Wachovia Way-2-Save

Hc000 said: One full dollar moved from our checking to saving ?

OR

One full dollar MATCHED by the bank to our saving?

One full dollar moved from our checking to saving AND 5% of total balance matched by bank (at anniversary) ATOP 5% interest rate on acct.

thanks for posting, this seems very hot...can the $100 transfer happen with each purchase/transaction?

from how i read the above, you can basically get 10% on $6000. Make 60 transactions, $6000 goes into the savings account (assuming its setup to transfer $100 each time), earning $300 "base interest" at 5% and $300 bonus from the additional 5% at the end of the year. If you can have 5 of these accounts, youll need to make 300 transactions but will earn 10% on $30,000. Not bad.

I'm on Wachovia's website right now and see no mention of this. Where can we find out more about this?

Each trans only moves $1.

Each month, you can move (through their auto xfer process) $100.

Thus, if you do bill pays, auto debits, or check card purchases, the max you can move in a year is $1200. Other deposits to the account are not allowed.

With the number of bill pays I do, I will likely max out the $1200 auto xfer and then put about $30-$40 per month in the account. Thank you BT arbitage. For me, that means at the end of the year I will have contributed the following:

$1200 auto-xfer
$360 - $480 bill pay $1 xfer
$78 - $84 interest
$81.90 - $88.20 bonus

The more bill pays, the more it contributes. Plus there is a bonus in the 2nd and 3rd anniversary, but that is only 2%.

The rep in South Florida told me that this is only advertised in branches at this time. Within the next week or two should be a national roll out (and on the website).

CycloneFW said:
The rep in South Florida told me that this is only advertised in branches at this time. Within the next week or two should be a national roll out (and on the website).

So, currently, in branch only? or in selected areas?

update: 9:50am ET: I called my branch, no rep, so they transfered me to the calling center...asked the lady and the lady needed to transfer me.

The official roll out date for thie account (including links on website) is 1/15/08 However, I was able to open the account over the phone...

Jokingly, keep 6k in the account for the $300 bonus? (I'm not a math major...but if the max bonus $300, then just make sure there's 6k in the account by the end of the year...)

Can a person ACH the 6k into the account and just let it sit? I know a person can't goto the branch to make deposits for this account, but ACH push might work?

SUCKISSTAPLES said: So then it seems the "practical/easy max" to this deal, if you dont want to do transactions or billpays , will make about 10% on $6000, earning $600 (assuming you have 5 accounts, each set to do the $100 autotransfer each month). No billpay and transactions needed. At the end of the day youll earn about $300 more than a normal 5% account.

You wouldn't quite make 10% on the $6000, would you?

Since the balance builds from $0 at a rate of $100/month (or $500/month with 5 accounts), then the average balance for the whole year would be $3000 across all the accounts. So you'd get 5% of that ($150) from interest throughout the year (roughly, I'm ignoring compounding to keep it simple), and 5% ($300) of the year-end total ($6000) from the bonus.

So $450 total, or $150 more than you'd get with a normal 5% account (into which you could have deposited the full $6000 on the first day of the year)

Or do both

SUCKISSTAPLES said: This is worse than BofA since you could do 1.01 transactions and make 99 cents.

I am confused on this part. In Keep the Change, doesn't that $0.99 come from your own checking acct? If that is the case, then BoA's would be worse as the maximum you could xfer would be $0.99. Wachovia's would always be $1.

Now, if you meant something about the bank contributing, please elaborate (or point me to the right thread).

I realize that this may not make me rich, but it is something I can easily contribute and does not require any additional work on my part (bill pays and auto-debits, I rarely use my debit card).

blkonblk said: SUCKISSTAPLES said: So then it seems the "practical/easy max" to this deal, if you dont want to do transactions or billpays , will make about 10% on $6000, earning $600 (assuming you have 5 accounts, each set to do the $100 autotransfer each month). No billpay and transactions needed. At the end of the day youll earn about $300 more than a normal 5% account.

You wouldn't quite make 10% on the $6000, would you?

Since the balance builds from $0 at a rate of $100/month (or $500/month with 5 accounts), then the average balance for the whole year would be $3000 across all the accounts. So you'd get 5% of that ($150) from interest throughout the year (roughly, I'm ignoring compounding to keep it simple), and 5% ($300) of the year-end total ($6000) from the bonus.

