Miles For Banking
 

I will have some extra money soon that I will need to park for a couple of months and was considering guaranty bank through AA to get miles . Has anyone done this, and any hints to maximize mileage? ANy other good mileage programs out there?
Thanks

This site always has lots of great deals http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

http://home.earthlink.net/~pgary/MilesFrame.html

I've used BankDirect.com for about a year now, and am very happy with them. They offer more bonus miles than Guaranty bank does (signing up, direct deposit, auto payments, and a couple others). They offer the same number of miles/month as Guaranty bank does. B/c of the add'l bonus miles with BankDirect, I think it's the better of the two.

If you decide to go with BankDirect, let me know. If I refer you, we both get 1,000 bonus miles. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

My current favorite bank deal is the Citibank 6000 American Airlines one. It's listed first in the bank section of the Finance page of my web site below.

But, have you considered putting the money into a brokerage account instead? Longer holding time to avoid fees and to get the miles, but more miles, depending on how much you deposit. Or maybe you can do both, or several of each?

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Free Frequent Flyer Miles

I use BankDirect.

1000 miles for signup
1000 miles for being referred
5000 miles for direct deposit
1000 miles for using free online billpay
100 miles/month per $1000 of avg balance
1000 for each successful referral (up to 10)

I've netted 20k miles in 3 months off my checking account. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

Additional plusses:
They reimburse ATM fees
They pay interest in addition to miles

Minus:
Pretty hefty ($2500) minimum balance to avoid fees.

Regardless, I do think they're a far better checking account option than what NetBank has on offer...

And @ 100 miles per month per $1000, their ongoing mileage offers are almost as good as the brokerage account offers (that generally post in several months and have early account closure fees).

Oh, another great thing about BankDirect is that the miles post very promptly. Actually, they send miles twice a month, so my referral points show up pretty quickly. And my average balance miles for a month closing on the 30th will show up somewhere between the 2nd and the 4th. Nice!

This is regarding the BA offer for banking with Natwest.

Any experince with this. It says that opening an account with GBP 25,000 would get you upto 25,000 miles.

Q) Can I open an account and get the Miles and then close it a month later?

Q) Is there any penalty for closing the account? Any hidden fees?

25,000 are not bad if it takes filling up a form and shift funds temporarly to another bank.

gleff - do you have a link to the Bank Direct stuff? I could afford to keep that minimum balance someplace, it it was earning me miles just sitting there!

You could get the referral bonus, too. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

BigLar, YHM..

Has anyone really used any of the real estate and mortgage cos. like Lending Tree and Cendant to buy or sell a house? I understand that one should not be a slave to earning miles but it's hard not to believe that you couldn't get a better deal for financing a house purchase through a banker who is NOT affiliated with Lending Tree/Cendant et al. There's always a hidden cost built-in, right? Am I too cynical about this? I really want to earn more miles this way but am very suspicious...

Always comparison shop such as major purchasing decision.

However, mileage earning offers are (in my very limited experience in this area) generally competitive. The miles are a marketing cost just like TV advertising, etc.

Again, comparison shop and take the best deal you can!

I've used Guaranty Bank and have been very happy with them. One advantage Guaranty has over Bank Direct is that it's a real "bricks and mortar" bank. You always have the ability to walk into a branch and get all your money out in cash if you chose to do so.

br, not sure I followed you because of your double negative. I have tried to get miles by refinancing, but I've never been able to because I always found a better rate elsewhere. Where I live, there are a lot of rates posted on monstermoving.com. bankrate.com is good too. These list mortgage brokers. I like monstermoving because you can search for no-cost refi's and rank by interest rate.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/009329.html

Have opened account at Bank Direct and found service just great!

[This message has been edited by ORDNorth (edited Nov 17, 2003).]

Thanks all for your input.

I appears the plain old comparison shop approach is the best way to go. Either miles are part of the mortgage interest rate or not. Thanks all!

Can someone forward the link for referral miles? Can I open an account then refer my wife and get the referal bonus when she opens an account?
Thanks

I'm looking at doing the Citibank deal: 8000 miles for $25 plus the cost of investing around $1600 at 0% for 90 days.

