Nice suggestion, but this credit union (like all other credit unions I know of) restricts its membership. Penfed membership is for persons affiliated in certain ways with the military. That excludes most of us.

As I mentioned earlier, www.bankrate.com lists banks that pay the highest CD rates.


Kathy

............

Good catch! I got impatient and didn't read far enough! As we FlyerTalkers all know, it pays to read the fine print.


Kathy

You have to join the Military Family Organization to become a member. This entails a one time fee of $20.

I see the rates were announced today 2/27/04 and stayed the same-5.5 for a 7 year CD.

I am considering selling some stock in an IRA account and moving the funds over. However, I ran into the problem at ncua.gov that insurance only covers $100,000. Can't manipulate the ownership in an IRA.

Any of you bankers have ideas/solutions? Thanks

pallensf:

My humble apologies. I interpreted your initial reply as a way of getting miles, not as a possible investment alternative. I was wrong.

Love to you...

Aloha...



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Patrick A. Inouye, LMT
volunteer trip reports moderator

This probably does not violate IRS regulations because if you carefully read the fine print associated with the offer it has some clause in it like "we are really joking we don't intend to give you any miles" American Express doesn't really mean what they advertise this is probably like their "Always Double Miles" campaign.

FWIW and IMHO, the Roth is almost always a better deal than the Traditional IRA even if the Trad is deductible. Here's why:

Assuming you are flush enough to save the maximum, you simply can put more away with the Roth. That is because the $3000 limit is for pre tax $$$ for the Trad and after-tax $$$ for the Roth. Assume for simplicity sake you are in a 33% Fed bracket. In the Trad you put away $3000, get a $1000 tax benefit and have only invested $2000 after tax dollars. (In other words your investments get a 1/3 haircut on withdrawal). With the Roth, you put away $3000 and you get to withdraw it and all its earnings later.

Again IMHO it is well worth maxing out your 401(k) and doing other tricks such as deferring income if your employer allows it to keep your MAGI below $150K so you can do the Roth.

Back to the topic: I'm in the same position here looking for a place to park some rollover IRA's into the brokerage account and to earn some miles in the process.
I have to confirm that getting miles directly is not possible, however, here's another angle on this - Citigold:
http://www.citibank.com/us/cbna/citigold/

This is premium Citi account bundle, it costs $95 annual. You can agreagate brokerage accounts including IRA's, checkings, savings, CD's, home equity lines/loans (!) and some others. By maintaining 100K total you avoid quarterly $25 fees.

You get a few extras here and there, but here's what relevant for miles junkies: they waive the fees on:
- Diners Club $95
- Platinum Select� AAdvantage� World MasterCard� ($85)
- Premium Citibank� / AAdvantage� Debit Card ($60 ?)

Does anyone here own Citigold? Any opinons?

They don't make it very easy to find out information about the retirement accounts.

$24.95 for online trades is not great, but it's not as bad as I thought it would be.

I live in Arkansas where all employers allow you to keep your MAGI below $150K.

There are some erroneous assumptions in your analysis. Notably,
Not necessarily. Your Traditional IRA contribution and its earnings are taxed AT YOUR CURRENT TAX RATE upon withdrawal. Your tax rate may be lower, perhaps considerably lower, when you are retired than when you initially put the money in. This could be because your income in retirement is much lower, and/or because income tax rates will have been reduced by the time you are retired. (On the other hand, maybe your tax rate will be higher! Hard to predict these things so many years into the future.)

(Another point: the 150-160K MAGI Roth phaseout is for married filing jointly. For single filers it is 95-110K.)


Kathy

I am unfamiliar with the law in this regard, but this item is on the finance page of PGary's website:

"American Express offers 1,500 Delta Airlines miles for opening a qualifying American Express IRA. For details, call 866-472-2384 and select option 2. Through April 30, 2004. I was under the impression that it is illegal to offer any kind of bonus to open an IRA. Ask how they get around this before accepting this offer. The offer was mentioned on Delta's Financial Partners Limited Time Offers page as of February 29, 2004."

PGary is at http://www.freefrequentflyermiles.com/index.htm

I called Amex on this. The CSR (who sounded informed) atated that the points rewarded are for opening a "brokerage acount" and that the IRA is one part of that account.

He also indicated that he could give 3000 SkyMiles to me for opening a $3,000 IRA and an additional 3000 SkyMiles for transferring another account with at least $3000 in it. There is an annual fee for the brokerage account ($30?) but this could be waived if enough money was transferred in.

Personally, I still have concerns about the IRS's view of this scheme, but if Amex is behind it, it doesn't seem to be too much of a risk. As noted previously, check the rates! Miles are rarely "free". Amex is assuming that you will simply allow the IRA to roll over each year at whatever low rate they set.

LOL. Me too. Even if there are four or five wages earners in the household.