Bonus isn’t mentioned online anymore at all, might still be possible to open in branch and get bonus but we aren’t sure.
Update: You have to open account in branch now. accounts opened online do not qualify for special incentive
Reposting again because the bonus is actually for $250.
We’re reposting this deal because we now know that it’s a soft pull to open and you can fund with up to $1,000 using a credit card. It also seems the bonus posts quite quickly, thanks to reader J for providing this information.
Offer at a glance
- Maximum bonus amount: $250
- Availability: MA, VT, NH, MA, RI, NY & CT
- Direct deposit required: Two direct deposits of $500+ each
- Additional requirements: Three online bill payments or six debit card transactions
- Hard/soft pull: Soft Pull
- Credit card funding: Up To $1,000Â
- Monthly fees: $4.95 – $10, waivable
- Early account termination fee:Â $25 if closed within six months
- Expiration date: None specified
Contents
The Offer
- Receive a sign up bonus of up to $200 when you open a VISTA Premier Checking Account (or open Pinnacle checking and receive a bonus of $100) with MountainOne Bank (accounts open online do not qualify) and complete the following requirements:
- Within 60 days of opening your new account, have two direct deposits (each $500 or greater)
- Within 60 days of opening your new account, make three online bill payments OR make six purchases with your new MountainOne debit card.
$50 Extra Bonus
Readers are reporting that they actually received an additional $50 bonus into their money market account, not entirely sure what this is for but I’m not going to complain about an extra $50.
The Fine Print
- Both VISTA Premier Checking and VISTA Personal Money Market required to be opened together
- Must be a resident of New England or New York State
- To receive the bonus you need to visit or call any MountainOne bank to notify them that the requirements have been met
- All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them
Avoiding Fees
I wasn’t able to find the fee schedule, so I’m unsure if an early account termination fee is charged or not.
Pinnacle Checking $4.95 Monthly
This fee cannot be waived
VISTA Premier Checking $10 Monthly
Maintain an average daily combined balance of $2,500 in VISTA Premier Checking and VISTA Personal Money Market to waive the $10 monthly fee.
Our Verdict
My main concern about this bonus is that you need to go in branch or call them to tell them that the bonus has been met, which means they presumably manually look at your account to see if this is the case. This means that an ACH transfer might not count as the direct deposit requirement.
If I lived in the service area, I’d give this bonus a go as $200 is relatively high and the bonus requirements aren’t too difficult to achieve (plus it’s relatively easy for me to change my employer payments). If you have any personal experiences with this bonus, please share them in the comments below.
We’ve added this bonus to our complete listing of all savings, checking & business sign bonuses. It hasn’t made our best of list due to the concerns I have above.
Discover online saving coded as P2P, so should not work towards their required DD
recently had to visit a branch to verify the bonus, posted days later. Bonus was only for $200, not $250.Yes I have a MMA. I haven’t called to contest this. I’ll have to close this account out in person, this is a very small bank and they seem to work slowly.
Does this bonus work for NY residents? It says NY in this page’s title, but there are no Mountain One locations in New York.
Anyone from NY tried this promo and was successful?
I’m in NY too.
Here is what I do. There is no way for me to visit their branch in MA, I don’t understand why they promote the $200 to everyone while the fact is they are in MA only and visiting a branch is a must. So they say ppl like me can still get $100 if apply online and that’s only for the Pinnacle Value Checking. OK, and I did. By the way some data point, funded $1000 with Citi Double Cash, coded as purchase (it is still pending but i set my cash advance limit to $500 so I’m pretty sure it will be coded purchase otherwise it doesn’t get through). The problem with Pinnacle Value Checking is that it comes with not waivable $4.95 monthly fee, that means I have to close my account no later than 7 months after account opening. And if I can have the $100 bonus posted within 60 days from account opening, I can just close it and pay $25 as early termination fee. $100-$25+$20 (from Citi 2%)= $95. That will be the best I can do.
I’ll keep you posted on progress of the above.
If $100 bonus posts within 60 days, then you would’ve incurred 2 months fee. So you’re subtracting an additional $9.90 ($4.95×2) from $95 which will be $85.10 right?
This bonus isn’t so great for NY residents imo.
I think there should be no fees in the first two months as many other banks, right? I don’t know but I’ll test it out. But if it does charge monthly fee starting on the first month, I’ll then wait for 6 months after so that will be $100- $4.95X6=$70.3, plus my 2% bonus funding using CC so that will be $70.3+20=$90.3 (no early termination fee)
Any update on this, Jason?
$4.95 not waived in first month, still testing DD. My discover was frozen twice and then shut dorm twice but finally still alive, but that delayed my testing. Will see the result from discover on Friday
Thanks for following up, Jason. Strangely no reply option to your comment below. Can you point me to where you saw $100 bonus if applying online for Pinnacle Value Checking? I’m in New York as well so I applied online, too. Mostly did it since they allow CC funding and I need to meet a min spend, but if I can get $100 out of it as well I’d be pretty happy. Applied for the Pinnacle Value Checking since you mentioned it, but beyond your comment I don’t see any mention of the $100 bonus.
No reply option because that’s the outline or how the script/code was written on the web, it just does not let it keep expanding.
I just clicked back on the above direct link and realized that they now have been saying “Account must be opened at one of our offices” even for Pinnacle Value Checking. I remember on 8/3 when I looked up on their website they said the Pinnacle Value Checking could be open online so I opened it online and funded max of $1000 with Citi Double Cash. It was thinking maybe the $20 cash back from credit card can somehow compensates the monthly fee. I didn’t print out their webpage or took a screenshot so I couldn’t really tell now whether they’ve changed the terms or I misread the T&C. But for funding CC purpose, I suggest you open PNC checking that allows funding of $2000 and Blue Federal Credit Union Checking that allows funding of $3000.
