sam007

guys

I have my down payment in the bank making no money at all and want to take advantage of offers that require a large deposit such as the Fidelity one which required a 100k deposit

Anybody know of similar offers currently going on?

Thanks
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I'd also prefer offers which don't do a credit pull since I don't any of those showing up during my mortgage approval process

Thanks

roknroll

Bank Direct can give a lot of AA miles by opening an account. They charge a $12 monthly fee, which is steep. But with high balances and the big sign up bonuses for opening accounts, doing bill pay, etc the fee pays off.

With both the Bank Direct and the Fidelity offers, you'll need to keep the money parked there for several months, can you afford that?

philemer

What are you most interested in? Airline miles, hotel points or CASH? How long before you need the $$ to close your loan?

ooodaveb

Unless something has changed recently Fidelity gives your miles the same week. You can deposit and w/d the next week and keep the miles.

Dangjr213

Be careful when doing so. For FHA loans, banks like to see down payment money in your account for several months (around 3) which is why they ask for multiple months of bank statments.

zitozac

+1

redtop43

AFAIK, the Fidelity offer has no strings attached. You have to deposit $100,000 in 90 days, but there are no withdrawal limitations. They will give you each bonus (for 25K, 50K, and 100K) as you achieve that threshold. They're also quite easy to do business with, set up a money manager account and you can do EFT's and online bill pay so you could easily yo-yo money back and forth to your bank account.

In my case, I got the bonuses before my own records indicated I had earned them, but I do a lot of business with Fidelity so they might have been picking up things I didn't see.

You do have to register for the Fidelity promotion before they start counting the dollars, though.

startbyservingothers

I ran into this issue as I tend move money between accounts and keep a few thousand on hand from buying and selling vehicles. The most important thing is that you can document the source of the funds... I.e. When selling a vehicle, I simply kept a copy of the title after the transfer had been filled out. I then made a deposit for that exact amount into my bank. And for transferring money between accounts, I provided statements for both accounts.

If you're closing in the next 30 days I wouldn't bother. If you're closing a loan in a couple months I don't see any issue in taking advantage of a good bonus. Perhaps send the money via a certified check that you you'll keep a copy of. Just make sure it's an account you have access to in order to get the money back out.

jenrl21

They're also quite easy to do business with, set up a money manager account and you can do EFT's and online bill pay so you could easily yo-yo money back and forth to your bank account.

sam007

I may not close for next 3-4 months as I just lost the property I was about to put an offer on. Right now, nothing on the market in the area I'm interested in

However, my mortgage officer mentioned that he doesn't care where the funds are as long as they are liquid. For eg: they can be in citibank, fidelity brokerage account as cash, etc.

Bank direct seems to be a good pull with a monthly 20k miles for 200k in the checking account (half of that in the savings account). Problem with checking account is that you cannot assign a beneficiary on a checking a/c

Maybe investing 200k in their CD would be better for a straight-up 200k miles

Does bank direct do a credit pull?

pgary

Caution: There has been a lot of publicity about Citibank sending out a 1099 for their value of AA miles given for opening an account (2.5 cents/mile!) The IRS has made at least one statement that this is correct for bank account bonuses (but not credit card bonuses). BankDirect has not send out 1099's for miles in the past, but I fear they may not be able to continue to avoid doing so. I closed my account with them and explained why. They responded that the understood my concern, with no further comment.

pgary

The TD Ameritrade offer for up to 25,000 American Airlines miles expires April 25. We will probably see no more miles offers from them in the near future. So this one is one to consider grabbing while you still can. You get half the miles in 3 months, then the other half in 6 months. Consider the timing - you may then be able to use the assets there to fund a Fidelity account for more miles. The Fidelity miles offers expire much later, and may very well be extended.

For those who don't know what we are discussing here, you can find the bank and brokerage offers on my website below in the Finance section.