A mildly interesting article comes to us courtesy of the DepositAccounts.com blog. A bank I’m not familiar with, Legacy Bank, changed the terms on its rewards checking account:
Federal Regulations and some customer abuse to the Win/Win Checking account have compelled us to make a change to the way interest is paid on the account. Effective March 1, 2015, in order to receive interest on the Win/Win Checking account, customers must use their Legacy Bank VISA® Check Card at least 12 times for purchases of goods or services, AND these transactions must total at least $250.00 each month.
I find it interesting that people are gaming the system hard enough to force a T&C change on a 2% APY account. The account pays 2% interest on up to $25,000, so this amounts to a maximum of $500 per year in interest. Except it’s not too hard to get 1% per year (for example, Ally’s savings account), so we’re really only talking about $250 per year. Which is a non-negligible amount of money, but then there are some accounts out there where you can get more than 2%.
Maybe I’m just jaded by the low-hanging fruit of credit card rewards (and I know that’s not for everybody), and maybe my time is spread too thin these days what with my family obligations, but still: it was surprising to me that an apparently large number of people are working this particular rewards scheme. Are any of you working 2% deposit accounts?
A local credit union has a whopping 2.25% checking acct, with a required 10 transactions/month. I’m not personally using it, but I know people who are autopaying a couple bucks, 10 times a month.
I’ve suggested it to DH, in fact, as he has way too much money in a savings acct at a different institution paying <1%.
2% is not worth it, there are a number of other rewards checking accounts in the 3-5% range that are worth doing. That’s where I keep most of my emergency funds stored. It’s worth the relatively small hassle.
Would you share which checking accounts pay 3-5%?
Here is one that pays up to 5.09 APY on balances up to $20,000: http://www.myconsumers.org/personal/checking/free-rewards-checking.html
William has a blog with excellent coverage of this type of info at http://www.doctorofcredit.com/
MyConsumers FTW! Right now they’ll even front you the cash! They have a zero fee bt/ca offer at 1.49% on their credit products – just pull that, put it in the rca, and profit the spread.