Yep - ST is into "relationship banking" and out of the debit card farming business. Still profitable if you intend to actually use the debit card for some volume of activities.
My personal banker was kind enough to show the rules and instructions.
It specifically says "we do not want to encourage" people opening accounts for miles alone. So it appears that Suntrust is starting to learn....
3
The problem is NOT getting the cards, but getting the miles this time.
I read all the rules in depth. We were quite happy at first as the business account could have 4 users, while the personal was limited to 2. So I thought, 4x25k miles for 120$ was too good.
Then the rules became clear - 120$ for the ACCOUNT for all cards, but only 1 bonus of 25k miles.
In summary, you get 15k for 75$ AND 25k for 120$
So 40k for a bit less than 200 (call it 200 with the cost of gas etc)
It works out to 0.5 cpm = OK for now, but not in large quantities like last time.
Since you get a mid level coach for 40k this just means a free domestic for 40k miles or 200$.
4
The rules state that ONLY the PRIMARY user of the account would get the miles.
So while we have 4 members in our family, we can do 5 accounts and 1 biz
= me alone, me + spouse, +kid1, +kid2, and another
That comes to 75k miles and the 25k gets me to 100k
Cost 500$ total, not bad for biz class to EU on AF.
Last 2 years it was scalable to 1MM miles easily for <4000$
Each personal card 55$ for 15k and each biz card for each person 25k.
We went wild.
This one is much more sedate and involves a lot more money tied up.