Originally Posted by
ExitRowAisle
The Fidelity bonus can be gamed by moving small deposits into and small withdrawals out of your new brokerage account. If this is the approach you want to take, kyunbit's advice may make sense.
However, if you want the least amount of hassle, make a large enough deposit at Fidelity to earn your sign-up bonus, wait for the miles to post, and move most of your money into BankDirect afterwards. Most of the AA miles earned at BankDirect are based on your average balance held at BankDirect. That means you want a large balance to sit there over time in order to maximize your miles. Every time you move money out of BankDirect and into Fidelity, you are negatively impacting your BankDirect earnings for the month. The only risk you take with this latter approach is Fidelity somehow taking back your miles because you didn't leave your initial deposit with them, but I don't believe I've heard of anyone reporting this in the past.
Can anybody give me a game plan for how to get the 50K fidelity miles through deposits/withdrawals? I would prefer not to have all $100K with Fidelity - but $50K or $25K? Sure!
So right now, I'm thinking:
$25K to some credit union that gives good APR (suggest one that doesn't require a lot of work? I'd rather give up 1% and not have to do a bunch of transactions)
$whatever it takes to Fidelity
$everything else to BankDirect