Free $250/year in change from BoA Debit

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/051005/clw050.html?.v=25

"When a customer signs up for Keep the Change, the amount of every purchase they make with a Bank of America debit card is automatically rounded up to the nearest whole dollar and transferred from the customer's checking account into their savings account at the end of the day."

first 3 months, 100% match
afterwards 5%

max $250/year

does this mean $1.01 rounds up to $2? or $1.51 rounds up to $2?

if the former/latter is true, that means you require a minimum of 250-500 transactions in 3 months to fully take advantage of 100%, although 5% ain't bad

(i'm assuming they pay for this program by charging merchants 5-25c per transaction +2.25%)


[hehe, Loose Change Social Security Plan]

wonder if the first 3 months is of the program, or per person based on their signup?

lot's of $1.01 charges to Verizon/Cingular/etc. coming up I bet!

For example, when purchasing a coffee with a debit card, the difference between the $2.85 cost and $3.00 - or 15 cents - would be transferred electronically. In addition, Bank of America will match 100 percent of the Keep the Change transfers for the first three months. After that the bank will contribute five percent a year. The maximum match is $250 annually.

"Our customers told us they want a simple way to save, so we

Interesting card. As OP Said they seem to withdraw MORE than the purchase from your checking, and move the extra change into your savings account. For 90 days they match this 100% making this a HOT DEAL and deposit double your 'change.' but then they only match 5% making it WARM upto $250/year. I see alot of people pumping $1.01 in gas in the future :->

XFreebie said: under the 5% rule, you would need a minimum of 5000 transactions/year to reach $250

also, although some of you would be tempted to purchase your gasoline in $1 increments, i'm sure it would lock up the card after the 2nd or 3rd times by their automated fraud detection, or are debit cards different?

plus, 500 gallons of gasoline in 3 months? no wayWhere are you buying gas for a buck a gallon?

If you make more on your credit card Cash Back then just stick to that. For smaller purchases the first three months of the promo (100% period) it makes sense.

The break even point on average (assuming the average charge ends in 50 cents) is then $50 on a 1% Cash Back CC or $10 on a 5% everyday purchase (many CC's out there). If you charge less then these within the three month promo use your Debit else the CC. After three months it makes way more sense to use the CC.

NOTE: Since you are going to be getting 5% on gas purchases even if you would get the max 99cent return from this BofA offer you still get more via the Cash Back CC's (assume $40 gas then you get $2 Cash Back from you CC).

During the 100% three month window only:

On a 25 cent ending charge the break even on 1% is $75 and on 5% everyday purchase is $15
On a 75 cent ending charge the break even on 1% is $25 and on 5% everyday purchase is $5

That's a brilliant Win-Win idea from BoA. The customer and the bank both win. The retailer, is the big loser. Especially the gas stations that provide no fee ATM transactions.

What does it mean of "Getting started is easy. Visit your nearest Banking Center to enroll today."?

Does it mean to enroll a BofA account, or enroll in this program?

I saw the following:
Earn a promotional match up to $250 per anniversary period for each checking account with the Keep the Change savings service. You will not receive the matching funds for: a) credits or other adjustments related to POS purchases, such as those for purchases that are cancelled or returned; b) purchases of cash-like items, such as money orders, traveler’s checks, foreign currency, cashier’s checks, gaming chips, and other similar instruments and things of value; c) Account funding transactions including transfers to open or fund deposit, escrow, or brokerage accounts and purchases of stored value cards.We may terminate the matching promotion at any time without notice.

Would stamps count as cash-like items?

Very(the most?) creative banking promo
BOFA really tries to make you use your debit card!

If you just want to max it out however, there are few cons:
- you don't want to make many small purchases from the same place(I guess max that would fly under the radar would be 3-5 small purchases a month from the same place)
- you have to varry the purchase amounts, so you can't just make a bunch of $1.01 purchases
- you have to make some larger purchases too, otherwise your bank statement would look very suspicious
- you have to go to the branch to sign up
- you cat the match at the end of the year To make it even easier to save. Our reward will be paid annually to your savings account.


it's too much work for $250

Looks like a BoA savings account become necessary. Any current promotion/bonus for opening a savings account?
Thanks.

So the theory is that by slooooowly taking money out of checking and into savings BOA helps people save.

1) People are going to go ga-ga using this and THEN realizing that they are paying out cash faster than they need to (grace period on credit cards)

2) Draw down on BOA checking a bit quicker, not because of the rounding but just using it on more transactions.. maybe more people go below their monthly minimum requirements?

... I'm trying to find BOA's angle on this.

... Also, do the merchants pay a larger transaction fee on this? (because purchase price is higher?)

Waiting for BOA to help Americans off drugs too!

Can we buy 10 gum packs , using separate transcations on the automated checkout station in grocery stores.
Each pack of gum is 20 cents.
Does that mean BofA will deposit 8 dollars into my savings account ?

bhupeshm said: So the theory is that by slooooowly taking money out of checking and into savings BOA helps people save.

1) People are going to go ga-ga using this and THEN realizing that they are paying out cash faster than they need to (grace period on credit cards)

2) Draw down on BOA checking a bit quicker, not because of the rounding but just using it on more transactions.. maybe more people go below their monthly minimum requirements?

... I'm trying to find BOA's angle on this.

... Also, do the merchants pay a larger transaction fee on this? (because purchase price is higher?)

Waiting for BOA to help Americans off drugs too!

Even if they don't make money out of it. And they will because the savings account give 0.5% of interest, and people will use their card more, they just got a lot of positive PR for nothing much.
How many non FWers will bother go to the bank and sign for it?

fotomaniak said: there are few cons:
- you don't want to make many small purchases from the same place(I guess max that would fly under the radar would be 3-5 small purchases a month from the same place)
- you have to varry the purchase amounts, so you can't just make a bunch of $1.01 purchases
- you have to make some larger purchases too, otherwise your bank statement would look very suspicious.

Maybe I missed something in the rules, but why couldn't you make a bunch of small purchases? Who cares if it looks "suspicious".

Is anyone forgetting that Bofa accounts have the lowest shiieeettttttt ball interest rates. I hope you do not plan on keeping real money in there. Also see my post about the break even points and note that you will make more over the course of a year via your Cash Back credit card anyhow.

I will sign on for this.
At work I have access to the CC machine and I can just charge $1.01 every day.
$250 free money for me at least.

btw, there is a $25 bonus from Bank of America for opening up a savings account. just need to locate that link.


edit: found the link here for the lazy $25 Bonus for opening a Regular Savings account

go back and read it again slickdoobie, from what I understand...

Say you have $100 in checking
$0 in savings
You go and buy a piece of candy for $1.01

They will move $0.99 from your checking to savings
They will match that 100% in the 1st 3 months (give you $0.99)

Now your account looks like:
checking $98.00
savings $2.99 (your $2 plus their 100% match of $0.99)

did I read this wrong?

xpguy said:
did I read this wrong?

I guess so.
they would move the round off , 1 - (cents portion of your purchase) , amount to your savings
so they would move 0.99 of your money from checking to savings.
for the first 3 months they would match that 100% so add another 0.99 to savings
So in total you would have
98 in checking
1.98 in savings.
& 1.01 worth of candy .

opps you're right, I forgot to deduct the cost of the candy bar from savings

motsuka said: have any of you had your paypal account(s) closed for doing too many $0.01 thigs

Yes, recently i had my Paypal acccount blocked for unusual charges( 6 X $.01 charges)...funny thing is, i have been doing this .01 thing for a while now (4 BOA KTC accounts with successful 250X4 match pending)...they blocked me when i was working on 5th KTC accnt though..need to get creative now.