MyCardBlog

WaMu (currently Chase) is offering $100 sign up bonus for opening a new checking account and make necessary banking activities in selected states. The promotion page can be found at http://reward.wamu.com/AspxFiles/D_Offer.aspx?Offer=3596790. This is a great time for new customers currently are not banking with WaMu. The required banking activities are very simple: direct deposit or debit card transactions.

Here is how to get it:

• Open a new WaMu free checking account at above promotion page.
• Setup direct deposit to the new checking account or make 5 $10 debit card transactions.
• Wait for the $100 bonus deposited to your account.

Fine print:

Offer valid 9/8/09 – 10/16/09. To qualify for the reward, you must open a new checking account with a $100 minimum opening deposit of new money (money not currently held by this bank). Also, within 60 calendar days of account opening, you must initiate a monthly direct deposit which includes payroll, pension, Social Security or other government benefits or have at least five debit card purchases (using your PIN or signature) posted to your account. The reward will be deposited into your new account within 2 weeks after the initial direct deposit or the five debit card purchases have posted to your account. Limit one personal checking account-related reward/premium per customer, per calendar year. Offer not available on account conversions or in combination with any other offer. Reward is not considered part of the minimum opening balance. Account is subject to approval. Offer limited to one per household. Employees of JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. and our affiliates are not eligible. Reward is considered interest and will be reported on IRS Form 1099-INT.

The promotion period is 09/08-10/16. And people in the following states are not eligible: NC, AR, CT, IL, DE, FL, IA, IN, LA, MD, MO, NE, NJ, NY, TX, PA, VA, WA, WI Read more…

For those who still don’t have a checking account at Chase or WaMu, there is good news. Chase and WaMu branches will have a new checking account bonus for those who open a new checking account on President’s Day. The bonus is $100 and there is no coupon or promotional code needed. You have to go to your local branches to get the bonus and open a new checking account.

Here’s what you should do to get the bonus:

1. Call your local Chase/Wamu branches and confirm there is a checking account promotion on President’s Day with $100 bonus.

2. Go to your local Chase/WaMu branches and open a new checking account with $100 new money.

3. In order to qualify for the bonus, you have to set up direct deposit from your payroll/PayPal/ING etc and to waive monthly fees.

4. Wait for the $100 bonus show up in your new account.

Also for those who still don’t have a OLD Version Chase Freedom Card which offers 3% cash back on 5 different categories, you can still get one at local Chase Branch. Of course, this offer comes with $50 sign up bonus. The new Chase Freedom Card obviously is not as good as the old one.

The WaMu Visa Platinum Credit Card was very popular among credit card members due to its unique free FICO credit score check. Actually, the credit card was previously owned by Providian. Now, since WaMu was acquired by Chase, all financial products provided by WaMu will be merged to Chase system. In this way. the bad news is no more FREE FICO credit score will be displayed.

I believe all WaMu credit card members have received the email sent out by WaMu titled “Important information about your credit card online access”. There will be many new important changes in the near future about the WaMu credit cards. All online access to WaMu credit cards will be moved to Chase online on March 9, 2009, including credit card account management, online payments and email alerts.

The most important point in the email is “However, please note that your free FICO credit score will no longer be displayed, and only 3 months of transaction history will be available online.” If you wish to access your historical transaction information currently available online, you will need to save, download, or print it by March 1, 2009.

Online access to wamucards.com will be unavailable from March 4-8, 2009. The new website for WaMu credit card members is www.chase.com/wamucards.

But actually all the online credit card account features keep the same:

Your credit card account number will remain the same.
Just keep using your WaMu card until it expires; we’ll send you a new Chase card before the expiration date.

You can reach us at the same toll-free number.
Continue to call the phone number on the back of your card whenever you need help from a Service Representative.

You’ll pay your credit card the same way you always have.
Simply mail your payment to the mailing address on your statement. Or, beginning March 9, you can pay by phone, online or at any of our Chase or WaMu branches. We’ll send you a new payment address when your Chase card arrives.

From my points of view, there is no need to keep the WaMu credit card since the free FICO credit score feature will be no longer available.

Washington Mutual has already been sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co in this September. The previous WaMu free checking account and high yield savings account is a great combination to enjoy high interest rate from a good savings account and an easy to use checking account. This combination is reviewed here.

Today I received an email and a mail from WaMu which is offering $100 bonus for opening a free checking account at WaMu.

The email stated that:”As a valued WaMu Credit Card customer, you may have heard that we’ve joined forces with Chase, one of America’s largest banks. To celebrate our bright future, we’re offering you $100 simply for opening a WaMu Free Checking account.”

