Banking
Commerce Bank: My Latest Banking Bonus Success Story
Apparently, when you move into a new house, you get a lot of random mail. A lot of this is absolute spam — yet some of it can be quite lucrative. For example, we received plenty of coupons for various retailers or services in our area. However, one mailing in particular managed to get my attention: one from Commerce Bank offering me a bonus.
Being no stranger to banking bonuses, I was immediately intrigued. So, I then decided to take a closer look and ultimately elected to open an account and go for it. How’d it work out for me? Let’s take a look at my experience with Commerce Bank and redeeming my specific offer.
Earning My Bonus from Commerce Bank
The offer
With the Commerce Bank offer that was sent to me, I could earn a $300 bonus just for opening a free checking account and completing a few relatively simple tasks. Specifically, I needed to:
- Use the promo code and open a free checking account
- Make 10 debit card transactions within 60 days
- Have a balance of at least $300 at the end of the promotion
There are a few things about this offer that I think are notable and made it worthwhile to me. First, unlike many bank bonuses, there was no direct deposit required. Granted, since I’m able to manage my payroll direct deposit details online, arranging to have my paychecks go to a new account in order to meet these requirements isn’t a huge deal — but not having to worry about it at all is even better.
What’s also key is that this truly is a free checking account. In some cases, when chasing bank bonuses, you’ll need to deposit a certain amount or maintain a level of activity in order to avoid fees. Instead, all that was needed here was an opening deposit of at least $25.
Lastly, while they listed a number of transactions, they didn’t state how much those transactions would need to total. I love that as it means I can use the debit card for smaller purchases and minimize the number of regular credit card rewards I’d be sacrificing in the process.
For all of those reasons, I decided that it was definitely worth taking advantage of this deal. With that, I headed online to open my account.
Applying (or trying to)
Here’s the thing: opening my account with Commerce proved to be a bit more difficult than I anticipated. To be clear, the application process was all pretty standard and simple — but getting to that point required me to overcome a major obstacle.
When I first went to the provided URL and entered the code, I was presented with an error and told to visit a local branch to redeem my offer. Then, I tried this again a few times immediately after, only to arrive at the same result. I also attempted it on my phone and waited a few days before giving it one last go, but nothing worked.
That’s when I decided to look around for what could be wrong. Peeking at some of the blogs where I find these types of offers and deals (though not this one, since it was mailed to me), it noted that Commerce is very diligent about making sure that only eligible residents near branch locations qualify. So, my guess is that, when the offer codes end up being made public and are heavily used, the bank might halt online redemption and force people to go in-branch instead. As frustrating as this can be, I guess I do understand it (assuming, of course, that this is even really the case).
Luckily, before I could even bother going to a branch, another postcard arrived in the mail. The only problem was that it literally had the exact same offer code as before. Thus, I didn’t have high hopes when trying it online — but, to my surprise, it worked on the first try! Perhaps all the online churners had given up? I don’t know, but I was glad to be in business
Meeting the requirements
When opening my account, I decided to transfer $400. My logic here was that I could spend $100 to meet the debit card transaction requirement while still retaining at least $300 in the account.
Since I did only give myself $100 to spend, I needed to be strategic about what purchases I put on my Commerce debit card. Basically, I tried to use it for purchases around $10 or so — or at least averaged out to $10 when all was said and done. Surprisingly, these smaller purchases don’t come up for me as often as you’d think, so I did really need to take advantage of them as they did. In fact, there was a brief scare where I thought I may have accidentally let my 60-day limit lapse. Thankfully, that was not the case.
Waiting for the funds
Once I ensured that I’d made all of my transactions and that my account still had the required $300, it was time to wait. And wait. And wait a bit more. Okay, it probably wasn’t that long — but, since I forgot what the payout period was, I’d check my account often and was even starting to worry that I might not have done everything correctly.
Considering how obsessive I was about checking my account to see if the bonus had been posted yet, the way I eventually did find out about its arrival is pretty funny. While driving to Indianapolis, I stopped at a McDonald’s and, as I do often when on the road, mobile ordered my meal. However, after placing the order, I looked at the card number and didn’t recognize it. After a couple of minutes, I put it together that I must have put in my Commerce debit card number the previous time I went to McDonald’s in a bid to get closer to my 10 transactions. Sure enough, when I opened the Commerce app to see, I saw that my balance had changed to not only account for the purchase I’d just made but also the $300 bonus. Hilarious.
Even more hilarious is that, if I’d just looked at the postcard that was first sent to me, I’d have known exactly when my funds would arrive. Looking at it now, the small print has the date bonuses will be paid out. Sure enough, looking at my account’s ledger, that was indeed the date the transaction occurred. So, basically, I did all that worrying for absolutely nothing. Let this be a lesson to you all: reading is fundamental.
Final Thoughts on My Commerce Bank Bonus
Despite some early frustrations and later (self-inflicted) worries, there’s no doubt that my Commerce Bank bonus was worth it. In the end, I gained $300 while spending less than $100 — and there are no fees I need to worry about going forward. On top of that, I do love having another account with a local bank in the event that I need to pull out cash. In other words, this particular bank bonus was a big win all around.
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