Did you open the account with AA offer before? I wonder how they determine which airline miles to offer you...

The T & C (for earning Starwood points) state:
�Offer valid for new Individual or Joint accounts opened and funded by U.S. residents with $2,000 or more by 9/30/2010�Account must remain open with minimum funding required for participating in the offer for 9 months, or TD AMERITRADE may charge the account for the cost of the Starpoints.�

What exactly do they mean by �minimum funding�? Is it the same as the �initial deposit�? For example, if you earn 20,000 points for an initial deposit of $25,000 do you then need to keep the full $25,000 in the account for 9 months in order to safeguard the points you have earned?

Yes, that is what they mean.

I know very little about investments and the like. So I don't really want to invest. I just want to deposit some money temporarily (for 9 months) in order to earn Starwood points.

I've gone to the Ameritrade website, but have not yet found the information I am seeking. My question: how can I deposit my money for the 9 months to earn the points I seek - while keeping my money safe? Do they have simple CDs where you put your money in for a specified (9-month) period, then withdraw it after the specified period with your money intact? I will give them a call, but wondered if other FTs who have deposited money simply to earn points or miles could state what route they took. (If such advice should not be given here since it would be considered financial advice, that is fine. I'm just trying to earn points and saw this offer on FT.)

+1. Also, what's the cost to transfer money in and out of Ameritrade? Would a check do the trick (i.e. no transfer costs)?

I got same offer for AA miles. I previously did an AA offer with them, but between my wife and I also did UA and SPG offers. Long ago I got an email offer for more UA miles on the account I did the UA offer on. So their offer seems to be geared to whatever miles deal you did with them before.

You have several options that are essentially 100% safe:

1. Leave your money uninvested. If you do nothing, it will sit in a sweep account. You probably have a choice when opening your account between an FDIC-insured bank account, an SIPC-insured cash balance with them, or a money market fund, which is not government-insured but in which losing money is very, very rare. (The Reserve money market fund failed, which was the first time that happened in many years; investors eventually got back more than 99% of their money. A big company like TD Ameritrade would be under huge pressure to pay off investors if their fund lost money.) Technically speaking, SIPC does not cover a brokerage cash balance if you didn't intend to use the money for trading, but I doubt SIPC even tries to enforce that.

2. Buy a brokered CD, that is, a CD they sell you from another bank. They have 9-month CD's yielding 0.25%. These are FDIC-insured (but you probably want to watch whether you're buying one from a bank you're already close to the FDIC limit at). You can sell early if you want to, with no penalty but subject to interest rate risk (which is trivial when there's not much time left to maturity). There's no commission -- because it's built in to the yield you get (or the price you get when you sell).

3. Buy a Treasury bill, or a note or bond about to mature. They have plenty to choose from. Yields will be minuscule. There are some maturing every month, so you can find something with exactly the amount of time left you want. These are direct obligations of the U.S. government. Again, you can sell any time; there are plenty of buyers; you could lose money if interest rates have risen, but the risk will be tiny with short periods to maturity. Again, they build commissions into their prices.

4. Buy an "ultrashort bond" ETF, like the one with ticker symbol BIL. This is almost like a money market fund. It will fluctuate by a few cents as interest rates move, but it will be hard to lose more than a tiny amount; again, there's the theoretical risk of losing money on a default, but that is very unlikely. It trades like a stock, so $10 commission to buy and then again to sell.

5. Buy another money market fund they sell. Fees can be a little higher (either a bit in commission, or, on a no-transaction-fee fund, a penalty for selling too soon).

There are fees if you want money wired, or overnight delivery. They waive the fees if you have "Apex" status ($100,000 of assets with them). If you are willing to deal with ACH transfers or checks with regular mail, there won't be fees.

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Has anyone received the targeted offer for SPG points? It sounds like everyone so far has received the targeted offer for AA/UA miles.

They offered me Amazon gift cards ($800 for $300,000, $400 for $150,000 or $200 for $75,000), so there is at least some variety out there.

FWIW, i wasn't preselected for the Ameritrade offer for existing clients for the 25,000 miles, for 50K deposit or transfer, but called in to request it and they said no problem, and coded it.

But don't want to keep the $ in for 9 month
I really keep wishing for those old Fidelity days!!!

Not sure if the miles/points offer can be combined with this additional current offer: "Open your account before September 30, 2010...when you fund any non-IRA account with $25,000 or more, you'll also get $100 cash."

http://www.tdameritrade.com/specialoffer.html

I did the TD ameritrade deal & got the first half of my miles right away , does anyone know how long it takes for them to post the second half of the miles ?

It is supposed to be six months according to their T & C.

can anyone who participated in one of these promotions tell me if thats how long it took ?