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American Express is out with another bonus offer for its Rewards Checking account: Earn a $250 bonus when you open a new American Express Rewards Checking account and receive a direct deposit totaling $5,000 or more within 90 days.
Note that you must be a current consumer cardholder for at least 5 days to apply, and you can’t have had a Reward Checking account in the past. The terms indicate that you must have received this offer to get the bonus. However, the link is publicly available online, you have to log in before applying, and Doctor of Credit seems to indicate it’s open to any cardholder. YMMV.
The Deal
- Amex is offering a bonus of $250 when you open a new consumer Rewards Checking account and receive qualifying direct deposits totaling $5,000 or within 90 days of account opening.
Key Terms
-
Earn a Welcome Bonus of $250 after you complete each of the following qualifying criteria:
- Open your first American Express Rewards Checking Account in your name by 01/31/2026, which is subject to approval; and
- Have a total of $5,000 or more of Qualifying Direct Deposit(s) posted to your American Express Rewards Checking Account within the first 90 days of account opening.
After you have completed the above qualifying criteria, American Express will deposit the Welcome Bonus into your Rewards Checking Account within 8-12 weeks.
- A Qualifying Direct Deposit is a single ACH transfer from an employer or the government for a paycheck, pension, government benefit (such as Social Security), or tax refund. Qualifying Direct Deposit(s) totaling at least $5,000 or more are required to qualify for this offer. The following are not Qualifying Direct Deposits: person to person transfers (P2P) such as money transfer apps, deposit account to deposit account transfers (for example, from a checking account to another checking account or from a savings account to a checking account), deposits or ACH transfers not from an employer or the government (for example, online transfers or bank transfers), internal transfers from your American Express® Savings account, deposits made via check, and Membership Rewards® points redemption for deposits.
- You are not eligible for the Welcome Bonus if you have an existing or previously have had a Rewards Checking Account. Each individual customer may only have one Rewards Checking Account.
Quick Thoughts
There are no monthly fees or minimums on Amex Rewards Checking, so it’s an easy enough account to open with no ongoing “gotchas” to worry about. The account features a debit card that earns 1 Membership Rewards point for every $2 spent. I personally wouldn’t even think about using that for anything Amex wouldn’t like, since the rewards there are relatively small.
It is a big bummer that current and prior Rewards Checking account customers are not eligible for the bonus, which may disqualify many readers. On the other hand, if you haven’t ever had a Rewards Checking account, this could possibly be an easy $500 in a 2-player household.
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$500 transfer from Fidelity brokerage worked for me.
I got my bonus quickly! The $500 direct deposit came in on 9/29, got the bonus $250 already on 10/5.
I didn’t notice any requirements to keep the money in the account for any certain amount of time. Am I good to pull out the full $750 and leave $0 in the account without getting any fees or risking clawback of the bonus?
Anybody do a push from ALLY to Amex and get the bonus? I don’t see any DPs here suggesting so.
Tried, didn’t work for me
I was rejected, with the only explanation being I had previously closed another American Express account, which isn’t true (other than a corporate card that was closed several years ago).
9-19-23 Data point: My application was canceled for having been “approved for a similar product”. That verbiage was repeated by 2 separate reps. I called twice. Aka the Business checking acct. Even if I close the business account, the system will still have a record that I was “approved” for a business account before. Most banks would love for someone to have both personal and business accounts. Not Amex apparently. There is no ETA foe the fix. So for those of us who took advantage of the business bonus, we are SOL until further notice. What a bunch of crap.
I was an Amex Checking Account client in 2022 and had a horrible experience with them. I was unable to withdraw cash abroad (Italy) due to a technical error on their end that took an entire week to resolve. We were in Venice, and I asked if they could send me cash (needed it for cash only activities we had booked) and they said that was not possible. The best they could offer was to waive the cash withdrawal fee on my Amex Platinum (but I’d still be charged interest).
At the the time, it was also impossible to transfer money between the Amex Savings and Amex Checking accounts. I hear this has since been resolved. Anyways, terrible experience, you have been warned. 🙂
That definitely stinks. However, Amex isn’t widely accepted outside of the United States. I would never rely on being able to withdraw cash abroad with an Amex debit card. You want a Schwab checking account for that — it provides a Visa debit card that will be accepted at the vast majority of ATMs around the world and they credit you back for the ATM fees. I understand that you’re saying the issue in your case was a technical error, and I’m not excusing Amex for it, but again I wouldn’t suggest leaning heavily enough on Amex to ever encounter that type of situation with a debit card that is unlikely to be widely accepted outside of the US anyway.
Showed up on my AMEX Offers and benefits. Signed up. Chase is offering $900 to open a checking and a savings account, looking into that.
I’ve only seen the $600 Chase offer for a new checking and savings account, are you seeing $900 anywhere publicly?
Chase.com, click on checking account.
I think the offer/banner must be targeted. I clicked on checking account from Chase.com in my normal browser (Chrome) and found the normal $600 offer for opening checking and savings. When I tried Edge, I saw offers for $100 or $200 for a new checking account alone (no $600 offer). Anyone else have data points?
Supposedly Amex is aware of the Business Checking “issue” and is working to “resolve” it. Whether or not this happens, or happens in time for the 12/10/23 deadline remains to be seen.
The “Direct Deposit” must be an ACH deposit FROM AN EMPLOYER OR THE GOVERNMENT. So for us self-employed folks, that narrows the field…
This account is relatively new, so we don’t know what’s going to work, but with most checking accounts any ACH works to trigger direct deposit requirements.
I was taking it directly from their T&C, but I’d love to see data points to the contrary. It specifically forbids other ACH transactions as triggers. Knowing Amex’s propensity for clawbacks on SUBs, I’m wary.
Yes, I know. Almost every single checking account bonus in existence says in the T&C that P2P ACH transfers won’t work….and it is very very frequently not true. Again, this bonus is new so we don’t know what will work yet – it’s certainly possible that Amex has a better system in place than almost every other bank.
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/knowledge-base/list-methods-banks-count-direct-deposits/
It worked for me.
I played around with whether the debit card would code as debit at merchants who charge a percentage surcharge on credit (eg., 2-3%) and no surcharge on debit. In my very small sample, the debit card was mistakenly recognized as credit every time. I think the computer processor sees American Express and game over. Never had that problem with PayPal Key during its way-too-short useful lifetime. Glad to be proven wrong, but I’m not sure this account serves any long-term purpose.
Amex does not participate in US debit network,it runs a closed system. So all amex cards are treated as credit.
That explains a lot. Thank you!
I was rejected lol
No reason given, but I’m in popup jail…so I’m sure amex would say “it’s not you, it’s me”