Citibank E-Z Checking - How to make it free and get rewards

I see many people have questions about the Citibank E-Z checking account that says you get it for free if you have $1500 combined balance (CD's, e-savings, all deposit accounts included), or direct deposit, or 2 bill pays online a month. BTW - if you sign up, look for a code, I used one that will give me $25 after three months of bill pay.

This is what I did and it works in order to have e-savings (5% interest) and e-z checking for free (by the way, they do perform a credit check):
1) Set up a bill pay of $1.00/month to ING from checking. ING works well for next step.
2) Set up automatic $1.00/month from ING to checking.
3) Pay 2nd bill once a month or pay yourself to another account like ING. I pay credit card each month so this is my second bill pay.

You now have a free checking account with no minimum balance and you don't have to have any bills to pay (if you choose to pay two different accounts from checking to yourself at other banks).

Now, call citibank customer service and sign up for thank you rewards and have them send you a Thank You debit card (to earn thank you points - 1 point for every $2 dollars where you sign, 1 point for every $3 dollars when you enter your pin) - 1-800-374-9700 is the phone number

Now you get Thank You points for having multiple products from citibank. The reason I put STEP 2 in was because the $1.00 automatically going back into the citibank account from ING counts as a DIRECT DEPOSIT.

Now, sign up for Checking Plus (another name for Overdraft Protection - be careful though since they do a hard credit pull for this one), it is free if you live in New York or $5/year if you live elsewhere (might not be worth it if you live elsewhere).

So far you have this many services to earn many thank you points:
1) checking account
2) savings account
3) debit card
4) online bill payment
5) direct deposit
6) checking plus

This gives you 225 Thank You Points/month. Open up a CD (5.5% for 6 months, they do perform a credit check) and you get 300 Thank You Points/month.

Now, if you have more cash. Do all this but call customer service (phone number above) and swith to The Citibank Account and get Interest Checking (0.25%) and 600 Thank You Points or 800 Thank You Points if you have a CD.

To get a free The Citibank Account you must meet the combined balance of 6,000 dollars.

Hope this clarifies things. If anyone has any other ways to get more Thank You Points please post.

nice layout.

What I do is setup a billpay for my Citi CC and sprint long distance ,$1 every 2 weeks. That way I have no fees, no minimums, and get rewards.

It will show up after you recieve a statement for the account after you sign up for the Thank You program.

i use dividend for the CashBack

didYOUsearch said: nice layout.

What I do is setup a billpay for my Citi CC and sprint long distance ,$1 every 2 weeks. That way I have no fees, no minimums, and get rewards.

Nice idea too.

Do you get point for just having the TY debit card or do you have to actually use it?

Who would've thought all my money would end up @ CitiBank.

With the good rates they've got now, and the rewards they add on top, they've got my $. (even though their inter-bank transfers are awful slow).

timothy86 said: Anyone know if Safety Check counts as a service? It would be better than Checking Plus since they don't do a hard credit pull to sign up for this service. It just transfers money from your savings if your checking account is overdrawn for a $5.00 fee each time, but if you don't overdraw your account (I know I never have) then if it counts for the rewards it is a good deal.

I use this website as the gold standard for qualifying for points....Safety Check is not listed as something that earns points. Sorry I can't get the link to work right on FWF but it works for me if you copy and paste.

https://web.da-us.citibank.com/cgi-bin/citifi/portal/ps/detail.do?M_M=S&BS_Id=CBNATYRNRewards

According to the Citi EZ-checking $200 signup thread, there is still an active $200 bonus offer for signing up for the Citi checking account. I believe the deal now is that you must do 2 billpays per month for 12 months or something of that sort.

Link

The terms page seems to be down at the moment due to a server error, so I'm not sure what the exact T&C are.

Edit: Fixed link; sorry.

I know most of this info has been said, but I found it mostly mixed in many different threads. So I just wanted to compile everything in one thread and I'll constantly update with current information.

Banks are very competitive right now.

CD3J
from the other tread :$200

Can anyone give me the router number for EZ Checking or E-Savings? I lookedon Citi's site it says its by state where you opened the account and Citi doesn't even have a presence in Wis

1) Set up a bill pay of $1.00/month to ING from checking. ING works well for next step.
Forgive my noobiness but how do you setup bill pay to ING from Citi checking? ING isn't on the Merchant Directory list (Payee list). Help!
i do a monthly direct deposit of $1 by paypal/ach push.
I understand that counts as a DD, but is it possible setup an automatic pmt each month?
i send myself $1 monthly using online bill payment.
So by sending yourself $1 monthly using bill payment, that simply means sending your self a $1 check right?

Thanks!

To do a monthly BILL PAY to ING you have to add it. It is not in the merchant directory so you must physically enter the ING address and you ING account number by choosing a new billy pay (not merchant directory). The ING address is on their website. I called ING and they said by doing that, Citibank will send them a check each month and it would go through fine.

To do automatic $1 (or whatever amount) from ING to Citibank, you must log on to your ING account and click on the automatic savings plan. Then set up the $1 to go from ING to Citibank (the automatic savings plan works either way).

The sending yourself the $1 bill pay to get the 2nd bill pay a month(if you don't have any other bills to pay, it is easier if you have another bill), is by setting up another bill pay (manually) to a third bank account you have.

Like I said, it is easier if you have some other bill to pay so you don't have all these $1 charges entering and leaving your account, it gets confusing to look at. LOL

dw123 said:

timothy86,

When you set up the automatic transfer from ING to Citibank, does Citibank automatically see it as a direct deposit? If not, what do you have to do to set up a direct deposit at Citibank?

Thanks.

I just did this with GMAC every two weeks. Only 1 payment posted before the end of the Citi statement and I never told Citi about this. My Thank You points included the points from the direct deposit.

timothy86 said: Any money coming from ING to Citibank is viewed by Citibank as a Direct Deposit as long as you initiated the transfer from the ING side.

Correct, it's been verified in this thread(along with other banks). Thank you so much for everything Timmy!

How long should it take after u link your bank accounts for TY points? I just looked at my TY account and shows only 2 sponser accounts (my 2 cc's). Or does it not even show up at all?

Well, you do have to log into your thank you account and then click the "add an account" button to get your bank accounts tossed in.

I don't know the time for initial linkage, but there is a lag involved in getting points too. My statement was cut on the 18th, and the points haven't yet appeared (the 23rd), but I think they'll show up soon.

davef139 said: which account number do i use? i tried to use a few my account numbers and my debit number but neither took. Im sure i overlooked something really stupid

Your actual account number from your actual checking account (10-11 digits).

I recall reading a post I can no longer locate that you can have a completely fee free citibank account (the $6000 min type) if you bank where your employer banks. I can't find the "citibank at work" website. It's not coming up with my searches at the citibank.com site. I was curious if any FW'rs are familiar with this program.

I'd love to make 600 TYp's/month with no bal req.

Found the link:

Citi at Work