I opened my account online and was wondering if I too would receive my bonus miles for the account and it appears that I now will. Yesterday, I received two envelopes from Chase regarding my new account and in the envelopes were the receipts for the coupon that I entered into the application. These two receipts were generated by a personal banker somewhere in the Houston area. I opened my online account the first week of January. There are tracking numbers and everything on the receipts. Be on the lookout for these if you opened the account online!

My miles finally posted on 1/25 for the personal checking/debit card, opened online:

01/25/2010 Chase Checking Bonus 10,000
01/25/2010 Continental Debit Bonus 12,500

It was incredibly painful to get this to work out, including many emails and phone calls.

Some new questions:

1) Can I open the business version of this by phone, and how has that gone for people? I have no local retail branch in my area and when I tried to apply online for the business version (several weeks ago), the web site errored-out during the process.

2) How many months do I have to keep the personal checking account open so that miles aren't yanked away? I don't like the $6 monthly fee; with the $25 debit card, it will eventually add up to just any old 25K offer with a high annual fee if I don't cancel it. Not sure I want to set up a direct deposit of any kind to get around that. Would rather be done with it and move on.

Updated: Hmmm, didn't notice earlier, pre-coffee, that 10K + 12.5K does not equal 25K. Wonder where the missing 2.5K miles are. Perhaps they'll post separately--that may have already been mentioned in this thread, but I've lost track.

is usually the minimum time the account needs to be open. Otherwise you may forfeit the points. Depending upon frugal use of the debit card your cpm is very low. Good luck.

Thanks tondoleo. I suppose $61 [$25 + $36 (6 months X $6 fee)] isn't too terribly bad for 25K miles. Especially these days when opportunities for churning are limited.

I did my 5 spends as 5 separate ~1 gallon gas purchases over a long day's drive.

Double check your paperwork from the bank. You should be able to avoid the monthly service fee by "having 5 or more debit card purchases post each statement period." You don't necessarily need to do a direct deposit to avoid the service fee.

I too am curious if anyone has been able to open a Biz Account either via phone or online. I opened my personal account in person on a recent trip as there was no branch in my area. However, I needed a Tax ID number to open the biz account and didn't have that with me. When I called back and attempted to give the number to do the biz account, I was told I needed a CPA affidavit that I did not intend to do business in that state as I was not located in that state. First, I've heard of this. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

In my experience all you must do is state Tax ID number is your social and your business is a sole proprietorship. If asked what you do for a business I have said I sell sunglasses and gifts either online at ebay or at a swapmeet.

Can you elaborate more on what you have to do to get the miles to post? I too am missing my bonus from my business account that I opened more than three months ago. So I e-mailed them and asked them to open a research request. They said they would and if they did not find I was eligible I would get a letter in the mail.

It has been around two weeks but I still have not got the points nor any letter from them. Will the miles takes some more weeks to post?

The gas purchases should be fine to avoid the $6 fee/month, I believe. I don't even bother with 1 gallon. About once a week when I need a little gas I pay on my other card, but then I do 2 or 3 more purchases on my Continental Debit for about 5 cents each. When the pump says, "please see attendant" I know that I have maxed my purchases that day. Takes a couple of minutes extra, but not a big deal. You just need to make sure you select "credit" instead of "debit".

Has anyone after receiving the 25K bonus miles gone ahead and added 3 additional authorized users to the account and received another 7.5K bonus miles. Also, is there a $25 annual fee for the authorized user cards or are they free.

Cheers

Thanks Aces. I checked what paperwork I have, and I see the bit about having to keep the account open for 6 months. But I don't see anything about the 5 signed transactions per month after the initial bonus period--would be great if what you said applies. I'll dig deeper. Are you sure this isn't for the Business version rather than the personal?

I escalated the process with several secure emails of increasing, though polite, pitch due to the gross incompetence of the phone reps; e.g. a phone rep bounced me over to Continental, and Continental bounced me back to Chase, etc. In the secure email, I mentioned how I never received a research call back, etc. The first secure email was nearly a form letter. So I just kept replying. On about the 3rd communication, I got a note saying they confirmed I was registered for the promotion and that they'd send details in the mail. They came through on that promise, finally.

Persist. That's my advice. Keep the secure emails flowing and report the details of your experience as you have here.

Thanks OB. I'll have to tell my wife of your purchase amounts. I try to tell her that even a candy bar at a Walmart on a card will count for, say, a single spend requirement. She feels that's unfair somehow. But she thought my 1 gallon purchases were funny rather than foul. :-) My technique, over the course of one very long day, was to do the small purchase first. Then pull out another active card and top off the tank. Then repeat an hour or so more down the interstate.

Glad to know I can repeat the process to avoid the $6/month fee. Would love to see it in my paperwork though--will have to look closer at the fine print on the promotion details I received in the mail.

I still want to open that business account. Please, someone, report if applying for the business account online is still broken half-way through. If they've fixed that, I'm willing to go through the grief again for the terrific bonus. Repeated secure emails of increasing pitch seems to do the trick.

I tried applying for a business account on 1/26 and the website gave me an error about halfway through the process. Haven't tried it since then.

Hmm. Well, I'm in CA and it looks like you are in NC - I suppose it could be different rules with different states. I've got the "5 transactions per month to avoid the service fee" in both the "Account Summary" that they gave me for both accounts as well as the boilerplate detailed "Account Rules and Regulations - Personal Account Products" and the "Account Rules and Regulations - Business Product Features". The 5/mo to avoid the fee is for both the personal and biz accounts. And the accounts are the "Chase Checking" for the personal and the "Chase Business Classic" for the biz. You should probably call, send a secured message via the website or stop in the branch and ask if you have questions that your documentation doesn't answer.

FYI this shows the service fee waiver for the above 5/mo or Direct Deposit for the Classic Checking: https://www.chase.com/index.jsp?pg_n...cking_overview