Lucrative Free To Sign Up Offers?

[james.hendrickson]

SA Community,

In my spare time, I like to look for bonus offers - specifically those that pay you to sign up without needing to transfer any cash, sign up for direct deposit or anything like that.

I've done okay with Acorns, SoFi and Webull.

Are you guys working any lucrative "free to sign up" type offers?

[HundredK]

I'd like more info as I'm not exactly sure what you mean. Can you explain how you got free money with SoFi without signing up for anything? It seems you'd need to take a loan with them to get any incentive, yes? I'm interested in the idea though!

[james.hendrickson]

I'd like more info as I'm not exactly sure what you mean. Can you explain how you got free money with SoFi without signing up for anything? It seems you'd need to take a loan with them to get any incentive, yes? I'm interested in the idea though!

Basically you sign up for a stock brokerage account with SoFi, and they'll give you like 5 bucks or 10 bucks worth of free stock.

[HundredK]

So basically, like bank churning? I did a Chase offer last year and got something like $600 for opening checking/savings. I thought it would be the start of looking for more offers and that I'd start churning, but then it turned out I really like Chase. From what I hear, churning the bank offers can get you a lot more than just letting it sit even in a high yield savings account. But it takes a lot of effort and remembering when it's ok to move money out.

[james.hendrickson]

So basically, like bank churning? I did a Chase offer last year and got something like $600 for opening checking/savings. I thought it would be the start of looking for more offers and that I'd start churning, but then it turned out I really like Chase. From what I hear, churning the bank offers can get you a lot more than just letting it sit even in a high yield savings account. But it takes a lot of effort and remembering when it's ok to move money out.

Well its similar, I think the brokerage firms need more business, so they're basically rewarding people for signing up with a modest reward -they'll give you a share of stock under 10 bucks or whatnot.

[disneysteve]

I’m not opening an account for a 5 or 10 dollar perk.

[myrdale]

I’m not opening an account for a 5 or 10 dollar perk.

Yeah, that is kind of my thought. And it is less about the headache and more about the exposure of having multiple accounts out there.

On another thought, thinking about the credit cards that give you 5% back for what you spent, I assume that doesn't apply to moving a balance over? If you had 5 cards and each month you moved say $1,000 balance from one card to another to another...

[disneysteve]

Yeah, that is kind of my thought. And it is less about the headache and more about the exposure of having multiple accounts out there.

On another thought, thinking about the credit cards that give you 5% back for what you spent, I assume that doesn't apply to moving a balance over? If you had 5 cards and each month you moved say $1,000 balance from one card to another to another...

The 5% deals are always for purchases in certain categories: gas, groceries, Amazon, etc. And no, I don't believe balance transfers ever count.

[QuarterMillionMan]

I did a HSBC bank new checking account free $200 which only required that the account remain open for 6 months but this was 2 or 3 years ago. After satisfying the requirement I closed the account and took the money and ran.

Edit to add, they might have required a minimum $10,000 deposit which is kind of an important detail but I forget and it wasn't a big deal for me at the time.