Reposting as deal is back and valid until December 31st, 2018.
Contents
The Offer
- Amegy Bank is offering up to $550/55,000 points when you open a new AmaZing Cash or AmaZing Rewards Visa credit card. Bonus is broken down as follows:
- $150/15,000 when you spend $1,000 within the first 90 days
- $200 when you open an Anytime Interest Checking or Premium checking within 90 days (account must be kept active for 90 days)
- $200 when you open a money market account within 90 days ($500 minimum opening deposit & must be kept active for 90 days)
The Fine Print
- Anytime Interest Checking™ or Premium Interest Checking™ Bonus Cash and Reward Points – Bonus offer applies to new Anytime Interest Checking™ or Premium Interest Checking™ accounts, subject to approval. One checking account bonus payment is allowed per customer, not per account or per card. Bonus not available to clients with an existing Amegy Bank checking account or who have opened an Amegy Bank Anytime Interest Checking or Premium Interest Checking prior to 3/1/18. To receive $200 or 20,000 checking bonus: 1) Upon approval, activate your AmaZing Cash® or AmaZing Rewards® Visa credit card, subject to credit approval; 2) $50 minimum opening deposit required to open an Anytime Interest Checking™ or Premium Interest Checking™; 3) Keep checking account active for 90 days from account opening. We will credit your AmaZing Cash or AmaZing Rewards Visa credit card within 4 to 6 weeks after completing the above checking requirements.
- AmaZing Visa Credit Card Bonus Cash and Reward Points – Bonus offer applies to new AmaZing Cash® or AmaZing Rewards® Visa Credit Card. One credit card bonus payment is allowed per customer, not per account or per card. Bonus not available to clients with an existing Amegy Bank AmaZing Cash or AmaZing Rewards credit card account. Transactional items such as cash advances, balance transfers, returned merchandise, etc. do not qualify toward $1,000 spend amount. AmaZing Cash bonus cash or AmaZing Rewards bonus reward points will be added to your balance within 4 to 6 weeks from the end of the 90-day promotion
- Money Market Bonus Cash and Reward Points – Bonus offer applies to new Money Market account, subject to approval. One Money Market bonus payment is allowed per customer, not per account or per card. Bonus not available on Business Money Market, Premier Money Market or clients with an existing Money Market account opened prior to 3/1/18. To receive $200 or 20,000 money market account bonus: 1) Upon approval, activate your AmaZing Cash® or AmaZing Rewards® Visa credit card, subject to credit approval; 2) $500 minimum opening deposit required to open a Money Market account; 3) Keep money market account active for 90 days from account opening. We will credit your AmaZing Cash or AmaZing Rewards Visa credit card within 4 to 6 weeks after completing the above money market requirements.
Avoiding Fees
Interest Checking
This account has a $10 monthly fee that is waived if you do either of the following:
- Maintain a minimum daily balance of $1,500
- Maintain a combined deposit and consumer loan balance of at least $10,000
Money Market
This account has a $12 monthly fee that is waived if you do either of the following:
- Maintain a minimum daily balance of at least $1,000
- Have a qualified Amegy personal checking account
Our Verdict
Normally when Amegy has a bonus like this it’s also available with the following banks:
- California Bank & Trust: California only
- Nevada State Bank: Nevada only
- Vectra Bank: Colorado
Sadly I can’t find any working links for those this time around. Previously they have had bonuses of up to $1,000 on business cards with the requirements being much easier to meet. This will be a hard pull to open due to the credit card. It’s a shame that you can’t do the checking/money market account without the credit card. I wonder if you’ll be taxed on these bonuses as they post to the credit card and credit card bonuses are treated as a rebate and not taxed? Overall a pretty great deal if that’s the case. I don’t know whether to add this to the best credit card bonuses or best bank account bonuses. If anybody goes for this please share your experiences in the comments below.
Hat tip to reader John
I got approved with a $29.9k limit on the personal credit card… yes.. crazy for a churning account… you need to open money market with $500 min… they let me slide for a few days which is cool… I’ll post once my bonuses post.
