or it's going to be all nationwide bonuses. You look at the top there right now at the time of this recording, it's a$900 checking savings bonus from Chase. And then you go one, two, three, four, 18 down before you get to like, you know, 150 bucks for this bank, 100 bucks, 50 bucks. So you can tell at a glance that the best bonuses are at the top. Okay. Then you go the second section, savings account bonuses are slightly more complicated than checking account bonuses. Nothing you can't handle, but just so you know, business bank bonuses usually have to have an EIN, but sometimes they just let you open with your social.

5:01Very rarely they make you have an LLC, but again, you don't need to worry about that because there's going to be plenty of bonuses that are not complicated at all. Okay. And many side hustle show listeners are going to have a business account that they could open. So does that double your chances or is that just adding more complexity to it. Opening a business account, it might take, sometimes you have to go in branch. Most of this stuff you can do online in your underwear, like I said, okay? Business account bonuses, sometimes you have to go in branch. So that does add to my stated goal time here of an hour a week.

5:34That's how long it should take you or less to open one account. Yeah. Okay. And I'm giving a pretty good cushion there. So a business account can be a little complicated, but you actually want one business. If you don't have one already, And you can get one with the bonus here if you don't have one already, because the reason why that has a utility is that gives you a flexibility to where you don't have to move your direct deposit from your payroll or your W-2 income or wherever you get your checks. If you have a business account and you have cash in that, usually you can pay yourself to the other account, your new bonus account from your business account, and that counts to meet the direct deposit requirements because it's an ACH pay.

6:15Oh, okay. So instead of doing it through your employer, your own business, your side hustle could be your employer of record to meet those direct deposit requirements. Okay. And that's how I do it too because my employer has been myself for at least six months. And that's how I've gotten all my bonuses. And that's how a lot of people do it too. Okay. Interesting. That's always like, well, what does the HR department think? If you're calling them up every week, be like, hey, can you change my routing number? Can you change the direct deposit? I was like, what is this guy doing? Just pick a bank and stick with it.

6:44But no, that makes more sense. When I did have a steady paycheck, there was, I could go in the computer at work or at my old job, there was a ADP app, but maybe in other apps as well, there's going to be an option to go in and change the account without having to call. You don't have to call your boss. You don't have to call HR. You go into the app, you change, you put the routing number and the account number of your new bank, and your next check is going to go there. And that's how you get your bonus. So that's an easy way to do it without having to open a business account. Got it. So I'm seeing like on example, this Chase$900 checking slash savings bonus.

7:19I'm assuming this is for people who don't already have, you can't already have a Chase account or is like, you just have to open a new one and meet these minimum requirements. One of the questions that you asked me was, can you do this forever? Are you going to run out of bank accounts eventually? So here's, you know how credit cards, you're familiar with the credit card game, right? And your, your, your listeners are going to be mostly familiar with that. Right. Right. Okay. So the credit card game, usually the way it works is they say in their terms of service, you can't have had a bonus in the past 12 months or 24 months or something like that.

7:49Yeah, usually like a couple of years. Sure. If we look in the fine print, I don't want to read through the whole thing, but on doctor of credit for each bonus. And when you click on the website to actually go to chase.com or go to citizens or bank of America.com and you see their bonus in their terms of service, it's going to say not eligible if, and it's usually going to be one of two things. One, if you have had an account in the last six months or 12 months, or two, if you've been the receiver of a bonus in the past six or 12 months. So basically what that means is, let's say I open the account today at Chase, and then 90 days later, I get my bonus.

8:27Okay. 90 days after that, I close the account. We're at six months now. Okay. You have to wait another six months or a year, and then you can open another Chase account. Okay. Okay. So you can only hit each bank once every one to two years. The thing is, there's 52 weeks in a year. There's 150 bonuses on doctorofcredit.com right now. You can do one bonus a week and not run out of them. So while you're waiting on your chase bonus, week two, you open up, I don't know, what's the next best one on here? Wells Fargo. I've gotten them twice. I've gotten Citizens for$300 and$300 a couple years ago. and then three months ago, I got them again.

