Ameritrade Offer
 

Searched for Ameritrade offeres and only saw star point offers.

Ameritrade is offering you a great escape!
Open and fund a new Individual or Joint Ameritrade® account (that is titled differently than your existing account) by September 16, 2005, and you'll earn up to 25,000 airline miles from one of our airline partners: America West, Continental Airlines, Delta, or United Airlines.¹

$1,000 deposit - earn 3,000 miles
$5,000 deposit - earn 8,000 miles
$50,000 deposit - earn 25,000 miles!

Click Here

Dear Kibison:

Thank you for contacting us today regarding a new account.

The promotion you are referring to is valid for existing clients who are opening
a new account that will be titled differently from their existing account. For
example, if you currently held an individual account, a new joint account would
qualify to receive the promotion.

For the full details of the promotion, please click on the link below.

http://www.ameritrade.com/offer/earnmiles.html

If you have further concerns or inquiries, please reply to this message.

Sincerely,

Dorian Larue
New Accounts, Ameritrade
Division of Ameritrade, Inc.

See Gary's Free Frequent Flyer Miles page for current Ameritrade offers:
http://www.freefrequentflyermiles.com
(under Finance)

Usually there's the same $1k/$5k/$50k offers mentioned in the OP, but for new accounts. In August there was an extra 10k bonus miles with America West. Plus there's usually an SPG offer too.

nice offer, if you've got $50k lying around. looks like the money must stay in account for 6 months to receive miles, then another 3 months with the minimum funding. for the record, $50k at 3% interest for 6 months is $750, so unless you love miles more than money I'd rather put it in a savings account...

Either that or invest it intelligently and earn a much better return! :D

Try this, for the conservative investor.

Take $50K from your ING/Emigrant account.
Invest in Ameritrade, $50K = 25K AA miles.
Buy $50K of American Beacon Money Market Mileage Fund, approximate return = 2.62%. That almost makes up for the loss of interest from the ING/Emigrant account.

The MM fund earns you 1 mile a month for every $10 invested. That works out to 5,000 miles/month. 12 months = 60,000 miles.

That's 85,000 miles for keeping your $50K in a relatively liquid, safe investment.
Interest earned @ 2.62% = $1310, plus 85,000 miles.

Compare that to Emigrant, which gives you 3.5% on your $50K.
Interest earned @ 3.5% = $1750.


Granted, you could probably do better than the American Beacon Fund, but you wouldn't get the miles.

Grasshopper: Does the Beacon American MM Mileage Fund also apply to Mileage Plus (or DL or CO) miles or just AAdvantage miles? Your proposed approach appears to be very well thought out and quite advantageous.

Are you sure American Beacon Money Market Fund is available at Ameritrade? I thought you are limited to the Prime Reserve money market funds.

I don't think AA miles are available through Ameritrade. Perhaps Grasshopper was thinking of TD Waterhouse (which has mileage offers for AA--not sure of the current amount).

He/she also has the mileage amount wrong for the money market account. It's 1 mile for every $10 annually. But credited monthly. Which turns into 1 mile for every $120 monthly. In fact, they cover the $50k example explicitly in the prospectus and say it earns 417 miles per month (page 28):
http://www.aafunds.com/pdfs/mileagepros.pdf

I think if you invest at http://www.ameritrade.com/spg you can receive up to 20,000 starpoints which you can then convert to 25,000 AA miles.

That is correct. 417 miles per month with $50k investment (this will go up minimally as the account appreciates throughout the year) per month. I am not sure 3% APR and 5k miles justifies an investment. I rather get the 20k *wood points, convert them to 25k miles and then invest in something else. I like the thought process there.

What I would do is invest the $50k in Ameritrade for *wood points. Then after the 2nd bonus hits from SPG transfer the account to Fidelity for additional miles.

If someone was really aggressive they could try to get the bonus through TD Waterhouse right now. Then when they merge with Ameritrade transfer the account to Fidelity for a bonus and then transfer the account to Ameritrade for another bonus. It would take about 16 months for all the miles to hit but when all is said and done you would have about 75k miles. Not too bad.

Ach so... (ref: Stalag 17)

You are all correct and I apologize for my miscalculations. That changes the equation quite dramatically, as I agree the minimal returns are not worth the 5K miles. much better to do as MoCheez says and try and hit all the bonuses. Time to open the TDW account.

Mo Cheex is onto something. I have recently switched money between various brokerage houses. Took money from Fidelity to another (for me temporary) investment then brought it back to Fidelity to accrue mileage for "new" money to an existing Fidelity account.

Now with the Ameritrade offer, I took some of my Fidelity investment and transferred it "in-kind" (not selling the investment itself, just having it an Ameritrade account). I need to leave it there for NINE months (not six!) in order to obtain the full 25,000 miles. After those nine months I will transfer the investment back to Fidelity "in kind." No tax consequences, money is invested in the same mutual fund with Ameritrade as it was with Fidelity.