So $450 total, or $150 more than you'd get with a normal 5% account (into which you could have deposited the full $6000 on the first day of the year)

It's true that you can't drop the full amount in from day 1, but I think we can assume that you'll be holding it in your normal 5% interest account until you can auto-xfer it in. So really, the bonus here is being able to get the 5% bonus on some of your money at the end of the year. You'll earn the 5% interest on the money whether you have it in Wachovia or somewhere else.

I will probably go ahead and set this up for myself. I already opened a Wachovia checking account for the sign-up bonus last fall, so I'd just need to add the savings. I can get an extra $60 if I put in $100/month, and the only cost is the time to set up the account, and the loss of liquidity of the $1200 until the end of the year.

The debit card doesn't seem as good of a deal, since you basically are making 5 cents per transaction (5% bonus at end--w/o this account, you could have the money sitting elsewhere at 5%, so that part is a wash). As for using the checking account for billpay to get 5 cents per transaction, I think I'll keep using an interest bearing checking account to pay my bills.

DeGlass said: CycloneFW said: I am confused on this part. In Keep the Change, doesn't that $0.99 come from your own checking acct?
BoA KTC: 100%-match first 90 daysPlus you can pull it back out the next day, so you are getting 100% yet only tying up your money for less than a week.

blkonblk said: So $450 total, or $150 more than you'd get with a normal 5% account (into which you could have deposited the full $6000 on the first day of the year)No it should be $300.

The monthly $100 deposits (x5 accounts) earn 5%, and for simplicity sake lets say you would earn that same 5% elsehwhere. So that part is a wash.

The end of year bonus of 5% is where you make the money, and at the end of the year you should have $6000 accumulated among all the accounts, earning roughly a $300 bonus.

no, its much better. From what CycloneFW has said, its a savings account that pays 5%APY on your deposits PLUS 5% year end bonus. At $6000 year end balance, it would earn $300 more than an account paying 5%

The account earns 5% on deposited money as its deposited, and (assuming 5 accounts at $1200 each, you will get an additional $300 bonus at year end.

FYI for all: I emailed a CSR who is in the process of setting this up for me already. Should be done tomorrow. I didn't even have to speak to anyone

Even for the lazy $100/month deposit = $32.5 + $60 bonus = 92.5/1200 = 7.7% return. Can't you just use paypal or google checkout to pay people 0.01 to max transfers each month beyond billpay? Or just a combination of multiple pays?

Information from Wachovia website:
http://wachovia.com/personal/page/0,,11_481_12660,00.html

Press release: LINK

kloide said: FYI: Online billpay doesn't count. Rep says billpay only counts if you pay w/ check card.
Also if you don't use your check card and only do auto transfers every month, they might convert the account to a premium checking account. This is per the rep. not my words.
After reading the T&C, this is within their rights.
This account is for the purpose of getting people to use their check cards. That's the gist of it.

Also from their terms, if you don't use your card for say 3 months, they can convert to premium. Seems like a PITA.

Actually....looks like a big nothing....all you get is 5% on each of your own dollars that they automatically transfer to savings....and it doesn't say anything about the RATE of the Savings Account being 5%...just the bonus on the dollars that
get transferred (on the first page of this thread, it says that the Savings Account in this set-up pays 5%)......

At least BOA gives you a 100% match for the first three months, this doesn't even do that....

So what is really so outstanding about it?????

gwu1986 said: craig10x said: Actually....looks like a big nothing....all you get is 5% on each of your own dollars that they automatically transfer to savings....and it doesn't say anything about the RATE of the Savings Account being 5%...just the bonus on the dollars that
get transferred (on the first page of this thread, it says that the Savings Account in this set-up pays 5%)......

At least BOA gives you a 100% match for the first three months, this doesn't even do that....

So what is really so outstanding about it????? Actually, footnote 3 states the 5% APY. BUT it also says the savings rate is variable and subject to change.
How is that different from any other savings account with a variable rate?

Called CS, they said rate is 5% and bonus rate is 5% at end of the year. Not sure why this is so hard to grasp.

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......