[Expired] [Military & Retired Military] Air Academy Federal Credit Union $100 Referral Bonus

Deal has ended, view more bank account bonuses by clicking here.

Offer at a glance

  • Maximum bonus amount: $100
  • Availability: Open to all active and retired military plus employees, students & families in 10 local school districts. Eligible groups listed here. Can also become a member by donating any amount to the Air Force Academy Athletics
  • Direct deposit required: Yes, no minimum specified or ACH
  • Additional requirements: See below
  • Hard/soft pull: Soft pull
  • ChexSystems: Yes
  • Credit card funding: Unknown
  • Monthly fees: None
  • Early account termination fee: $10, six months
  • Household limit: None listed
  • Expiration date: None listed

The Offer

Direct link to offer (pdf warning)

  • Air Academy Federal Credit Union is offering a referral bonus of $100 to both parties when you open a new Kasasa checking account and the person opening the account completes the following requirements (looks like they might need to be done for three consecutive months):
    • Have at least 12 debit card purchases post and clear
    • Have at least 1 direct deposit or automatic payment (ACH) post and clear
    • Be enrolled in eStatements

The Fine Print

  • All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them

Avoiding Fees

Monthly Fees

Both of the kasasa checking accounts have no monthly fees to worry about.

Early Account Termination Fee

According to the fee schedule there is an early account termination fee of $10 if closed within six months of account opening.

Our Verdict

Previously we’ve seen a bonus of $200 that didn’t require a direct deposit. That was obviously a bigger bonus and easier to meet the requirements for so not sure how interesting this bonus will be for most people. Feel free to share your referrals in the comments.

Hat tip to reader Erik (his referral code is 7HFW6E) and Morde (A72CUF)

Useful posts regarding bank bonuses:
    William Charles
  • On October 10, 2020, 12:00
Tags: direct deposit required

View Comments (219)

  • @guest_1072395 @guest_1090960 Apparently AAFCU changed their cash back program in February. Now you earn 10% cash back on up to $250 in debit card transactions per month. This bumps the monthly earnings from $9 up to $25! It also reduced the spend requirement from $300 to $250. I earned $25 for my February Cash App loads. What a great change!

    • Yes, it was a great surprise this month! I completed my normal $300 worth of Apple Cash debit card spend spread over 12 transactions, and was surprised to see that I earned $25 instead of $9 for it. I maintain several cashback debit card checking accounts for 3 players in my household, and earn an extra almost $300 a month from it. A bit tedious, but you earn more than what a 5% HYSA would yield for the small amounts of money that you need for these cashback debit card checking offers monthly. Never seen a bank/credit union offer this much though, I hope the others start increasing their monthly rewards as well!

    • Agreed. P1 kept the AACU account and noticed the change to $25 this month.

  • AACU Snail Mailer arrived today. (FYI: They dropped the FEDERAL portion of their name and no longer go by AAFCU)

    Make 20 or more qualifying debit purchases that post and clear in November and you will get to “enjoy a $5 Grocery Gift Card”.

    Mailer shows Kroger (family), Safeway (family), and Walmart as your choices. The gift card PIN code will be snail-mailed by January 31st.

  • AACU Snail Mailer arrived today. (FYI: They dropped the FEDERAL portion of their name recently and now going by AACU)

    Make 20 or more qualifying purchases that post and clear in July and you will get you "your favorite $5 Reward”.

    Mailer shows Domino's, Buffalo Wild Wings, Panera Bread, and Subway as your choices. The gift card PIN code will be snail mailed by September 30th.

  • AAFCU Snail Mailer arrived today. 20 debits that post and clear in April will get you a downloadable $5 towards "Delicious Delivery". (DopeDash, Goober Eats, or GropeHub, err... GrubHub, Uber Eats, and DoorDash)
    The gift card PIN code will be snail mailed by June 30th. Personally, a new reward all-time low, and I use none of these services.

  • Got another targeted mail offer for a $5 Papa John/Subway/Panera gift card for making 15+ purchases in both April and May. Fine print says 30 total but I'd do 15 each month. Reward will be mailed by 7/31

  • AAFCU Snail Mailer arrived today. 15 debits that post and clear in December gets you a downloadable $5 reward card. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, or Apple) @guest_1094093

    • Got the codes in the mail today. Redeemed on the website and they arrived in my email instantly. I picked Amazon.

    • I got this for P1-P3 in my household. I did this promo before, and the debits stack nicely with their monthly Kasasa cashback, so you just need to do 15 debits total to get the $5 and the $9 cashback.