9:08They gave me another 300 and they know who I am. There's no fraud in this, okay? They just love paying you extra money to open up accounts and you close it a little later and then two years later, you open another one, they give you another three, four, 500 bucks. Yeah, I was gonna ask if it becomes, like I'm picturing the back room at the casino with your posters up on the wall and say, hey, don't let this guy play blackjack anymore. There are people that have been doing this for 15 years. And if you go to the secondary resource I wanted to tell you about was BankBonus102 on Facebook. And those are basically the only resources you're going to need for months and months.

9:42And you can search around if you want, if you can find other resources, you can use my website. I'm going to, you know, because I know, I know how to do this. Hopefully I can accelerate your learning, like implement it into your life, like a little better, just in case you have any misgivings or you have a few extra questions, but mostly you're going to want to use Dr. Credit.com and BankBonus102 on Facebook. Now, the other potential hang up here is the direct deposit. If you can set that up, sometimes that's going to have a minimum, right? Where it's like, it's got to be a minimum of$500. So if I'm sprinkling that out from my business account into 10 different places, like all of a sudden, it's like, well, do I have that much cash to draw from?

10:21The other piece of it is the minimum balance requirements where that Chase one, I think it's like$15 ,000 deposit. it. This Wells Fargo one was like a quarter million to make the highest tier bonus. And so it's like now if I have my funds spread out and have to maintain certain minimums, that may become another bottleneck in the process. What if I don't have$250 ,000? How am I going to get these? Well, I'll tell you what, you don't need$250 ,000 to get. You only need that for this Wells Fargo bonus and maybe a couple other premier brokerage bonuses. But that's 1 % or 2 % of the bonuses that you have available to you.

10:59Most of the bonuses you have available to you are gonna be checking accounts with very basic requirements that you can meet if you have either$500 in cash or a steady paycheck, any steady paycheck. It doesn't matter if you're making 500 a week or 5 ,000 a week. If you have one steady paycheck, you can get at least a couple bank accounts a month, okay? Or if you have$500 in cash. Okay, okay. And if you have more than that, that makes it a little easier, but it's still possible with very little cash. Yeah, just search or filter by the ones that have lower requirements. That makes sense. For a while, like Robinhood was doing like a huge match on you transfer your brokerage stuff over to us.

11:41It will pay you like a one or 2 % bonus. So if you were transferring, you know, half a billion dollars worth of assets, like, oh shoot, it was a huge, huge relatively speaking bonus for not a lot of work. Yeah, I saw that. The thing that dissuaded me from that was from transferring my IRA over to them was I noticed that you weren't fully vested in it for something like 36 months. So you had to keep it open for three years in that case? It was almost like, don't quote me on this, but there was something where it might've been where you couldn't move it for several months also. So it's like, number one, you don't, you don't get the one or 2 % for 36 months.

12:16So it's like, that's first off, it's, if it's 2 % on a significant amount of money, then sure. Okay. Maybe. But I mean, do your financial planning. I don't have a billion dollars. So 2 % of my IRA is not worth locking it up for a long time. No. Yeah. And that's kind of what has dissuaded me from really pursuing these. It's like, okay, open a new credit card, beat the minimum spend, get this bonus, relatively easy, relatively low lift. But it's like, I've had the same bank account for 25 years. I don't know. It's been a long time since switching banks. It's like all the direct deposit or all the auto pay, all of, you know, so many different things are tied to that where it's like, it's a pain to switch it, switch it over.

