(YMMV) Tip: Open U.S. Bank CD To Be Eligible For Checking Bonus + Altitude Reserve

Update 4/8/24: Reader Shawn reports that you can open a CD to become eligible for their checking and card products

Update 1/13/24: Reports are this no longer works

Original Post:

You can open a self-directed US Bank investment account to make yourself eligible for their checking bonuses and credit cards.

For those outside of the US Bank footprint, the bank allows us to apply online for their lower tier credit cards, but does not approve us via online application to apply for their checking account and their Altitude Reserve card.

Typically, the workaround is to apply for a lower tier card, and that gets you into their system as a customer, and you can subsequently get the checking account or Altitude. That does require using up a 5/24 spot on a card you don’t necessarily want.

Reddit user sherpderp1 gives a tip to help get in their system. US Bank offers a self-directed brokerage account which can be opened by anyone nationwide. Once the bank sees you as a customer, they’ll allow you to open their checking account and credit cards.

Note: this method does not seem to be working for everyone. YMMV.

This $300 checking bonus will be interesting to some. The Altitude Reserve signup bonus will interest some people as well. You should be able to apply for the checking bonus soon after opening the brokerage (worth waiting 24 hours to allow the system to update); to apply for the Altitude Reserve requires being a customer for 5 business days.

Note: the brokerage account gets hit with a $40 fee at year’s end if there were no trades on the account; set yourself a reminder to cancel that before year’s end or try to create some activity there. See also this comment and this comment.