My take on the mileage earning banking deals is that they can be competitive if you jump on them at the right time and then entirely exit the investment (close the account) the minute the sign-up bonuses post.

With any bank that provides miles, the ongoing terms are brutal - even considering today's yields on cash instruments and other low-risk investments.

If you'd like me to refer you to BankDirect, drop me an email. gleff at yahoo.com
Yes.

I used to bank with Bank Direct and cancelled b/c of the $2,500 minimum stipulation. However, I am reconsidering banking with them again and wondered if I would qualify for all their offers? It has been about 4 years since I last banked with them.

I am in a similar situation.

I've emailed BankDirect customer service to find out...

Here's the reply:

Just some kudos to Bankdirect.

They've been absolutely great with posting miles. My miles for average monthly balance post within days of the end of the month.

Twice I did have problems with referral miles posting. They don't respond with any of that '6-8 weeks' stuff. Within 24 hours I had an email reply ... and the reply was that they manually posted the miles already. Sweet!

Plus they even offer a feature that lets you review the miles you've earned... and those show up more or less real time, even before they send the miles to American.

So they really are on top of mileage posting. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I've been using BankDirect for almost a year now, and am extremely satisfied. I've never had any problems with miles posting (not even for referrals). They're a top-notch online bank, and I'd recommend them any day.

Looks good to me. Who wants to refer me?

I just sent you a referral email to the address you have listed. Please let me know if you don't receive it, or want to register on BankDirect under another email address.

Thanks. The application is in the mail. Or will be tomorrow.

Just fyi - for BankDirect referral miles to post --

* The email address receiving the referral needs to be the same address the new account applicant uses for the account.

* The applicant needs to list the name and address of the person providing the referral. Note that the email address must be the one that the existing accountholder has on file with BankDirect.

In other words, don't refer or list as referrer a 'Flyertalk address' if you use a different email address for your banking.

Also looking to sign up. Looking for a referral from someone who has more than 100 posts on FT and hasn't benefited from a referral from a fellow FTer before http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif Please YHM here and send me an email with full name from the email address you have on file at bankdirect.com. Cheers.

YGM

Good point. MeLike2Travel, I used your FT email address. Hope that works. BankDirect recognized you as a referrer.

What brokerage account offers are better than 100 miles per month per $1000?

Well, there's the Ameritrade offer of 20,000 Starwood points for opening a $25k account or up to 75,000 Delta miles for opening up an E-Trade account.

You should be aware that if your are parking cash for points, Ameritrade pays less than 0.25% http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif interest in their money market account. It works better if you moving over stock or bonds. P.S. Ameritrade is pretty fast in sending you the points(about 7-10 days after the deposit).

So for ongoing mileage earning, there's nothing better than BankDirect and Guaranty Bank?

I'm thinking about parking some cash and earning miles instead of interest. On an after-tax basis, it's not a particularly bad cash investment right now - particularly since the Savings Bond party is over. It also has the benefit of being easy.

I got some DL miles with Netbank. Soon afterwards, I found that I could have gotten $50 instead. Should have gone for the $50 rather than 2,500 mi. You get the money now. 2.5k miles might end up as orphan miles in a few years. Either that or Gordo or his DL counterpart will make redemption hard.

That offer of 75,000 Delta miles (for opening a new E*Trade account with $150,000) is tempting. But I hesitate, thinking back to all those posts a few years back about E*Trade making some people pull teeth to get promo miles. Also, even at a penny for each mile, that amounts to $750 for parking $150,000 in a brokerage account for six months. Makes me wonder what is up at E*Trade to make an offer like that.

YGM

fallinasleep or lili-dui


It looks like one of you might be the last on in line for a referral bonus. If you would email me at my FT email I'd like to sign up.

Msrohud, sorry if I misunderstood your question, but do you need to be referred or do you want to refer someone? In case you need a referral, YGM.

One DISadvantage Guaranty has is their interest rate: .25% vs. Bank Direct's .5%.

As for the branches, the nearest one to me is 37 miles.