Wow! 😮 I thought my CC limit from them was generous, but yours is several times higher. If you see this reply and don’t mind sharing a general range your stated income falls in, I’d be curious.
I had to bring in my tax forms for past 2 years and a dba and since I got both the business credit card first I’m sure they looked at the personal card differently… I’m still waiting for the bonus I’ll call in March to follow up since that should be around 4-6 weeks after meeting the bonus requirements…
I applied for the checking and money market accounts along with the personal cc with my credit reports locked, to try and get them to combine pulls with my previous biz card app. The banker said it should work, but when he spoke to the underwriter, they said they won’t combine pulls. My bank accounts are open, but I haven’t had them pull my report to approve the personal cc. If I allow them to pull my report and get approved, do you think I’ll still get the bonus on the bank accounts since they are existing accounts now?
Just finished and closed the bank accounts.
CC $150 bonus arrived on the next statement after completing the $1000 spend.
$200 and $200 bonuses arrived within 30 days following the 90 day period.
I sent a Secure Message to verify the total accumulated cash back. There isn’t a place on their website to show you this info.
Cashed out the $560 ($10 of that was 1% cashback from the CC spend) to my checking account through their desktop website. There is also the option to apply the cashback directly to the CC balance.
Drained/closed both bank accounts in-branch to avoid any transfer fees. Could have used Zelle to drain the accounts but didn’t feel like dealing with Zelle’s $1000 daily transfer limit. Closing accounts was pretty easy, they didn’t hassle me about it, only asked how I wanted the money.
Since the $200 bonuses aren’t shown on the bank account statements, and aren’t directly deposited into the bank accounts, I’m going to assume it’s all treated as credit card bonuses.
How did you get notified of the 200$ And 200$ bonuses? Did they email you?
I kept expecting some kind of notification, but finally asked them in a secure message what my cashback balance was and that’s how I found out. I waited until a month after the 90 mark to ask, but would have asked sooner if I knew there wouldn’t be any kind of notification.
Thank you! I’m still waiting for my bonus.
How long have you had the accounts before closing? I can’t find any info on early termination.
I had them opened since July 21. I don’t think there is any ETF. I picked apart their Fee Schedule trying to make sure before I closed the account, and couldn’t find any evidence of a fee.
Hope the bonus pops up quickly!
Did the two $200 bonuses show up on the next month’s CC statement? I saw the $150 as you did when i hit that spend a few months ago. I was past 90 days during the last cycle but didn’t see anything in my new statement.
I didn’t see it on my statements. Try to redeem 400$ and see if it works. That’s what I did. Or you can contact them and ask.
It should appear on your CC statements, I thought. My first $150 bonus appeared there, as did the small cashback amounts from the purchases I’ve made. I’m in the same situation as furiouschads, had expected the $400 to show up on my most recent statement but it did not. Very awkward system where you have no idea how much you can redeem just from looking at the page where you request redemptions.
I decided to go ahead and do the ‘blindly try to redeem $400’ method. I’ll report back in a day or two if it worked.
It worked, it worked! 😀
Bonus appeared as a “Reward” in my Feb CC statement. When redeeming, enter whole dollars into their web form. Example: $400 not $400.00. AmaZing indeed.
Let us know in a few weeks what if anything shows up on a 1099 from Amegy! From what I’ve read, technically the $150 for spending $1000 and the 1% cashbacks are non-taxable ‘rebates’, but the $200s for just opening accounts should be 1099ed regardless of how it gets paid out. My $200s are going to show up too late for 2018’s 1099s, so it would be nice to know if I need to expect them to show up on a 2019 1099 a year from now or not.
I logged in online and no tax documents. Nothing in the mail either.
OK, cool. Sounds like they’re treating it all as CC rebates.
I was told I could combine hard pulls between the business and the personal credit card… $550 bonus is kind of hard to pass up even if it is another personal sock drawer card… the bonus cash back points go on the credit card so it should be a tax free $550 which makes the deal sweeter… I’m waiting to hear if I got approved on the business card deal. if so then I will pull the trigger and apply for the $550 deal as well… there is no annoying direct deposit requirement which is nice.
