[Expired] [WA, OR, ID & In Branch] Columbia Bank $200 Checking Bonus

Bonus is no longer showing up, click here for the best current checking bonuses

Update 3/4/2020: This has been extended until April 30th, 2020.

Update 1/2/2020: Deal has been extended until February 29th, 2020

Note: This Columbia Bank is not to be confused with this one that operates in NJ.

Offer at a glance

Maximum bonus amount: $200
Availability: In branch only, all branches are in: Washington, Oregon and Idaho. [Branch locator]
Direct deposit required: Yes, $500+ within 90 days
Additional requirements: None
Hard/soft pull: Soft pull
ChexSystems: Unknown
Credit card funding: Unknown
Monthly fees: $5, avoidable
Early account termination fee: Account must be open at time of bonus posting
Household limit: None listed
Expiration date: ~~September 30th, 2018 October 31st, 2018 November 30th, 2018 December 31st, 2018 January 31st, 2019~~ ~~February 28th, 2019~~ ~~March 31st, 2019 April 30th, 2019 June 30th, 2019~~ ~~August 31st, 2019~~ ~~January 1st, 2020~~ February 29th, 2020

Contents

1 The Offer
2 The Fine Print
3 Avoiding Fees
- 3.1 Monthly Fees
- 3.2 Early Account Termination Fee
4 Our Verdict

The Offer

Direct link to offer

Columbia Bank is offering a $200 bonus when you complete the following requirements:
- Bring in code (you get this by entering e-mail on site)
- Open a Neighborhood Account, Relationship Account or Foundation Account
- Receive a qualifying direct deposit of $500 or more within 90 days of account opening

The Fine Print

Limited time offer. Must open account by August 31, 2018 to receive offer.
To receive the $200 incentive:
- 1) Open a Neighborhood Account, Relationship Account or Foundation Account, subject to approval,
- 2) Receive at least one qualifying direct deposit of $500 or more made to the account within 90 days of account opening. Qualifying direct deposits are electronic deposits of your paycheck, pension, or government benefits (such as Social Security) from your employer or the government into your checking account.
Offer is not available to those whose personal checking accounts have been closed within 90 days or closed with a negative balance.
Limit one new offer per qualifying account, per individual.
After you have completed all the above requirements, we will deposit the incentive in your new account in the three months following the 90 day direct deposit review period.
The incentive is considered interest and will be reported to the IRS in accordance with applicable law.
Accounts overdrawn or closed at the time of incentive fulfillment are not eligible for this offer.
The person qualifying for this offer must be the primary signer on the account and must be 18 years or older.
You must present this offer code at the time of account opening to qualify for the incentive.
We reserve the right to restrict or change this offer at any time.
Number of days used to determine incentive eligibility will be calendar days. Member FDIC.
All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them

Avoiding Fees

Monthly Fees

The neighborhood account is the easiest account to keep fee free. The $5 fee is waived with any of the following:

minimum daily balance of $2,500
10 debit card transactions
One direct deposit
age 62 and older
Military ID or Student ID on record

Early Account Termination Fee

Account needs to be kept open until the bonus posts.

Our Verdict

Biggest bonus they previously offered was $100. This is $200 but the requirements are the exact same. If you live near a branch I do think this is worth doing as it’s on the bigger side when it comes to bank bonuses and it isn’t too difficult to keep fee free. Because of that I will be adding it to our best bank bonus page.

Big thanks to reader, Jacob W who let us know. Learn how to find bonuses and contribute to the site here.

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111 Comments

newest

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Nodo Boho (@guest_1064230)

September 28, 2020 21:49

#1064230

Please review ALL the text for this. It IS expired currently, but it will probably come back & the info needs to be cleaned up. If you want to leave the historical offers in place, please “strikeout” the dated/contradictory text, deprecate it, & clean everything up so that it is readable; it has a become a jumble of confusing info.

Also, please stay current! This offer was extended to 5/31, then to 6/30, then pulled early, yet you did not update to show any of those. We rely on you to have the most current info.

For future bonus seekers: This bank doesn’t train it’s employees well or communicate offers/promos to them. Also, really slow in-branch service. Brought in a neighbor to open an account for the bonus. They let us wait for a very long time while they chit-chatted with one or two customers & took another one while we were still waiting. My neighbor was furious & only stayed b/c I reminded her of the bonus & said I was staying to get it. The account manager apologized later, but kind of made excuses.

When we did this bonus in 2018, the branch didn’t even know about it or know how it worked. Luckily I had the WHOLE printout of all the fine print from their website AND the emailed bonus offer I got by requesting it from their website.

The person opening the account still tried to argue that it required *recurring* DDs, but the fine print said “*a* DD…”. I did *one* & it triggered the bonus.

They offer nothing that any other bank doesn’t offer, have stupid employees, & few locations, but they were close by me, so I left the account open for more than the usual six months. Get e-statements or they will charge you $3 for the paper. (I had a problem signing up for the e-statements on their website at the time, had to go & ask for a refund. Once credited (on-the-spot), I closed the account. Heh.)

Author

William Charles(@will)

September 29, 2020 00:37

#1064290

Nodo Boho

There are literally hundreds of these types of bonuses on the site. We try to update posts whenever we make changes but it’s simply not feasible to update every line of fine print each update. We always encourage readers to check the fine print and take screenshots when applying anyway, as terms can change with no notice.

Gary2618 (@guest_992557)

June 4, 2020 14:24

#992557

DP
1/28 Account Opened (in-branch) with promo code
2/10 PayPal $527 “Pre-authorized ACH Cr”
2/25 Postmates $597 “Pre-authorized ACH Cr”
5/17 Interest Paid $200 “new account promo”
6/4 Account closed using letter to branch

I’m going to assume that PayPal triggered the DD requirement, I only did the Postmates DD because the timing worked out for me and I wanted to have a bit of an insurance policy in case it didn’t. Customer service said I could send a letter to branch with signature to close.

asdfe (@guest_988622)

May 29, 2020 05:41

#988622

Offer seems to be extended until 6/30: “Must open account by June 30, 2020 to receive offer”

May 30, 2020 02:59

#989148

asdfe

Same link? Doesn’t work for me

Rowan (@guest_970445)

May 2, 2020 19:19

#970445

Heads up: Columbia Bank apparently has a strange and inefficient policy requiring that all account closures be done in-branch. I tried asking the phone agent if there was any way to make an exception due to the difficulty of getting to the bank these days but he said they just don’t have the authority…

Gary2618 (@guest_992548)

June 4, 2020 14:15

#992548

Rowan

I contacted them and they said I can either go into a branch or send a letter to them with instructions to close my account and my signature. I sent in the letter a few days ago, and they called me to confirm and then closed my account.

Rowan (@guest_992662)

June 4, 2020 17:23

#992662

Gary2618

Good to know, thanks. Gotta love CSR’s with different levels of training.

Steven (@guest_962800)

April 23, 2020 01:05

#962800

Columbia bank bonus appears to have been removed. There is no link to any offer. The direct link above just goes to the Columbia Bank homepage. Not same Steven as recent comment #950527