13:02And so your setup is to have like, like the business bank account as like your primary inflow. And you like minimize the work required to do all the switching. You know, that's a good problem for me to remember, Nick, that if you have like a bunch of auto pay, you don't have to close your other bank account. You don't have to close whatever your bank who's your who's your primary bank right now chase chase okay the only reason you would need to close your account is if you want to open another one 18 months later and get a bonus that's so you can leave that open i leave my chase business account is going to stay open forever okay no that's no that's a good that's a good reframe right you don't have to you don't you have to close it and if you're doing this you don't necessarily have to like permanently switch in your mind like it's just a game a game that you're playing okay no no no no you don't have No, thank you for asking that.

13:45That's an important point. No, no, no. That's helpful for me because I always would frame it as like, oh, is it worthwhile switching? It's like, no, the switching costs are too high. But oh, if I'm just playing a bonus game, then sure. No, you just open it. You don't have to move anything there except put some money in there. Sometimes you can shoot it from your account, but usually you're going to need to make sure you're either meeting it with a direct deposit or shooting it from a business account. More with Dylan in just a moment, including the potential impact on your credit score. and other risks associated with going after bank bonuses right after this.

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16:53Can you speak to the impacts on your credit report of doing this consistently? There's not one. As far as I know, there's a soft pull that doesn't lower your score. I don't think lenders care about that. Hard pulls are what you need to worry about. Okay. And when I say worry, I just mean you just need to be aware. If you have too many inquiries in a short period of time, that can make an impact. A hard pull. But there's going to be maybe four on this list that are a hard pull. But doctor of credit is going to tell you. They're going to say when you click on it. And you're going to need to give them permission when you're set.

17:28So if you don't want a hard pull on your credit right now, it's not worth it. Because they're going to give you the same$200,$300,$400 as the next account. So skip the ones that are hard pulls. Yeah. And then you keep it open long enough, usually, like you said, 30, 60, 90 days, however long you have to do it. And then did I hear you say you kept it open another three months, another period beyond that? Best practice is to leave the account open past when you get the bonus. Okay. Now, the optimal way to do things, you would think theoretically, as soon as you get the bonus, close the account. The thing is, the bank might notice.

18:01To reset your clock or whatever. Yeah. Yes. So you might think you want to close the account straight away so that instead of keeping it open the full six months, the thing is banks might take notice of that and maybe they won't let you open another account next time. Okay. So even if you're selfishly concerned, don't close the account straight away. Leave it open a couple months. Just keep opening other accounts in the meantime and just let that one cool down after you get your bonus. If you want, put a little activity on it, put a little debit card purchase here or there. don't no need to complicate things but you don't want to like make it obvious that they're not making a lot of money off of you because they want good customers right so don't stand out right as somebody who's just going to hit them for some money and leave don't make yourself a target got it how many accounts do you have open right now i have 20 open right now and so you're having to spread direct deposits so to speak you know across a dozen or more different different places You just do it once or twice, usually.

18:58Usually, you just have to do that once for each account. They just have to get one. Okay. One direct deposit checks the box like, okay, set it up. And then you can forget. Basically, you can almost forget about it until you get the bonus three months later. Okay. Got it. How do you keep track of all that? That's what's more intimidating. Like, we're going 20 at a time. I mean, I guess there are more complex problems in the world to solve. But like, picturing like a chart of like the timeline to the bonus and like the requirements. So it's like, how do you, is there an app for that? Like, how do you do it?

19:27Yes, you want a spreadsheet. Here's the fields that I have. And I'll show you a picture of this later or something, if you want to put it on whatever. Bank name is your field one. And that's where you put Chase, Wells Fargo, US Bank, Chime Bank, Bank of Everything. That's the name of the bank. My second field I have there is account type. I want to remember if it's a checking account, a savings account, a business account, or a portal. Okay, because that helps me know at a glance whether I'm eligible for the next checking account or savings account. So that next thing is reward amount. That's the cash money you're going to get for each account.

