[Expired] HSBC Checking Account Bonus – $350 or $750

Offer at a glance

• Bonus amount: $350 or $750
• Availability: Nationwide
• Direct deposit required: Yes, three direct deposits
• Additional requirements: $10k/$100k tied up for 5 months
• Hard/soft pull: Soft
• Credit card funding: None
• Monthly fees: Waivable
• Early account termination fee: $25 if closed within 180 days
• Expiration date: November 20, 2015

The Offer

Direct link

• Open an HSBC Premier relationship with a balance of $100,000 or more in new funds and receive a $750 bonus
• Open an HSBC Advance relationship with a balance of $10,000 or more in new funds and receive a $350 bonus

The $10k/$100k must be funded by 12/21/15 (regardless of the exact date you opened the account), and the money must remain in the account until 3/21/16.

Additionally, both offers require that you receive three direct deposits into your account by 3/21/16.

The Fine Print

• Account must be opened by 11/20/15
• Bonus will post automatically approximately eight weeks after 3/21/16
• Account must be open and in good standing at the time of bonus fulfillment
• Limit one per customer (the first line name on the joint account is considered the customer for bonus purposes)
• You will receive a 1099 for the bonus amount.

Avoiding Fees

Early Termination Fee

There is a $25 fee for closing the account within 180 days (Link). You’ll anyway end up having the account open for 180 days since you must keep the account open until the bonus posts, which will be around 5/20/15. Even if you opened the account on the last valid date of 11/20/15, it would still be ~180 days until you can close it. Thus, we don’t have to worry much about this fee.

Monthly Fees

The Premier account has a $50 monthly fee which is waived with $100k balance. The Advance account has a $20 monthly fee which is waived with a $10k balance. (Link)

Existing Customer Bonus

Premier Link

Advance Link

• If you are already an HSBC checking customer, you are eligible for the exact same bonuses mentioned above with the only difference that the new account you open will be a savings or CD account. All other requirements are the same: for the $350 bonus you’ll need to open a savings/CD with $10k and for the $750 bonus you’ll need $100k. All dates are the same as for the new customer bonus.

A new customer is defined as someone who has not had an HSBC account since 6/22/15. An existing customer is defined as someone who has an HSBC Premier or Advanced checking account as of 9/20/15.

Our Verdict

$350 and $750 bonuses sound good on the surface, but we need to run the numbers here. In order to get the bonus, the funds must be in the account for 3 months, from 12/21/15 until 3/21/16. In practice, the funds will need to remain there for another 8 weeks as you’ll need the $10k/$100k in the account in order to waive the monthly fee.

All told, we’re looking at the $10k/$100 of funds tied up for 5 months, from 12/21/15 until 5/20/16. Let’s round that off and say that the funds will be tied up for 6 months to give some time for the transferring.

HSBC accounts do earn interest, but they earn a measly .01% APY. Let’s do the math of each offer:

• Advance $10k Offer – If we’ll assume you would have been earning 1% interest on the $10k, you’ll end up losing ~$50 in interest over the 6 month period that the funds are tied up. You’ll get $350, for a net gain of $300.
• Premier $100k offer – If we’ll assume you would have been earning 1% interest on the $100k, you’ll end up losing ~$500 in interest over the 6 month period that the funds are tied up. You’ll get $750, for a net gain of $250.

Ultimately, it wouldn’t make sense to do the Premier offer for the purpose of the higher bonus as you’ll gain more by leaving the additional $90k in a 1% savings account and just tying up the $10k for the higher net gain of $300.

The Advance offer does sound like a good one for someone with $10k lying around. The main additional hardship is managing the three direct deposit requirement. If that is something that you can deal with, the Advance bonus is quite a nice offer.

Update: A reader added a good point that instead of putting the $10k into a checking account, you can open the account with $1 and put $9,999 in a 6-month CD to get .7% APY. This way, you aren’t losing much on the interest and the offer is even better.