        • Cash app works for me every month without fail. I wouldn't bother with Amazon reloads or Venmo because Air Academy likes to block a lot of those transactions with fraud alerts for some reason. However, Cash app debit transactions always go through smoothly, so I would definitely recommend Cash app for the debits.

          • Thanks! I'll give it a go. I've been sitting on this account for over two years and never thought to try that.

          • Awesome! Make sure that for the $9 cashback, you also receive a direct deposit (any ACH should work of any amount), sign up for e-statements, and make sure your debit card transactions total at least $300 for the calendar month.

    • Nice! I did not receive it. Hopefully I will be targeted for the same promotion. @guest_1072395

  • Filing an NCUA complaint as I still haven't been paid out. Would love to take these guys to the cleaners. Slimiest bank I've dealt with in a long time.

  • Here we go, one of those "don't call the bank" scenarios.

    I assume this is for everyone, but the $9.00 Cash Back Checking bonus did not post on April 1st for last month. Betting either the "Core Conversion" didn't calculate past transactions for the monthly bonus, or, DD is harder to trigger, or, Cash App "transfers" might be dead. TBD. DP's welcome. @guest_1094093

    • Update: I received two $9 cashbacks on April 30th and May 4th, respectively. Hope you have received the missing cashback for March, too. @guest_1072395 @guest_1071343

    • @guest_1072395 (Gadget),
      When I checked my reward status on 3/24, it showed that I had satisfied the requirements. However, I have also not yet received the $9.00 (as of 4/2).

    • Same here. I think it is because of the core conversion. If you look at your e-statements, you will notice that you now have two statements for March: one from 1st to 19th, and the other from 20th to 31st. This probably messed up the cash reward issuing date. @guest_1072395

      • I already completed all the requirements for this month including 12 debit card purchases, but the online tracker says yes with 18 debit card transactions! This is another sign that the system is kind of in a messed-up state. I took a screenshot of qualifications met in early March, and I also noticed that the qualification status was yes towards the end of March. So I think it is the split of March into two statements due to the Core Conversion that led to the cash reward not being issued. I am optimistic about them noticing or hearing it and fixing it, and I will wait and see. @guest_1072395 @guest_1071343

        • I contacted them via SM and attached the screenshot of qualifications met for March. They got back to me within a few hours and said I will see my March cash reward together with my April reward. @guest_1072395 @guest_1071343

        • Thanks for the responses/update @guest_1094093 @guest_1071343 . Yeah, I know prior to conversion it said I qualified... and pretty sure the tracker did not reset post-conversion. However, I did not take screenshots, but I doubt they would accept captures as truth.

          I imagine enough people are going to contact them that did real usage that they will be posting the $9 for many. However, if they will be going from account to account and manually posting, I bet they skip over us. CSR's like to make their own rules like to say sorry, but you cheated and we aren't giving you the bonus.

          I will probably just ignore it and see what happens next month. At least we still have a tracker.

          • @guest_1072395 I received the full $9 reward for this month, but it was given to me in 2 batches. One reward was for $4.59 on 3/31, and one was for $4.41 on 4/2. I did all cash app transactions btw. I wouldn't call the bank either if I were you. Maybe check your account again to see if any adjustments were made?

          • @guest_1090960 When did you complete all the qualifying requirements? Was it before or after the 19th? 3/31 itself is a strange date for them to issue the cash reward.

          • Here are my transactions after the 19th:

            APR 2 2021
            Interest Adjustment-Deposit - CORRECTION-CASH BACK REWARDS
            Amount: four dollars and forty one cents+ $4.41

            MAR 31 2021
            CashBack Checking Rewards
            Amount: four dollars and fifty nine cents+ $4.59

            MAR 29 2021
            Point Of Sale Withdrawal - CASH APP*DOMINIQUE 4153753176 CAUS
            Amount: negative one dollars– $1.00

            MAR 29 2021
            Point Of Sale Withdrawal - CASH APP*DOMINIQUE 4153753176 CAUS
            Amount: negative one hundred dollars– $100.00

            MAR 29 2021
            Point Of Sale Withdrawal - CASH APP*DOMINIQUE 4153753176 CAUS
            Amount: negative one dollars and five cents– $1.05

            MAR 22 2021
            Point Of Sale Withdrawal - CASH APP*DOMINIQUE 4153753176 CAUS
            Amount: negative one dollars and three cents– $1.03

            MAR 22 2021
            Point Of Sale Withdrawal - CASH APP*DOMINIQUE 4153753176 CAUS
            Amount: negative fifty dollars– $50.00

          • Thank you for sharing your detailed transactions, @guest_1090960. Your qualifications were met after the core conversion, and they first issued you the cash reward for transactions after the conversion. Similar to @guest_1071343, I completed all the requirements before the conversion. It looks like those of us who did so got messed up. @guest_1072395

          • Yeah, I guess I just got lucky then. I like to space out my debits throughout the month because I feel like it makes them seem more organic even though they aren’t organic purchases. (I don’t even know how people are able to use this debit card regularly for organic purchases since it triggers so many fraud alerts all the time, except on cash app.)

