Deal is back and valid until November 1st, 2017.
Offer at a glance
- Maximum bonus amount: $200
- Availability: (This account is not available to residents of Arkansas, Georgia, Nevada and Oklahoma.) You or your spouse must also be Christian.
- APY: 0.10%
- Additional requirements: Deposit $50 per month
- Hard/soft pull: Soft pull
- ChexSystems: Unknown
- Credit card funding: None
- Monthly fees: None
- Early account termination fee: Unknown, account must be open for two years to get full bonus
- Expiration date:
September 30th, 2017October 13th, 2017November 1st, 2017
The Offer
- Receive bonuses of up to $100 when you open a Brightpeak Financial Emergency Savings Share Account. To receive bonuses you’re required to deposit at least $50 per month and you’ll receive the following bonuses:
- Have a balance of at least $50 in the savings account when it has been opened for three months, receive $20
- Have a balance of at least $200 in the savings account when it has been opened for six months, receive $30
- Have a balance of at least $500 in the savings account when it has been opened for twelve months, receive $50
- Have a balance of at least $1,000 in the savings account when it has been opened for twenty four months, receive $100
The Fine Print
- If a Program participant fails to meet any of the requirements at any of the times that brightpeak may be calculating reward eligibility, the program participant will not be eligible to receive the reward payment at that time. However, they will remain enrolled in the program and will have the opportunity to receive future rewards if all of the requirements are met for the each of the subsequent rewards.
- Each household is only eligible to receive rewards on one Savings Account. For the purposes of this Program, “household” is defined as all of the individuals who live together at a single-address residence.
- All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them
Avoiding Fees
There are no monthly fees, I wasn’t able to find their fee schedule so I’m unsure if an early account termination fee is charged or not but given the fact that you need to keep it open for a full two years to get the full bonus I doubt it’ll really matter.
Our Verdict
Not a bad savings bonus, really depends on whether it’s a soft or hard pull to open and if you can fund with a credit card or not. Shame it’s restricted to Christians and it takes two full years to get the full $200 bonus. If you have any experiences with this bank, please share them in the comments below. You can view a full list of bonuses we recommend here.
Hat tip to reader Stevil
Useful posts regarding bank bonuses:
- A Beginners Guide To Bank Account Bonuses
- PSA: Don’t Call The Bank
- Introduction To ChexSystems
- Banks & Credit Unions That Are ChexSystems Inquiry Sensitive
- What Banks & Credit Unions Do/Don’t Pull ChexSystems?
- How To Use Our Direct Deposit Page For Bank Bonuses Page
- Common Bank Bonus Misconceptions + Why You Should Give Them A Go
- How Many Bank Accounts Can I Safely Open Within A Year For Bank Bonus Purposes?
- Affiliate Links & Bank Bonuses – We Won’t Be Using Them
- Complete List Of Ways To Close Bank Accounts At Each Bank
Anyone receive a 1099 or since the money is coming from Brightpeak instead of Thrivent Federal Credit Union we aren’t going to get one?
I Just heard from Brightpeak via Twitter:
To answer your question, you will not receive a 1099. It was structured so we didn’t need to do any tax reporting. Hope this helps!
Started Nov 2, Oct 27, 2017 at $100 initial deposit. December 2017 added $100.00
January and monthly after that added $50 per month.
Feb 2018 + $20.00 bonus
May 2018 +$30.00 bonus
Sept 26th +$50.00 bonus
Sept 26th +$100.00 bonus
I know the bonus program I signed up for was double the normal bonus. So like others. do I continue for another year?
Who wants to be the first data point 🙂 since we got the bonuses early, withdraw + close and lets see if any ETF
My 3rd and 4th bonuses posted this morning despite being over a year from my final payout date.
Same here!
same here. does this mean the account can be closed with no early termination fees?
Ditto. Very weird. I only do a $50 per month transfer so I wasn’t over a $1000 either.
Mine did also, I had a zero balance for the past couple of months. I put in a transfer to take the 75 out.
