Update 7/1/24: They restructured the bonus to call it a cash bonus of .25% after 3 months. It ends up roughly the same as the old 1% APY boost for 3 months. (Yes, math is hard.)
Update 11/9/22: Program extended through November 30, 2022
The Offer
- When a Marcus deposits customer refers a new Marcus customer, both could earn an additional 1.00% Annual Percentage Yield (APY) on their Online Savings Accounts for 3 months.
- A customer can receive up to 5 Referral Bonuses per calendar year (which will get you 15 months of the increased rate).
The Fine Print
- Offer valid from 07/01/22 – 09/30/22. All steps for receiving a Referral Bonus must be completed by 09/30/22
- You may earn up to 5 Referral Bonuses in each calendar year.
- CDs are not eligible to receive any APY bonuses through Marcus Referred.
- You can see the status of all your earned Referral Bonuses in the Marcus Referred Center at any time.
- Referral Bonuses you earn will be applied to all of your Online Savings Accounts.
- New to Marcus? When you open a new Online Savings Account, there’s no delay—you can refer friends right away and be on the way to an even better rate.
- The Referral Bonus earned by a new customer will not count towards the maximum Referral Bonuses they can earn by referring other new customers once they are an existing Marcus customer.
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A current Marcus customer who refers a friend can receive a Referral Bonus when their friend opens a CD, though their friend won’t receive a referral bonus for that.
Our Verdict
They’ve had this program for a while to bump up the rate by .2% or .5% for both referrer and new member. They’ve now increased the amount to 1.00% which makes it much more interesting.
If someone deposits $1M and gets 4 referrals which bumps up their rate for a year, they’d land up with an extra $10,000 under this promotion. Obviously that’s an extreme case, but even someone who gets the extra 1% for 3 months on $100,000 in cash will land up with an extra $250 which is nice.
Just make sure to compare Marcus’ interest rate against other bank rates as their rate is not the best out there. This might not be an amazing deal, depending on what your other options are. Note, the 1% bump is only to bump up the interest on your Marcus online savings account, it won’t bump up the interest on your Marcus CD.
Remember also, AARP members always get an extra .10% bump to their savings account rate.
Do not leave Marcus referrals in the comments below. The referral thread was locked due to too many duplicates being posted. Please head over there to find a referral when signing up and help out a fellow reader.
Hat tip to reader Chasing UR Points
Just came here after noticing my account showing 4.40% instead of 5.50%.. whats going on?
Did you guys get any notification from Marcus at all? I got nothing
Looks like their marketing department has confused people 🙂
Explanation from Marcus:
“As of 07/01/2024, Marcus change the way the Marcus Referred Bonus is applied to your Online Savings Accounts, instead of a direct Annual Percentage Yield increase, you will receive a 0.25% cash back incentive. The cash back will be calculated with your account’s average daily balance which is determinate each month over the 3-month period, but will be paid in installments at the end of each month.
You can find more information about this update under the following link https://www.marcus.com/us/en/savings/referrals#termsandconditions“
“In simple terms, since the promotional rate increase of 1.00% was for a full year, if you divide that 1.00% by 4 (because there are four 3-month periods in a year), you get 0.25% for a single 3-month period. The bonus is the same, what changed was the way how it was applied.”
“Here’s an example based on a starting balance of $1,000 and based on an account earning 4.40% APY:
Under the previous program, a balance of $1,000 would earn $11.09 in interest based on your 4.40% APY, plus $2.52 based on the 1.00% promotional rate, for a total of $13.61 after 3 months.
Under the current program, a balance of $1,000 would earn the same $11.09 in interest based on your 4.40% APY, plus $2.86 in cash bonus, for a total of $13.95 after 3 months.
The above numbers are for comparison only and may not be based on today’s current Online Savings Account APY.”
I do get confused easily.
Nope. No notices from them.
My guess is that since the final interest rate doesn’t change, they decided not to notify customers.
And I’d fire their marketing department. The new 4.4% APY + 0.25% per 3 months looks less attractive than the old 5.4% APY.
TLDR: the 1% referral bonus lasts for only for 3 months now instead of a year
Chuck
nvm lol
The referral percentage bonus has always been three months I thought.
Yup, the confusion is contagious lol
I have AARP promo too (additional 0.1% APY)and earlier my APY was shown as 5.50 APY. I guess they removed 1.00 but with AARP, it should show my APY as 4.50 but it only shows 4.40.
Does anyone know whats going on with AARP?
Yes, it still shows in the offers applied section, and it shows that I have a few months left but doesnt show in the APY as it used to show earlier
Rolling out a feature to production is rarely lossless 🙂
In short about APY:
Referral now is not an APY bump, but a cash bonus. The same amount as before, but different naming.
AARP rate bump does not reflected in the app or web now. It would be nice if it at least considered when interest is calculated.
It would be a pain to calculate interest manually to see whats going on but thats what I would have to do. And this being a leap year doesnt help. I have noticed that each banks calculation is a bit different.
I updated the update with hopes to clarify
Effective July 1, 2024, this appears to only be .25%, not 1% anymore.
https://www.marcus.com/us/en/savings/referral-offer-terms
The Marcus Referred Bonus Program (“Referral Program”) allows Marcus customers to earn a cash amount totaling 0.25% of their average daily balance (determined monthly) over a 3-month (92 days) period (“Referral Period”) on all of their Marcus Online Savings Account(s) (the “Marcus Referred Bonus” or “Bonus”). The Bonus is further described in “Bonus Calculation” below.
You have “The referral thread due to too many duplicates being posted.” in the post but you meant to write “The referral thread was locked due to too many duplicates being posted.”
Looks good now, I guess William fixed it
Any good place to put referral links?
Not here
I had a Marcus account and received the 3 month APY bonus last yr. I then closed the account in June 2022. I am trying to use a referral from my husband to open a new savings account and receive the bonus again but it wont let me. I thought there was a 12 month rule. Has anyone else successfully done this and any advice?
Can we get a new referral page going for this? The existing one does not allow new comments.
I think it will open back up eventually at some point in time
I see the referral sharing page doesn’t allow any more new referrals to be shared. Can I share my referral here? I could really use the extra 1% interest over 3 months.
No you can’t put referrals in this thread and DoC already stated in the bonus thread they won’t be opening the referral thread.
Weren’t they going to shut down this part of their retail banking business?
Up until November 30th, 2022.