Altogether for investing no new money I will have made something like 50,000 miles.

How about closing and/or inactive account fees?? This used to happen as I have a designated "milewhore" brokerage account that goes to the highest bidder :) , have been doing frequently until almost all brokerages started hitting us with these fees. Never whored my account to Fidelity yet since I haven't had use for United miles...until I just applied for its Visa with the 20k signup bonus and no fee for a year...My nine months are up in October with Ameritrade and intend to transfer it to Fidelity and one of these days I will check on closing/inactivity fees. If anyone knows, please post.

The Starwood offer is the best one out there. You actually only need to open an account with $25K (not $50K like the airline offers) to get the full 20,000 SPG points. And the good thing with Starwood is that you can transfer those 20,000 SPG points into 25,000 miles on most airlines. So if you go the SPG route, you are basically getting the same thing (with slightly more flexibility as you can transfer to different airline choices) for half the initial investment. ^

And with the Starwood deal, if you have more than $25,000 to invest, you can open separate accounts for others who share your address, and then combine all the points into a single account. I've also read that with any of the Ameritrade offers, you can open one account in your own name, a joint account, and several other types of accounts and direct the points/miles earnings to a single airline/hotel account.

Grasshopper,

What is American Beacon Money Market Mileage Fund exactly?
Is it FDIC insured?
Is it some kind of Municipal fund?
May the fund loose value?

Thanks, netsurferrr

".. with any of the Ameritrade offers, you can open .. several .."
Now we're gettin' somewhere -- anybody else bothered by the slope of that 'declining milage' scale ??

Between Dad, Mom, and two kids -- 4-single & 5-joint accounts & you're in the 27k-mi zone for just $9k without breaking a sweat. ^

/.

Before you open more than one kind of account I will email Ameritrade's customer service and ask them specifically. Ameritrade has been really good in getting back to you within a day or so. If they give the go ahead, SAVE the email because it may come in handy for the future. I think an individual and joint account will do it. Revocable living Trust accounts and any type of IRAs will NOT work. And always take into account closing/transferring out (and possibly inactivity) fees!

H.H.: Can you clarify your response for me. To what are you referring when you talk about the"*wood deal"? I'm fully aware of the 20,000 points converting into 25,000 miles but don't recognize what program is involved. Are you and gregorygrady still referring to Ameritrade? From what I can see, Ameritrade's site only deals with investing up to $50k for up to 25k miles with specific airlines. Am I missing something? Thanks

www.ameritrade.com/spg

It's the best deal out there as it requires only half the initial outlay ($25K instead of $50 for the top bonus). You get 20,000 SPG points for the $25,000 initial deposit (although it comes at two different times, the first batch right away and the second batch after 6 months).

As for the previous poster who opened (or was thinking of opening) 9 different accounts with $1000 in each, I would not reccommend that as there is a $15 quarterly account maintenance fee charged by Ameritrade if you don't either a) have a minimum of $2500 in your account, or b) make a certain number of trades each quarter, maybe 3 or 4 trades. So look into it before you go doing something like that. And opening 9 accounts seems like quite a PITA just to get 27K FF miles!!! Might not be worth the hassle.

See my post earlier in this thread (#9) for a link to the prospectus which answers all of these questions. The answers, in order, are 1) it's a money market fund that invests in short duration fixed income; 2) no; 3) no; 4) yes.

I have been wondering a lot about this kind of "may lose value" & non-FDIC insured daily sweep money market funds with variable daily interest rates. I have tried to do some research on www.fool.com but cannot find any answer to my concern. How likely it is for these funds to fall below $1 a share?

If a money market ever falls under $1/share, money is the last thing you'll have to worry about. SEC rules are pretty conservative in this regard.

Thanks.
I am not asking for further answers here.
Can someone direct me where I can find more information on "may lose value" & non-FDIC insured daily sweep money market funds with variable daily interest rates online?

I would try google searching for your answers. In general I would not invest in a money mkt account without FDIC insurance...just me.

I opened another account at Ameritrade with $5k for the 8k miles with United. I plan on having my SO open a joint account with me as well for another 8k miles (she will be the primary account holder this time). We will then try to flip them both (separately) to Fidelity where we have the rest of our $. You can avoid account closing costs...just convert the account to a retirement account or apply those dollars to a retirement account you may already have at the brokerage house.

Can I transfer my stocks from an existing account in a different brokerage to fund my Ameritrade account and qualify for the offer?

Yes.....

After going through 15 pages of google searches, all I have found about "may lose value" & non-FDIC insured daily sweep money market funds with variable daily interest rates is this:

http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/cic_text/m...ty/5_steps.htm

The rest of the pages were all from banks stating their daily sweep money market funds with variable daily interest rates "may lose value" & are non-FDIC insured... dah!