Hope this helps.
doesn’t work at all
I had my first payroll posted today 9/23, but account was open on 8/8 online before the language “in branch only” added, the next payroll will post on 10/7, which is exactly the 60th day since account open. I feel like I should not bother opening an account with this one because payout is even less than $100. Anyway, will advise by then.
OK, so I called today because the 2nd payroll just posted today which was exactly within 60 days since account opened. However, rep told me after checking with the “correct” department, it appeared that the offer for opening Pinnacle Value Checking online for $100 incentive bonus did already end on 1/28/2016. She even thought that was last year, however she confirmed that that was already over and my account opened up in August which was not eligible for bonus. I brought up the point that when I saw this offer in August the terms on the webpage did mention opening the Pinnacle Value Checking online still qualified for it. Anyway, a no is no, therefore I asked her to change my account type to horizon checking that charges no monthly fee. Funding the initial $1000 by using my Citi Double Cash so $20 in cash back, paid twice of the $4.95 monthly fee so far, so that being said, I didn’t get the bonus but at least I didn’t lose too much but just time.
Long story short, for those living in NY, you don’t get any bonus from them.
Talked to a manager in the bank’s HQ back in late September. Unfortunately, the bank’s website is outdated and they are not always good about publishing expiration dates for their offers. The Pinnacle Value Checking offer did end 1/2016.
Due to promotion “abuse” the bank now STRICTLY requires an in-person visit to a branch in Massachusetts to qualify for all bonus-oriented accounts. No exceptions. In addition, you might as well consider this a Massachusetts-only offer because there is also another hidden condition – your zip code must fall within a 50-mile radius of a branch office or they will review and possibly close your account shortly after opening it. If it remains open you will likely not get a bonus if you didn’t make a trip to Massachusetts.
Apparently they’ve learned from Webster Bank, which loves to close accounts that fall outside of the 50-mile limit. No exceptions.
Evidently the banks have been talking to each other and are learning after being slammed by bonus hunters so they really want customers to show serious intent to stick with the bank. The bank has also learned a lot from the manual review process to post the bonus. They get suspicious if they see a lot of external transfers from various financial institutions. They really want to see PAYROLL in the ACH coding or a recognized federal or state benefit posted through ACH. No P2P, no “external transfer” and no credit union or other obvious non-payroll transfers. The more of those they see, the more they think you are a bonus chaser.
You will get questioned if it doesn’t say PAYROLL in the ACH field by most of their reps. You may be also be asked in the absence of a payroll designation to scan and send a copy of your paystub in an amount that corresponds to the dollar amount deposited, especially if they are suspicious you are gaming them.
Thanks for the info! So they are not dumb at all. lol
Should NY be a part of the title when it is required for in branch sign up? I don’t see a branch location anywhere in NY.
I love this page and the community, especially the “offer at a glance” making it very efficient. Is it possible to date stamp the update when there is one? Same goes for the DP’s like the list of DD’s/CC fund/etc, but format can be mm/yy to keep it short. Maybe the date of the DP can come right after the link? Something perhaps like this: â—¾Chase ACH: 1 5/15, 2 6/16.
I think this can help quickly identify what’s relative and decide how to go about bonuses and methods.
You can just click the links to get the time stamps, manually adding them would take way too much time on our part (sometimes we add 50 or so in a single day).
I didn’t see a $50 bonus after opening. How should I mention that to the CSP? Is there any information from their website leading to that?
How did you guys close this account? were you able to just zero it out via ach and then message to have it closed? thanks
After meeting requirements, my secure message got a response asking me to call customer service.
Phone call was smooth:
My account was opened on 1/26, The CSR said that accounts opened on or after 1/28 had to be in the branch to qualify.
She later questioned my payroll deposit that said:
External Deposit , DIR DEPOSIT
Once she was convinced, I asked her about the $10 service fee – she said I had 60 days to meet the daily average balance requirement and waived the fee.
She also put the $200 bonus on the same day. She didn’t forget to mention the courtesy $50 as well!
Little work was worth $250. Thanks DoC!
Called after 3 bi-weekly payroll DD already posted in my account, but the lady said she can’t prove it is payroll, as it does not say it is payroll on the description. Fyi – online it displays as –
External Deposit ABC (my company name), In-OSV EDI EDI PYMNTS
very frustrating.
what yours payroll display as? Deso it has the word Payroll spelled out?
External Deposit ASF, [Company Name] PAYROLL
Funded with Arrival+ Got 50 opening bonus. Called in today and got 200 after completing all the requirements. I did open the account online, but the site did not say that you had to do it in branch when I opened it.
They are checking to make sure it is a legitimate DD.
Funded $1k with Citi AA Platinum and it did not post as a cash advance. I didn’t get the additional $50 in the money market account upon opening (though I was required to allocate at least $50 of the $1,000 in the initial funding).
Called to get my bonus verified, quite painless with the CSR. The $200 bonus posted the same day. Additionally, I had messed up the daily balance requirement, and when trying to get the $10 service fee waived, the CSR mentioned the “$50 courtesy bonus for opening the account”. Apparently it’s not an error. She didn’t waive the fee.
how were you able to fund with the Citi AA? over the phone or in branch?
Funded online, when the offer was available there. They had a separate call-out on the site for CC, so it might be possible to fund that way over the phone too.