Now the question is do we keep putting in $50/month on the off chance that another bonus is handed out at the normal expected time?
great question. I too got both the 12 month and 24 month bonus (50 + 100) at the 12 month mark and an $800 account balance…
what to do
Bonus amounts are now 10, 15, 25, 50
Many of us signed up under a double that bonus schedule, but still +50 and +100 on the same day is a head scratcher.
Has anyone received the first bonus yet? Maybe it will post this month…
In case anyone is wondering, it posted shortly after my comment. So far, so good with this CU.
DP – No hard pull for me. Application has this written where you type your social:
“Required to verify identity and review banking history for fraud.”
Clicking submit turned up this message:
“Your application has been submitted.
Check your inbox – You will be receiving a welcome email shortly.”
Almost immediately received an email welcoming me and stating what comes next:
1. Your application is being processed by TFCU.
2. You will receive a welcome kit with your account documents within 3 weeks.
3. After you receive your welcome kit, enroll in online banking at Thriventcu.com/onlinebanking.
As for Chex sensitivity, they’re obviously vetting something somehow but it isn’t through a hard pull. Not ready to say I was approved but things look promising. I’m only at 5 new accounts in last 12 months.
Approved. Online profile set up and direct deposit linked with employer. Easy breezy.
denied based on chex.
lots and lots of accounts this year.
I’m atheist, christian mother, muslim father, and jewish sister. What proof they required for religion? I’m circumcised after my dad so obviously my penius can’t be used as proof! I can go into one of their branches and yell Jesus Christ died for your sin; will that be enough proof? even my ass is brown so I don’t think it can be used either, though Jesus was from the middle east probably with brown ass too.
If you have to be of a certain religion to open an account, in this country, The USA, that is called discrimination. It’s only a matter of time that this financial institution will be facing legal action from the US Govt, a class action suit or will be sued ty the ACLU.
I wouldn’t want to give them my money anyway to use to make a profit and continue in their discrimanatory practices.
There are PLENTY of other financial institutions and plenty of offers out there thanks to DOC.
Many banks only accepts people with military affiliation. How many scholarships are only dependent on skin color? Girl Scouts only allows girls.
Plenty of organizations have these types of limiting requirements. Are the above discriminating too? Come on now…
I applied for the account last night. It was an easy 1 or 2 page app taking literally 5 minutes.
The site said some to the effect of thanks for opening check your email, but I did not get an account # or any type of firm confirmation the application was successful from the actual website.
In my email I got a generic email instantly which I assumes confirmed I was successfully approved based on content. See below.
I have opened ~20 accounts this year, but am also a Thrivent member and hold a life insurance product with them. No idea if they somehow joined back end records with my personal info to approve me while others were rejected due to chex as the application didn’t reference existing members etc.
Welcome to brightpeak financial!
Thank you for applying for a Thrivent Federal Credit Union (TFCU) Emergency Savings Share Account through brightpeak financial. In addition to your TFCU Emergency Savings Share Account, you will also be enrolled in the brightpeak Savings Rewards Program.
What’s next?
-Your application is being processed by TFCU.
-You will receive a welcome kit with your account documents within 3 weeks.
-After you receive your welcome kit, enroll in online banking at Thriventcu.com/onlinebanking.
also meant to add, I put a freeze on my credit report with the 3 bureaus following the Equifax debacle, so signs point to them not doing a credit pull assuming I am in fact approved.
NM I was rejected via a form letter with title ADVERSE ACTION NOTICE about a week after applying
Reason: Other, specify – Excessive Inquires
Chex contact info is typed in on the back of the letter
I have a lot of accounts, 20+ so makes sense, but still a bummer
I called them and asked for reconsideration. I had to fax my Drivers license and I think a utility bill, but they did approve me within a few days. All in all easy and friendly company.
I’m set up and funded with $50 a month ACH’s scheduled for the next 2 years to get the bonus payment.
The followup after the account is started will be a couple of emails with documents for you to DocUSign electronically. They landed in my SPAM filtered file. Without those, the account will not be realized.