It seems that this offer is targeted to WaMu Credit Card customers. There is a promotion code came with the email. Mine is 0070-ADCR-8845. This offer ends on 01/24/2009. The online application page can be found through this link.

WaMu Free Checking Account features:

• FREE Access to over 14,000 WaMu & Chase ATMs nationwide
• FREE Checks
• FREE WaMu® Debit MasterCard® with $0 Liability Fraud Coverage
• FREE Online Banking with Bill Pay
• One overdraft or bounced check fee waived per year

The $100 bonus is a sweet deal, especially when this account only requires you to make $100 initial deposit to receive $100 bonus (no direct deposit is required!).

Plus if you use the WaMu Debit MasterCard comes with your free checking account, you have the chance to win $1,000 per day!

WaMu is running a sweepstake for the WaMu debit MasterCard users. Each time you sign for purchases between November 1, 2008 and December 31, 2008, you will be entered for a chance to win the daily prize of a $1,000 gift card. You’ll also be automatically entered to win the grand prize of $50,000 on New Year’s Eve. Please note that only the signature based transactions are counted. The details can be found here.

I believe the most surprising news today is the failure of WaMu. On Thursday, Washington Mutual Inc was closed by the U.S. government and all the assets were sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co for $1.9 billion. What a shock! This would be the biggest bank failure in US history. The largest US savings and loan will be out of US banking history in the future with more than 100 years’ history.

WaMu was one of the hardest hit banks by the housing bust and credit crisis. Although the WaMu is taken over by FDIC, all customers should expect business as usual on Friday, and all depositors are fully protected. Note that most bank failures are released on Friday, giving it the weekend to go through the books and enable them to reopen smoothly the following Monday. This time, the news is leaked from the media.

The transaction means JPMorgan Chase & Co will now have 5,410 branches in 23 U.S. states from coast to coast, as well as the largest U.S. credit card business. This means the JPMorgan Chase & Co will be the largest credit card issuer in US. At the same time, JPMorgan Chase & Co will past Bank of America and becomes the second largest bank in US just behind Citigroup. If Bank of America completes its purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co, then Bank of America will the nation’s largest bank.

Obviously,  the WaMu’s collapse is the latest of a series of takeovers and outright failures that have changed the American financial situation. Think about this: government takeovers of mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the insurer American International Group; bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc; JPMorgan Chase & Co’s purchase of Bear Stearns; the unknown future of Merill Lynch. The question remains: Who will be the next?

The full coverage of the WaMu failure can be found here.

Today I received a credit card invitation from WaMu card services. The name of the card is WaMu Real Rewards Visa Platinum Card which offers 7,000 bonus points after first purchase. I have already had a WaMu Visa Platinum Card on hand which provides free credit score monthly based on my TransUnion credit report every month (The review on this card can be found here.) . So this card is not so attractive to me (not to mention the 7000 points). However, this seems to be a new credit card product from WaMu which is currently the 9th largest credit card issuer in US. I want to briefly introduce this card here.

The basic benefits of this card

This WaMu Real Rewards Visa Platinum Card actually is previous Providian Real Rewards Card. As many of you may have already received this card, this card offers 7,000 bonus points after first purchase which can be redeemed as a $50 gift card. If you request a balance transfer at the card application, you can receive a 0% fixed APR on purchases until January1, 2010! That’s equal to 18 months 0% APR on purchases. There is no minimum amount required to do the balance transfer, so if you can transfer $100 and then pay off it in 1 or 2 months, you lose nothing but a small amount of interests. However, the 0% APR on purchases is really sweet. Besides the 0% APR, you can also get 1 point for every 1 dollar spent on this card. After you accumulate a certain amount of points, you can redeem them for a gift card from BestBuy, Target, Macy’s, Hertz, Circuit City and so on.

What else?

This is a Visa Platinum Card, so you can enjoy the built-in benefits from Visa Network like $0 liability for unauthorized charges, free auto rental collision damage waiver and many others. Plus, this card also provide free online access to your FICO credit score like other credit cards from WaMu. With WaMu credit card, you can receive automatic credit line reviews every 6 months. If you don’t make any mistakes with your WaMu credit card, your credit limit will increase automatically. These benefits seem so tempting.

However, I also receive some complaints from my readers about WaMu. He told me that his WaMu Platinum Card was closed due to the following three reasons:

• Inactivity for the last several months
• Serious delinquency
• Too many accounts recently opened

My answer is: If you use your WaMu credit card regularly and manage your credit in a normal way, you can enjoy the benefits brought to you from WaMu credit card. Anyway, if you don’t have a credit card from WaMu, you can try this one or maybe other credit card products from WaMu.