20:02So at Chase, reward amount I have up there,$900. Wells Fargo,$2 ,500. One bank,$250. PSECU,$300. So that's your third field. You got bank, account type, bonus amount. Then you want to have your open date when you open the account. Then you want to have your closed date. And obviously that's not going to be filled out straight away. You're going to fill that out later when you close it so that you know next time when, if you need to wait 12 months, yeah. When you can reopen. Next thing you want to know is fees. Okay. Now that's one thing that you're going to, this is part of why tracking is important.

20:36And when I say tracking, I just mean having a spreadsheet and knowing what you need to do. Sometimes half the accounts, there's no fees. Okay. But some of the accounts, you know, they might charge you a$5 maintenance fee or a$12 maintenance fee. I saw one crazy bank, Bank of Hawaii was like a$25, but that's, you know, that's crazy. You want to put in one of your fields, your fees, and you don't need to know what the fee is. I just put, uh, for Chase, $2 ,000 D. And what that means is I need to make sure that in my bank account once a month, there needs to be at least$2 ,000 going into that account in order to avoid the maintenance fee.

21:13And usually it's not that much. Usually it's something like, okay. Citizens is like make one transaction and I chatted, what is one? Well, you know, I have a citizen's checking and a citizen's saving. Move a dollar over to savings and then move it back. That satisfies your - Yeah, that's a transaction. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then another one is going to be make sure there's like Santander was make sure there's at least three debit card transactions. And that's easy too. You just, if you use Amazon, do a$5 reload three times once a month. So that's what you put in your fees field so that you can avoid paying a$5,$15 maintenance fee, whatever it is.

21:45Okay. Next thing on your spreadsheet is paid by. Got it. So when you read the fine print, it's going to say after you meet the requirements, 90 days before you get the bonus. Okay. So you have to meet the requirements. Usually within 30 days, you have to move your deposit over, make sure they get the 500 bucks. And then 90 days later, you get the bonus. You don't get the bonus straight away. You have to wait. You have to wait like a few months, mostly. Chase, they pay you quick. They pay you in 25 days or faster. And Bank of America is the same thing. So you want to put when you expect to get paid.

22:17Okay, just so that if that date has passed, then you know that you either made a mistake or the bank made a mistake. And it's usually you it's usually you messed up meeting one of the eligibility things. And then the last thing is notes. That's where I put random stuff like, like relay. I have a note here for relay bank that they have some useful services besides just the bonus I got from them. So I'm going to leave the relay bank open, just because they they have some like helpful, like software and stuff. That's it. bank name, account type, bonus amount, open date, close date, fees, paid buy and notes.

22:48That's it. Okay. What do you see is maybe the biggest risk of somebody starting down this path? I mean, I guess you could dip your toes, do one or two and see how it works, get comfortable with it and then go nuts with it like you have. Like you might think the risk is, oh, what if I, what if I lose my money? Or is like, what if I put money? What if I need the money? Like, like people ask that something like, what if I put the money? What if I need the money? Well, it's your money. It's a checking account. You can use it. So that's not a risk. Like moving your direct deposit over to your checking account is not a risk.

23:20Now, it's possible theoretically, like let's say the bank detects fraud or something like that. Now, I don't know why they would. It's never happened to me. But let's say you need to pay your bills and you moved your money over to your new bonus account and you get hit with a fraud alert and your money's locked up. usually unless it's the weekend, even if it is the weekend, because it's fraud, usually like they'll handle that on the weekend too. You call them up, whatever they need your ID or something, and then you get your money back. So that's a slight risk, I guess. One thing that actually did happen to me was Fidelity Bank.

23:55And as far as I know, they're the only bank that's done something this egregious and along because a lot of people were talking about it on Bank Bonus 102 Facebook. I moved something like$5 ,000 there with an ACH pull. Don't worry about the difference between these, but just I moved$5 ,000 there that they locked it up for like 25 days. Okay. And that didn't ruin my life or anything, but there was no way to get that$5 ,000 faster than the 25 days they needed. Okay. But that is one bank and that, and I'm just telling you the truth. That's the only time anything like that has happened to me. And it was just Fidelity Bank.