For what it's worth, our bank suggested when we signed up in December, that we sign up for Chase Better Banking Checking. The printout we got says that to avoid the monthly fee, it requires either $5,000 in "combined average balances in qualifying deposits" OR "maintain $1,500 or more in this account" OR "link to a qualifying checking account." Not sure what that last one is; the bold one is what we're going for.
We each made 5 debit purchases in our accounts to get the miles last month (which have posted all but the last 2,500) and we're supposed to be charged the same $25 annual fee, but my wife called the bank yesterday to double-check that there would be no monthly fee this month, even if we didn't use the debit card five times, as long as we had $1500 in the account. They said that was true.
My wife pointed out that the second page of the print-out said "Personal account products, Chase checking... beginning February 8, 2011... blah blah," need $500 DD or five purchases, "otherwise $6," with no mention that keeping a minimum balance would avoid the monthly fee.
The person said those rules only applied to "Chase checking" but not to what we had, "Chase Better Banking Checking."
Not sure. I'll believe it when I see it. But for now, we're going with the assumption that letting $1500 sit in each account till we want to close them in six months will eliminate the monthly fees. Does anyone have experience with that actually being correct?
According to the letter I received from Chase yesterday, you're correct. Keep $1500 in the Chase Better Banking accounts and avoid the monthly fee.