craig10x said:I read footnote 3..and it seems like it is referring to getting 5% APY on the transferred amount, and then 2% for each year after that....

And even if the Savings Account actually pays 5%, it would only be for year one and then it becomes a 2% Savings account.....but i still don't see anything on that page that says that the normal rate for ALL MONEY in the Savings Account (not just the "transferred" amount) earns a 5% APY...

Perhaps the CSR you spoke to is confused about it? (wouldn't be the first time that ever happened)
Seems to me if it was the way you are presenting, then it big bold letters it would say: 5% APY Savings Account with 5% Bonus on top for all funds transferred to it from Check Card Purchases..and i am not seeing that on that page...

I suggest you double check this with a supervisor at Wachovia before you jump into it......

It really is 5.00% APR (APY?) + 5% annual bonus. But the catch is that both of these percentages are for the first year only. For years two and three, they are 2% each. In the link provided above, there is a "Way2Save Calculator" (http://wachovia.com/misc/0,,1757,00.html) that shows this. If you zero out the check card and bill pay transactions and set the monthly contribution to $100 (the maximum allowed), then the result for one year will be $1200 plus $32 interest plus $60 annual bonus. For the second year, the interest and "bonus" are $39 and $24 respectively.

Bottomline: If you already use Wachovia, then setting up this thing for a year is worth 60 bucks. It makes no sense to keep it longer than that.

Details are now on their web site:
http://www.wachovia.com/personal/page/0,,11_481_12660,00.html

They are now accepting applications. They started on Jan. 12. There is a 300 limit on the bonus (the 5% the first year...). So basically you have to save 6000 in order to hit the limit. If you transfer 100 each month you will still need 4800 transcation in order to hit the limit. There is also a $25 Refer a friend promotion with Wachovia ($25 for you and for me). If anyone is interested in making an additional $25 PM me.

Happy Savings and go make those transcations!

For the most part, no regular person will be near the 4800 purchases to move enough funds to reach the cap of $300. Thus, this is merely a stop gap to the FatWallet effect where someone realizes, what if I just do all my purchases in $1 increments. The bank will make a decent chunk of change in the merchant fees, but then they have so much more to pay out at 5%. Keep in mind, that the expectation (generally) is for rates to continue to go down over the next year. Thus, they are making sure they can cap this in case of an ingenius FatWalleter gaming the system to put thousands in there. I could see someone actually coming up with a way to get all 5 Way-2-Save accts someone could have maxed out with $30k in there. At that point, they are paying interest on a decent amount of funds.

This is not to say the bank will not make money hand over fist with this account and that this account cannot get you an extra chunk of change, but it is something that requires little additional effort to start savings for the masses. BTW, I plan to use this with the auto $100 xfers not to earn more money off an account (the bonus I would get is not the drive for me to use this acct), but rather, to keep some emergency overdraft protection money on hand at high"er" interest.

If you just xfer $100 and don't make bill pays or check cards, the gain is $92, $63, $88 for each of first three years. It doesn't worth so much trouble to set it up, unless you already have a Wachovia checking.

Try their calculator Calc

samchocolate said:If you just xfer $100 and don't make bill pays or check cards, the gain is $92, $63, $88 for each of first three years. It doesn't worth so much trouble to set it up, unless you already have a Wachovia checking.

Try their calculator CalcYou are allowed to open up to five W2Save accounts linked to five Free checking accounts, $100 auto monthly from checking to W2S account = $6000 1st year + 5% int + $300 bonus. Multiply this by the number of household members. For me it's an easy $900 bonus and a decent 5% rate.

gwu1986 said:samchocolate said:If you just xfer $100 and don't make bill pays or check cards, the gain is $92, $63, $88 for each of first three years. It doesn't worth so much trouble to set it up, unless you already have a Wachovia checking.

Try their calculator CalcYou are allowed to open up to five W2Save accounts linked to five Free checking accounts, $100 auto monthly from checking to W2S account = $6000 1st year + 5% int + $300 bonus. Multiply this by the number of household members. For me it's an easy $900 bonus and a decent 5% rate.

Now the big questions are:

1- Can I do ONLY the $100 xfer? Keep the checking account without ANY bill pays or checks?

2- Can I deposit $100 monthly from my savings account to Wachovia checking, just to have it auto-xferd to Way-2Save?

bittul said:Now the big questions are:

1- Can I do ONLY the $100 xfer? Keep the checking account without ANY bill pays or checks?

2- Can I deposit $100 monthly from my savings account to Wachovia checking, just to have it auto-xferd to Way-2Save?

1 - No. But you can withdraw or transfer out of the Way-2-Save acct at any time. Keep in mind that this is a savings acct and while teller and ATM trans are unlimited, online banking xfers and auto-debits are limited to 6 per month.

2 - Yes. This is what some of my friends have done to maximize all 5 Way-2-Save accts they each can have. They open up 5 checking accts. Set up in online banking or with Wachovia's internal system to do an xfer from one acct to these 5 checking accts. Then Way-2-Save pulls its $100 from each and they end up saving at least $5k over the year @ 10%.

EDIT to clarify #1 above. No, you cannot turn off the $1 xfer for each bill pay and debit card purchase, but you are not required to do any significant transactions for that. I think someone else mentioned that as long as you have 1 $1 xfer every 3 months, you are golden.

gwu1986 said:bittul said:Now the big questions are:

1- Can I do ONLY the $100 xfer? Keep the checking account without ANY bill pays or checks?

2- Can I deposit $100 monthly from my savings account to Wachovia checking, just to have it auto-xferd to Way-2Save?1. Yes 2. Yes

Thanks alot.

Went ahead and opened 1 free-checking + 1 way-2-save with the representative over the phone, then opened several more online.

Now, when I log on, I have 5 checking accuonts and 6 way-2-saves. How do I know which way-2-save is linked to which checking, and which one is the redundant?

(BTW, the phone rep agreed to stack a $25 referal on top of the $50 bonus).

Oh, and what am I going to do with the 5 check cards that I get?

Bagofchips said:So just to clarify what seems to be implied from this thread and I haven't been able to see an online disclosure for this program (I've seen the marketing page, not the T&C).

Even if you set up 5 checking accounts, ea w/ their own W2S accounts, the $300 bonus cap is combined across all accounts - it's a customer-level, not account-level thing?

That is, you can't get $1500 of bonus (5 x $300) across all 5 of your accounts if you've got a knack for doing a lot of charges?

Thx.That's my understanding, too.