This is only my personal opinion but i would go with someone like
interactivebrokers.com. The money you save in commissions will more than offset any upfront miles or $50 or $100 you will get from other brokers. Their fee is half a cent per share. So you buy 200 shares and pay only 1 dollar. Buy 1000 shares and pay only 5 dollars. Other advantages. You can buy stocks on Toronto stock exchange, London stock exchage and many others. Very low margin rates.

Disclaimer. I am an account holder at IB.

How is their phone service?

Not good. I have been with Ameritrade for some of my accounts and one account with IB. IB is only good for advanced traders. Some of their policies are quite strange. They hold checks for 14 business days, ACH deposits take a min f 5 biz days to clear. Others brokers clear funds immediately. Dealing with them on the phone for cust service isssues can be an adventure. If you make a ton of trades and or trade options IB is for you. If you dont trade a ton go with Ameritrade or Etrade

Rob

I never really had any issue so there was never any need to contact them via phone. I also do not like their ACH hold policy as stated by robert477 but since i am not an active trader, it does not bother me when my funds sit idle for 4 days. I do make occasional trades but invest certain amount each month in couple of canadian energy trusts ( TSE listed ) and one or two NYSE listed stocks. It works out well for me. I simply could not think about doing this with ameritrade since i would pay 10.99 for each trade. I do have account with ameritrade and am happy with the service but i don't like to pay that much for trades.

I would go with Ameritrade. Etrade's execution is sloow! I has had issue with Etrade posting the bonus. Eventually I just closed all my accounts at Etrade and never look back.

I've had/have accounts with both Ameritrade and E*Trade. As others have already pointed out, trades are faster with Ameritrade, and in general I have found Ameritrade easier to work with.

Since this is the MilesBuzz forum, let me add something about miles. When I initially opened my E*Trade account, I clearly qualified for the signup bonus. When no miles appeared even after having waited beyond the prescribed waiting period, I contacted E*Trade. They waffled on the miles, and it took several rounds of back and forth emails to finally get said miles.

I've used both Ameri % E trade. Go w/ Ameritrade. Two years ago I got 20K SPG for opening an acct w/ I recall $20K. Good deal!

Recently analyzed all of the broker/banking offers and decided that Ameritrade offered the best combination of miles + lowest fees if you are a frequent trader. Since we plan to buy (and hold) mostly mutual funds, Fidelity was a better option for us.

We received a nice chunk of UA miles from Fidelity, but I was told that this offer recently expired. The miles posted within 2 weeks of opening the account. ^

Here's a little detail on Ameritrade and Starwood: http://www.starwoodhotels.com/prefer...financial.html

Does Ameritrade offer any incentive, other than free trades, to add money to your account? Any good promos out there?

Ameritrade periodically sends out targeted offers to existing customers. My father, for instance, got a mini-ipod and Bose docking station for adding 50K to his account. I have personally got offered some sort of golf driver for 25K (declined that one...).

I have heard a lot of negative things about Etrade's customer service, so if those were my only two options I would probably go with Ameritrade.

Unless you want to wait on the phone for literally 2 hours stay away from Etrade. Ameritrade is okay but there are better services out there. Since you want the miles you should probably stick with Ameritrade.

they are and after the combo is launched ameritrade will be 10x better than etrade. ive been with them for 3 years and very happy.

Palm Treo Smartphone and 25 free trades
 

Ameritrade has this promo now, until April 12th. The phone can be used w/Sprint, Verizon, or Cingular (or could be sold on Ebay - retails for around $300)

http://www.ameritrade.com/offer/flat...nt=offer&a=pok

I just applied for the Ameritrade Starwood promo and it was pretty painless to do online.

just an FYI, there is one point in the application where they ask for an offer code and I couldnt find one anywhere. So I called in and they told me to use 353 (if funding with 25K).

-- Tex