[Expired] Citibank $100 Regular Checking Promotion

Expired: This offer has expired, if you know of any valid Citibank checking bonuses then please let us know. In the mean time you can view more bonuses here.

Offer at a glance

• Maximum bonus amount: $100
• Availability: Nationwide
• Direct deposit required: No
• Additional requirements: Complete bill payment for two consecutive months, also must add $1,000-$15,000 in funds
• Hard/soft pull: Soft
• Credit card funding: Yes, unknown amount
• Monthly fees: $10-$20, waive able
• Early account termination fee: $0
• Expiration date: December 31st, 2014

The Offer

Direct link to offer

• Citibank currently has two bonuses for their regular checking accounts:
  • $100 cash bonus: Open a regular checking account in the Citibank account package and deposit at least $15,000 in new to citibank funds and complete a qualifying bill payment for two consecutive months
  • $50 cash bonus: Open a regular checking account in the Citibank basic banking package and deposit a qualifying bill payment for two consecutive months

The Fine Print

• Bonus will be credited to your new checking account within 90 days from the end of the month in which you complete all of the requirements
• Offer for new consumer accounts only
• A qualifying bill pay is one made using Citibanks online, mobile or phone banking
• All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them

Avoiding Fees

Citibank account Package $20 Monthly Fee

This is the account needed for the $100 bonus. To avoid the $20 monthly fee you need to have a combined average balance of $15,000 or more, you need to have this much deposited to receive the $100 bonus anyway.

Basic Banking $10 Monthly Fee

This is the account needed for the $50 bonus. Make a direct deposit (the following methods count as direct deposit, click to view) and 1 bill payment each month or keep an average balance of at least $1,500 in the previous calendar month to avoid the monthly fee (the $1,500 is needed to trigger the bonus anyway).

Early Account Termination Fee $0

I couldn’t find any mention of any early account closure fee in the fees disclosure page, nor could I find anybody that has been charged one of these fees.

Our Verdict

Because the $100 bonus requires such a large deposited, I’ve listed it as a savings account offer. The $50 bonus has been listed as a checking bonus. I don’t think bank bonuses under $100 are worth completing, so we’ll ignore the $50 bonus.

You’re going to need to deposit the $15,000 for at least five months (two months to trigger the bill pay requirement and bonus can take up to 90 days to post. Citi will usually go to the maximum amount of time allowed and even then sometimes the bonus doesn’t post). Below is a table of how much interest you’re forgoing by not having that money in a high interest checking account.

APR	Interest Earned Over Six months
1%	$          75
2%	$        150
3%	$        225
4%	$        300
5%	$        375

Instead of doing this deal I’d instead encourageAs you can see, even at 1% you’d be loosing $75 in interest. This makes this deal not worth it at all, you’d basically be profiting $25 when you should be trying to get at least $100 in value per bonus. You might be saying to yourself, but what about the interest that Citibank offers? Well, considering that the rate Citibank offers is 0.01% it’s really not worth discussing. If you’re wondering to yourself why we included rates up to 5% in our table, it’s because some rewards checking accounts earn at that rate.

Citibank allows you to earn AAdvantage miles instead of cash as well, which might be of interest to some people. I’m also interested to hear if people with checking accounts (especially these basic accounts) have been more likely to receive the $200 bonus on the Citi double cash card. Let me know in the comments below.

Direct link to offer | Screenshot of offer