Possible DP on Combining Inquiries
In case it’s helpful, I contacted my local Amegy Bank in San Antonio, TX. Asked the banker about submitting the personal and biz offer together to combine inquries and she said to send her both apps and she would send them to the same person in underwriting and put a note to combine the inquiries. No guarantees, but so far, only one inquiry. I was approved for the personal in about 2 days (15k limit). LOLOL/24
I’ll update on the business once I hear back (hopefully with good news!).
Which branch in San Antonio?
8525 Wurzbach Rd, San Antonio, TX 78240
Sorry for the delayed reply!
Update, I was finally told the underwriting department couldn’t combine my credit inquiries. I guess akjohnny had better luck than me :/
The problems continue with this bank. Got charged service fee for money market even though have linked checking account. 20 minutes wasted on the phone number listed on the contact page, had to drive to a branch to get straightened out. Will bring balance up to 1k to hopefully avoid having to go there every month.
I was also charged the $12 service fee. I pointed this out to them via service message but they kept sending me different disclosures to read. No where in their disclosures do they define a qualified checking account. They refunded my money, but they are screwing people on this issue. They also refused to update their site and disclosures. I filed a complaint with CFPB and got nowhere.
Jonflow said in his comment here that Premium Interest Checking is thue only one that waives the Money Market acct fees. See the link in his comment which has a section on “No monthly maintenance fee for additional Savings or Money Market accounts linked to your account”
Amegy should be straightforward saying that ONLY their Premium Interest Checking has no monthly service fee, rather than using misleading term “qualified checking”, which tricks so many customers. Btw, this forum should not be the source of definition for their “qualified checking”.
Nowhere in their disclosures does Amegy define “qualified checking”. I called them out and asked them to show me. They kept lying to me by sending different disclosures. Filed OCC and CFPB complaint. Response on CFPB complaint was that their website was not up to date and they are in the process of upgrading. To me, this seems extremely unethical for a bank.
They definitely violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices by causing confusion about which disclosure and sending multiple ones to me. Maybe others can file complaints.
I don’t live in TX but was able to open all three accounts at a branch. I used my real out-of-state address. I did this during a visit in September. I noticed a Chex sign on the bank officer’s desk.
Good to know.
I used the Amegy Visa to open a PMCU 4% MM account with $1500 in funding. It promptly showed up on the Amegy website as a purchase (not a cash advance), and the statement (which happened to close just a couple days later) already reflects the $150 spending bonus, plus the 1% cash-back also earned on that spending. Now I’m moving on with opening the Amegy checking/MM accounts.
Once you have the checking/MM open, there is a promotion now if you try Zelle via Amegy, for a small additional bonus potential.
https://www.amegybank.com/landing-pages/zelle-incentive?cid=hpb-zelle-egift-sept18-tx
“A $5 eGift Card will be delivered to the email associated with the enrolled bank account for a qualifying use of Zelle. Qualifiers must add a new contact and complete a Zelle payment of $10 or more to that contact between “09/01/2018”, and “10/31/2018”. Zelle payments must be paid to another party with a different mailing address from the primary online banking account holder. Each account is limited to one $5 eGift Card reward. There is a maximum dollar amount of credits, as determined by Amegy Bank, under this campaign after which time the Amegy Bank may close this campaign. Your Amegy Bank bank account must be in good standing. Business accounts are excluded.”
I don’t know whether or how that ‘different mailing address’ provision is really enforced, FWIW.
I’ve now opened the Anytime Interest Checking with $1500 funding via ACH transfer from external checking account, and the Money Market with $1000. There is no CC funding option.
Checking only needs $50 minimum initial deposit, but needs $1500 minimum balance to keep it fee-free until you can close it.
Money market only needs $500 initial deposit, but needs $1000 minimum balance to keep it fee-free until you can close it.
Only the premium checking account that requires a $10k minimum balance is suitable for waiving the minimum balance requirement on the MM account, so that’s not a good workaround (you’d then have $10.5k tied up instead of $2.5k).
It appears that I was immediately approved for both accounts. The account numbers were provided on the confirmation page.