You know how it goes, those pages from the banks do not really tell you the real implications of "may lose value" & non-FDIC insured daily sweep money market funds with variable daily interest rates on your deposits!

Now, I have done googling and I have found nothing. What should I do next? Can something really give insights on such funds?

THANKS

Is Ameritrade merging with E*Trade? I was very disappointed in the way E*Trade treated me a few years ago.

Yeesh! There are many other boards out there where this would be considered on topic. This is not one of them. That said, try this M* article on cash investment options:
http://biz.yahoo.com/ms/050816/141832.html?.v=1
or this article at Bankrate.com:
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/mon...20030603a1.asp
or this PDF detailing a management company that made cash contributions to its money market funds to prevent them from dropping below par:
http://www.goodwinprocter.com/fsas/FSA_12_03_02.pdf

There has been one money market fund that has dropped below par ("breaking the buck"). I don't remember the name, but it dropped to $0.96/share or something like that. But in the end, the fund company liquidated the fund at par.

To Mountain Trader, Ameritrade is merging with TD Waterhouse.

What is the current deadline for this promo? The last I saw was 9/17/5.

I just got off the phone with Ameritrade and it has been extended thru the end of the year.

Deleted

Only 1 per SPG #?
 

I've done the Ameritrade offer twice. Once for me and once for my spouse. I just spoke to Ameritrade and asked whether I could open another account such as a joint account or an account for one of my children. The Ameritrade rep. said that I could open the account, but that I would only get SPG points if I gave them a DIFFERENT SPG number than I gave them for the prior accounts. Is this true? Is this a change?

"Minimum Funding"
 

The footnote on the Ameritrade/SPG offer webpage says that one must maintain "minimum funding" in one's Ameritrade account for 9 months or else Ameritrade may charge for the SPG points. My question is what is "minimum funding"?

Does this mean the full $25,000 for 9 months? What if you invest the $25,000 and lose 1/2 of it in the market?

Or, does this mean that you must initially invest $25,000 and then you must only maintain a smaller amount of money (Ameritrade's "minimum") for the next 9 months? I may submit this question and my prior question about SPG numbers to SPG via e-mail. But, I thought I'd ask the wisdom of this group first. Thanks.

†Offer valid for new Individual or Joint accounts opened and funded by U.S. residents with $2,000 or more by 12/31/05. Not transferable and not valid for IRAs, internal transfers, current Ameritrade clients,

I thought I read in this forum that current clients opened a new acct (typically a joint acct) to get the bonus anyway. This would seem to contradict that. Can anyone confirm?

Ameritrade told us as long as it is new money or other new assets it will OK.

best

Hhhmmm
 

I just had a long call with an Ameritrade Customer Service Agent. I must say that he sounded very young and also sounded like he was almost making up answers as we went along. But, here are the answers that he gave me.

1. You can only have 1 account per social security number. This seems obviously wrong. Perhaps he meant you can only have one bonus per SSN. I didn't press.

2. Minimum Funding means $25,000 for the full 9 months. If you put the $ into stocks and they lose value, the Ameritrade will "take that into account and not punish you."

3. There are no fees to transfer mutual funds to Ameritrade. There are no fees to hold mutual funds at Ameritrade. But, there is a $50 fee to close any Ameritrade account. Is that true from others experience?

4. You can't open an account for anyone under 18. You can't even open a joint account for anyone under 18. I question this answer because I believe that some have reported doing just that.

Frankly, I don't really trust these answers. I'm wondering if an e-mail would get better answers. It certainly would give me something to fall back on if they didn't perform somehow.

For those of you who've done this, are these answers correct?

I've just done this for the 2nd time with Ameritrade ---- no problem taking out (2) 'new' accounts for hubby and me......just transferred over stock....

When you're ready to 'close' the account (stocks, mutual funds whatever ) the brokerage house you are transferring to will usually pick up the fees (sometimes only 'up to $50') - but you shouldn't have to pay Ameritrade any 'close account' fees ....

It will be interesting to see what happens in 9 months because I'm (also) using TD Waterhouse, (opened (2) accounts there justa few months ago for their promo' - with miles to American)- and now the 2 are merging!

FYI - The Promo 'kicks in the date new account at Ameritrade opens - so even if the stock goes below the $25,000 at a later date - you will get the maximum Promo miles!

The account does not have to be maintained at $25,000...(There might be a minimum to maintain for no fees - but I didn't check what the minimum is - I don't expect my stock to go down much! (Hopefully it will go UP!)

I don't do anything with the opened accounts - just let the stock sit until time is up and I can close the account - and do again for more miles with another brokerage house. - So far so good! Easy miles! ^

Just keep moving the same stocks around!