Editor’s Note: As of February 20th, 2021, this offer is no longer available. We will update this post whenever this offer returns – until then, our post on the best bank bonuses and promotions has other offers that might interest you or click here to sign up for our email newsletter and get notified of new bank promotions.
What if I told you that a bank would give you $200 just to open an online checking account? Plus another $50 when you pair it with a new savings account?
Banks are competing with one another for your business, especially during these turbulent times, and they are willing to give hundreds of dollars for you to switch to their bank as your primary bank.
BBVA USA Bank will give you $200 if you open one of their online checking accounts if you meet a few other conditions. They’ll even throw in an additional $50 if you open a savings account too.
Before we get to the exact steps you need to take, I want to clarify that BBVA USA is an FDIC insured bank (FDIC #19048), just like every other bank I list on the site. This offer may be for an online bank account but they are not an online bank, they have over six hundred branches and ATMs. We did a full review on BBVA USA Bank here.
Table of Contents
How Do I Get $250 from BBVA
BBVA is willing to give you up to $250 if you satisfy a few simple conditions when opening a checking and savings account.
The bonus is has two parts – the biggest bonus is for opening the checking account:
- Open a new BBVA Free Checking Account with the promo code WB2021 (in-branch) or WBOL2021 (online) by 2/19/2021,
- receive a qualifying direct deposit of at least $500 by April 30, 2021
- If you do this, you will get $200. That’s it!
You can open the online checking account with a minimum deposit of $25 and the account has no monthly account maintenance fees or service charges. There is a $3 monthly fee for paper statements but you can elect to get them electronically for free.
The second part is a $50 bonus for opening a new savings account:
- Open a new BBVA Online Savings account by 2/19/2021,
- Have a balance of at least $1,000 on 4/30/2021,
- Get $50!
The savings account has no quarterly service charge and you earn a little bit of interest too.
Available to residents of TX, AL, AZ, CO, CA, FL, and NM.
Member FDIC.
Get up to $250 from BBVA USA today!
(Offer expired 2/19/2021)
How Does This Offer Compare?
This offer is very strong considering you only need to receive $500 in direct deposits to get the $200 bonus. The $50 bonus for a new savings account with a balance of $1,000 is also quite easy to accomplish as well. For how easy this bonus is to get, the bonus amount is quite good.
If you have your pick of any bonuses, and you have more cash on hand (like $10,000 or more), there are other offers that may be more appealing.
Chase Total Checking – $200
Chase offers $200 if you open a Total Checking Account but the requirements are a little more stringent. The checking account also requires you to set up and receive a direct deposit within 60 days, but it doesn’t have a dollar amount requirement. There is also a monthly service fee that you can avoid if that direct deposit is over $500, so it functionally creates the same requirements.
Citibank – $700
Citibank will give you as much as $700 in bonus money but you need to deposit as much as $50,000 in new-to-Citibank funds to qualify.
HSBC Checking – $240 – $600
HSBC has an offer with their Advance Checking where you can get up to $240 based on your direct deposits, 3% cash bonus up to $240. With their HSBC Premier Checking, the same offer applies but the amount goes up to $600.
SoFi Money — up to $100
Finally, SoFi Money will give you up to $100 as long as you deposit $250 to get $25 then set up a direct deposit of $500 or more to get another $75. No account fees so it’s truly free money you don’t have to worry about. The amount is lower but the requirements are easier.
As you can see, the big dollar amount bonuses require cash to be parked into an account – this BBVA offer does not require that which makes them very appealing.
Make sure to check out our guide on bank account bonuses to know what to watch for in these types of offers.
Tom says
“Open an online savings account by August 21st, 2020 and maintain a balance of at least $1,000 through October 21st, 2020. If you do this, you will get an additional $250.”
It’s an additional $50 for the savings account. The above implies 250 on top of the 200 for a total of 450.
Jim Wang says
Whoops, that’s a typo – thanks!
Alfred Lai says
How do I qualify for $200 bonus if I do not set up a “qualifying direct deposit from payroll” of $500 to tne new BBVA checking by 10/31/2020? I have direct deposit to my local major banks at Citi and Chase. Please advise.
Jim Wang says
You can’t get the bonus without changing your direct deposit so they go to the BBVA checking account.
Luda L. says
Do the weekly unemployment funds qualify under the “$500 direct deposit?”
Jim Wang says
You’ll have to ask and find out because I don’t know how it’s processed.