            I read somewhere that you can be disqualified for kasasa rewards at some banks if you do all of your debits in only a short period of time within the month. Since all my rewards posted automatically, I am hoping that all of yours will too. @guest_1094093 @guest_1072395 @guest_1071343

          • I've seen comments like that about Kasasa too but might depend on the CU more than the name Kasasa. I don't plan to keep this account forever, so if something happens I wouldn't care too much. But, while I am here, may as well.

            I have had no issue paying my insurance $1.0x multiple times on the same day, which is my go-to. I did a few Cash App too, but after 6x $10 it craps out for the night. Not sure if that was on the Cash App end, or the CU end that it stopped working - no alert.

            Imagine most anything would work for DD & debits with the automated system. A CSR will most likely not be so kind though, and quickly tell me Cash App transfers are not debits.

          • Yeah, I completed my requirements in the beginning of the month... I don't like to put off rewards checking stuff till the end of the month. Esp since they were expecting an outage for the upgrade. Thank for the tag though.

          • Here are my transactions from before the 19th:

            MAR 18 2021
            POS Pinned Purchase - DEBIT PURCHASE CASH APP*DOMINIQUE 4153753176 CA 107600030827 12345678 Mar 17 @ 8:23pm
            Amount: negative one dollars and seven cents– $1.07

            MAR 12 2021
            POS Pinned Purchase - DEBIT PURCHASE CASH APP*DOMINIQUE 4153753176 CA 107000027737 12345678 Mar 11 @ 8:16pm
            Amount: negative one dollars– $1.00

            MAR 9 2021
            SCHWAB BROKERAGE/MONEYLINK/210309/ PPD
            Amount: ten dollars+ $10.00

            MAR 8 2021
            DEBIT PURCHASE CASH APP*DOMINIQUE 4153753176 CA 106500022099 12345678 Mar 6 @ 8:58pm
            Amount: negative one dollars and two cents– $1.02

            MAR 5 2021
            DEBIT PURCHASE CASH APP*DOMINIQUE 4153753176 CA 106400021316 12345678 Mar 5 @ 9:58am
            Amount: negative one hundred dollars– $100.00

            MAR 5 2021
            DEBIT PURCHASE CASH APP*DOMINIQUE 4153753176 CA 106300015731 12345678 Mar 4 @ 8:22pm
            Amount: negative one dollars– $1.00

            MAR 4 2021
            DEBIT PURCHASE CASH APP*DOMINIQUE 4153753176 CA 106200025207 12345678 Mar 3 @ 8:17pm
            Amount: negative one dollars and two cents– $1.02

            MAR 4 2021
            DEBIT PURCHASE CASH APP*DOMINIQUE 4153753176 CA 106200025206 12345678 Mar 3 @ 8:17pm
            Amount: negative fifty dollars– $50.00

          • It may be useful to find who got the March reward and when the requirements were completed. We (P1 & P2) completed the requirements on 3/15 but neither of us got the reward.

            p.s. Any chance that anyone here did organic spend and could call in to ask?

          • No, I used Schwab brokerage, and I’ve also used Keypoint CU successfully in the past, so I just assumed almost anything worked to satisfy their DD requirement.

  • DP:

    12/3 - Opened
    12/7 - $27 Push from Alliant
    12/14 - 12 50c Debits Amazon reloads
    1/4 - $6 Push from Alliant
    1/7 - 12 50c Debits Amazon reloads
    2/5 - $6 Push from Alliant
    2/5 - 12 50c Debits Amazon reloads
    3/1 - Bonus of 100 into Savings, also received an email stating it would come shortly.

    3 Months of meeting the Kasasa Qualifications Bonus Posted for referral.

    Debit card are a pain if you use Amazon, it triggers a txt alert you have to approve. Other reports to CashApp it doesn't. Will keep open until 6m from opening. But done with Kasasa.

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