Citibank: Open a regular checking, get $100. Link to a citi credit card and pay it with the checking, get $100 more

I got this offer today in the mail. Open a regular checking and get $100 after 120 days if account is in good standing. Link the checking account to a citi credit card and pay the bill by transferring funds and get another $100 after 90 days.

Offer not valid to existing customers.
Call 1-866-810-9040, offer code MVR3

This seems like a pretty easy way to get $200. I thought I should share.

Pete

Edit: Scan of Offer
Edit 2: Back with terms

Is this a B&M only?

Does it matter which checking account we open?

Offer code does not work!

host it here: tinypic.com

---

do you have to live in certain states to be able to open Citi checking?

hz25c said: I'm not a existing customer, but was an old customer who closed accountsYep, 8 for me.

Yeah, give me one sec. to scan the back

Term: "Offer is not transferable"

I believe this is only intended for the recipient of this offer.

I had a similar offer thru mail from Washington Mutual for free $75 when open a checking last May or June. I asked my wife to bring the letter to open a checking account, but was told the letter/offer is not transferable. Only the name on the letter qualify which is myself, NOT my wife or anyone else.

I don't have citi B&M near me. To get free checking you have to do direct deposit or do two online bill pays per month, or keep $1500 in the account. If you don't do ONE of the above, you get charged $9.95 per month. Fine but after the initial deposit, there is no way to add money to the account online or on the phone, only DD, deposit B&M, or mail a check. I just don't feel like adding money through the mail each month so I can make my two monthly online bill pays. But I just realized there may be no minimum monthly bill pay amount per individual bill paid so I could transfer $30 in intially when the account is set up and then pay two $3 (or whatever small amount) online payments a month for 4 months and have money left over from the initial deposit. I would never have to add any additional money to the account before I reach the four months and can then close it.

Edit: Citi confirms no minimum amount per online bill pay, you could make two small online payments to a creditor per month and still avoid the fee.

Thanks OP, green for you.
Worked on phone yesterday, this is my first citi checking account,piece of cake! Can't wait to deposit 1500 ,maybe will take from CITI card on 0% BT checks and get 2 easy 100$..

Your choice. EZ checking is simplest & free if you play by its terms.

Btw, apparently it's a promo related to the fact that you recently moved.

what i did was to use the online billpay (not the transfer thing) to pay $1 each time for two times each month, automatically. and then i will never need to look for that anymore.
but citi is very slow in paying prom. i needed to push them many times, and they still delayed it. it is probably fine with me since each month the account gives me 50 thankyou pts, which is like $0.5. i only keep like $30 in it, enough for a year.

Can the account be opened online?

Does the citi "access checking" count as a "Regular" checking account?

Thanks OP for the deal.
I opened an account over the phone without any problems.
I chose regular checking (you can choose EZ checking too if you wish. If you have a citicard with balances over 6K you are waived all fees on the regular checking (inlcuding check writng/ATM fees). You can choose to switch to the EZ checking at anytime and use the online bill pay 2 times a month to qualify for the service charge waiver for the EZ account.

To get the $200, you have to link this account to your existing citibank credit card ($100 for this) and make a payment (transfer) from your checking account to this card (to get the other $100).
Both these will get credited in 90-120 days.

Each of the citiproducts (checking account,debit card, savings account - they give all this to you free with this offer-gets you 50 thank you rewards points per month. You get additional 50 points for each credit card account and for using the online services = minimum of 250 or more thank you reward points per month. You also get a first order of 50 checks free.
You can make the inital fund deposit over the phone (while you open the account) with a speed pay service- with no charge to you.

So you can enter this promotion over the phone (dont have to deal with B&M) and make an easy $200.
I hope I answered some of the questions asked earlier.

My main question is if you had a citi checking account 2 years ago do you qualify for this offer. I had opened a citi checking acct about 3-5 years ago and got a bonus of $150. Then I again opened an acct about 2 yrs ago and they denied me the bonus after I had already kept $2000 with them for 4 months with no interest.

Don't want to repeat that mistake.

Citibank is owned by the Saudis with terrorist connections to al qaeda! So no, I will not sell out my country for measely $200!!!!!!!!!!!1

Green for OP! I needed a new checking account anyway, and this sweetened the deal.

UncleSam said: My main question is if you had a citi checking account 2 years ago do you qualify for this offer.

Why don't you pick up the PHONE and CALL CITIBANK and ASK THEM? No one here knows what they will do.

kclim0 said: As mentioned above, as long as you are not EXISTING CUSTOMER, you can do this.

Thanks for the answer.

soupcxan - I just don't trust their CSR. My experience over the years dealing with big company CSR's is that it is a crap shoot as to who you speak with and many are clueless on the details. I trust the Fatwallet community more because somebody has already tried it and hence that precendent is more comforting to me.

I opened a citi account with the promotion code MRV4. Per their requirements, I faxed everything they needed and successfully registered online. After several weeks, I found I still could not use the transfer service or ATM, so I called them. Actually I called several times but no solution. At last, some rep told me that my account was closed because they could not contact me by home phone (they called three times). They made me reapplied it, which made me no longer a new customer. And till now, I still did not see the $200 credit. They refused to pay and it is under the second investigation.
Did anyone have the same experience with me and give me some advice? I really feel unhappy about that.