Pragmatic Finance

Ok, so I’m running out of bank and credit card offers to sign up for. I had been avoiding this one for awhile because of all the hassle involved. Anyway, Netbank is offering bonuses for opening up several of their accounts. Note that if you change the last two numbers of the link above you get different promotions but the one I linked to seems to be the best. Heres the details.

$75 for opening up a checking account and maintaining a $500 balance for one month.

$75 for opening up a money market account and maintaining a $1000 balance for one month.

$25 Visa gift card for opening up a CD with a minimum of $1000 and 12 months.

The 1 year cd is paying 5.25% so that may or may not be worth the trouble. The netconnect silver money market is 3.52% and 0.75% for the free netvalue checking. There are several fees that make this deal somewhat troublesome. There is a $25 fee for closing the accounts within 6 months, $7.50 after that. You must maintain a minimum balance of $500 in order to avoid a $5 fee on the money market account and there is a $5 dormant account fee after 12 months of no activity. If there is no activity in your checking account for 3 months you get a $5 per month fee. If you’re still reading this then you must really enjoy doing these deals. Sooo heres the plan:

1) Open the mm with $1000, the checking with $500, and a 1yr $1000 cd.

2) Qualify for the higher interest rate netconnect silver mm. Basically you have to satisfy two of several requirements. Getting a debit card and opening the cd seem to be the easiest. You could also link the checking to mm for overdraft protection if you don’t want the cd.

3) After one month the bonuses should post so I will draw the money market down to $500.01 and the checking $0.

4) Transfer in a small amount of money and immediately use bill pay during months 3 and 6 to avoid the inactivity fees.

5) Wait 6 months and close the two accounts. After 12 months close the cd.

I think that should cover it. If you don’t mind the hassle this is a nice deal, especially if you’ve exhausted the other bank deals out there. I opened it last week and my accounts are funded this week. The site seems pretty good. It shows your interest accrued so far like ing and even has what appears to be a yodlee like function where you can add other bank accounts, credit cards, etc. Its too bad they aren’t competitive with interest rates and have so many fees or I would consider actually using this account. Oh well.