Nowadays there are many online banks offering all kinds of banking services like: checking accounts, savings accounts, money market accounts and certificate of deposits (CDs). You might be quite familiar with some of them as they are advertising all the time. However, you might also have never heard of some of them. The later sometimes may even offer better interest rates than other well-known banking institutions. Before you start your relationship with a new bank, you have to do a little bit research about the new bank. You have to make sure that the bank is insured by FDIC and have been in banking business for many years.

Following online banking institutions as recommended here provide good customer support and offer competitive rates.

1. ING Direct

I should admit that ING is not always offering best interest rate in banking industry but they are a very good online bank to deal with. Right now, their ING Orange Savings Account is still offering 3.00% APY. I choose ING as the NO 1 online bank just because of how easy they make everything. I can easily transfer any amount in and out of my account at ING. The online banking interface is also very intuitive. You can also easily refer your friends to open a new account there and both of you can get bonus. Current APY is 3.00%. (Frankly speaking, interest rate is not the most important factor when the rates only differ by 0.5%.)

2. Washington Mutual

This is my another favorite bank by far. If you open a free checking account together with an online savings account, you can get 3.30% APY. With WaMu, you can get free checks for life, cash back on your debit card purchases, free ATM withdraws, free outgoing wire transfers worldwide and most importantly, no monthly fees! Yes, WaMu is so good! You can use their online banking service without any worry. The free of fees, convenience and high yield interest make WaMu checking/savings combination a top choice for all of you.

3. HSBC Direct

If you are not comfortable with WaMu, you can consider HSBC Direct banking as another option. HSBC direct is rated as the Best Overall Online Bank by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance in 2006. HSBC currently offer a very competitive interest rate ~ 3.05% APY. Their service is completely online. You can transfer you money in and out of your current banking accounts for free. Their customer support is also very helpful. However, if you have an account at ING, I really doubt whether you will open another account at HSBC. Of course, if you have an account at HSBC, I will also doubt whether you will open another one at ING. Sometimes, once you have  a high-yield savings  account,  you really don’t need to open another one. HSBC is offering  $75 sign-up bonus through May 31, 2008 (here).

4. E*Trade

E*Trade, known as a discount online broker, is also a very competitive online bank. E*Trade only provides Complete Savings Account and Money Market Account. The reason why I put E*Trade here is you can link your banking account with your brokerage account at E*Trade  and instantly transfer funds between the two accounts. This feature enables you to transfer your funds between a savings account and brokerage account immediately. In this way, you don’t have to wait for several days until an ACH transfer completes.

Of course, there are other online banks provide great service and competitive rates. You can also consider CapitalOne Direct Banking, WT Direct, AmTrust and Emigrant Direct. They also offer great interest rates but other than that you can’t expect more. This post is open to all of you, please feel free to list your top online banking institutions.

WaMu has just started out rolling out a new saving account named “Savings for Success” which is only available to residents at Illinois, Georgia, Texas and Washington. However, not like Bank of America’s “Keep the Change” (also available at Lasalle Bank) and Wachoiva’s “Way2Save”, you just earn high interest rate in this account.

How does Savings for Success work?

You will need a checking account and then open this savings for success account, and then link them together. After that, you can set up automatic monthly transfer from your checking account to this special saving account (up to $500 per month) for t he rest of the year. In the first year, you can’t withdraw the money at this special account otherwise a penalty will be applied. The reward is 5.50% to 6.50% APY in your account for a year. After the first year, you can choose to renew at a new interest rate or close the account and take the money out from this account. The initial deposit is from $1 to $500 at your choice without monthly fees. And you can transfer from $25 to $500 per month from your checking account to this special saving account.

If you are currently using WaMu’s checking account and want to earn some interest, you may want to think about it. (link to WaMu, compare this to BOA Keep the Change & Wachovia Way2Save)
Obviously, this account is not suitable to people with large deposit. If you have lots of free money, you may want to consider WT|Direct Saving account.

• 4.30% APY*
• Accounts $10,000+
• No Fees
• FDIC Insured**
• Rate consistently in top 5% of U.S. banks
• Customer service with a direct connection to real people
• Part of a family of companies recognized globally as leaders in financial services.

Currently, the best checking and saving combination in the banking market is from WaMu. Use the free checking account together with a saving account from WaMu and you will see how much you can save!