You said “Only the premium checking account that requires a $10k minimum balance is suitable for waiving the minimum balance requirement on the MM account,…”. So, is this confirmed by Amegy bank? I couldn’t find this statement in the fine prints.
Yes, as someone pointed out on July 9 https://www.doctorofcredit.com/tx-only-amegybank-up-to-550-credit-card-bonus-with-savings-checking-account-opening/#comment-615039 , the details are on their checking account comparison table. Only the Premium Interest Checking column gets a checkmark in the “No monthly maintenance fee for additional Savings or Money Market accounts linked to your account” row.
In all the other places it just vaguely says only ‘qualified’ checking accounts waive the MM fee. Well, that’s the only type of checking account that is ‘qualified’. 😐
Thanks much!
Welp, I was not actually approved for the bank accounts when the website claimed I was. I just got a phone call saying that now I need to provide a utility bill and driver’s license. Again. I thought the reason for the supposed immediate approval was that the copies I’d provided for the credit card approval were in their system. Nope, that would be too easy. sigh.
And the person who called me also sent a “secure message” to tell me how to send the copies. But the instructions in that message, after I had to create another login just to read it, say the only options are to fax the documents or to use insecure standard email. No secure upload, lol.
Update: The first message said only fax or insecure email, but then a second message said I could actually reply within the secure message thing and it allows attachments.
Note that both messages came from the domain zionsbancorp.com (Amegy’s parent company), and the phone call came from a “ZIONS BANK” caller ID.
And if you select the option to send you a copy of your reply to their secure message, the email notification you get will probably end up in your spam folder classified as a phishing attempt, because their system places your own email address on it as the ‘sender’ when sending you a copy.
I can’t find “TX only” anywhere in the small print. Reading on smartphone not very comfy though.
Can a credit card be TX (any state) only ?
If you try to apply for the credit card you will see this message: “Amegy Bank requires that applicants reside in Texas or have an existing banking relationship with Amegy Bank in order to be considered for credit. Start your banking relationship: apply for a checking or savings account online.”
So you need to open a deposit account first. Not sure if the order matters for the bonus. May want to check with them.
It sounded to me like the credit card needed to come first to be eligible for the checking/savings portions of the bonus. I think that’s the order everybody so far has attempted this in. It’ll be several months till we know for sure who gets the full bonus. 😉
I think they really want in-state people only. You will need to interact directly with employees to get approved, so managing to trick the online form (like people have done with some other bank bonuses, entering the wrong state/zip on the first screen before putting your real state/zip in later) probably won’t cut it. They send out letters telling you the only option is to go in person to a branch to get verified, but if you find a cooperative branch employee by phone, you can do it with fax or email instead. If they see your address is any further away than right over the border into another state, I doubt they’d be as cooperative; I see from your nickname that you are a bit further over the border than that. 😉 Maybe call a branch and ask if they’d be willing to accept you before you waste the credit pull. (I recommend you say you heard about the promotion from a friend/relative in Texas.) If they say yes, make a note of who you talked to, and call back to ask for that same person later when you need help getting your application verified.
New DP that a non-Texan successfully opened all 3 accounts by visiting a branch in-person: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/tx-only-amegybank-up-to-550-credit-card-bonus-with-savings-checking-account-opening/#comment-648743
Has anyone else tried linking Amegy with Personal Capital? I just tried with my Amegy online banking login (set up for credit card only so far, haven’t applied for the checking/savings yet) and Personal Capital was unable to connect with it.
I guess nobody else has tried. Once I opened the checking/MM accounts, the Personal Capital connection suddenly started working… but only for those Amegy accounts, NOT the credit card. So the problem is Personal Capital doesn’t understand Amegy credit cards at all. I have a ticket in with Personal Capital support (which they prematurely marked ‘solved’ when they saw the non-CC accounts appear, sigh) so hopefully this will eventually actually be fixed, but no idea how long it’s likely to take.
If anyone else doing the Amegy bonuses does use Personal Capital, please start a support ticket about the credit card problem too. More complaints will probably move it up the priority list.
Bleh… now they say Amegy is “only allowing us to retrieve cash and personal loan accounts” and there’s nothing they (PC) can do from their side. Disappointing.