Have you taken advantage of brokerage bonuses?

[Kelor]

I see both Ameritrade and E-Trade are offering a $2500 bonus for setting up an account over $1 million.

Other than the hassle of having multiple accounts, is there any reason not to take advantage of these offers?

Does it prevent moving back into Fidelity in a year to take advantage of their offers?

 

[triangle]

I think there is no reason not to take advantage of the cash back if the transaction was already within your purview of expected behavior. I have received the minimal (much smaller) bonus when transferring some cash into one of these brokerages a few years ago.

The terms of the $ bonus should be spelled out in the small print of the offer. Most likely you will need to keep the assets with the firm for at least 6 months or a year. Afterwards you are free to move the money.

 

[gauss]

You might not want to close the original account, but rather keep a nominal amount of assets there. That way, if/when you move the assets back you will have your long term statement/transaction history still available going forward.

-gauss

 

[upset264]

While TD Ameritrade was in the process of acquiring Scottrade I saw an add offering $600 to transfer an account of my size to TD, so I went ahead and did it. I collected the $600, held the account the required 12 months and then transferred to Fidelity which is my favorite. Didn't like TD.

 

[DrRoy]

I collected from Fido about 2 years ago.

 

[mrfeh]

We received $2500 from Fido 6 years ago.

 

[Jerry1]

I don’t think I’d go to the trouble for 1/4 percent. However, I don’t play the credit card rewards game either. $2,500 is real money, so it’s worth considering, but I’d probably only do it if I was planning on moving anyway.

Maybe offers like these can work both ways. Anyone ever ask their broker what they’ll do for you to stay with them? Maybe there’s something in their fee arrangement they can work with to keep you around.

 

[pb4uski]

+1

 

[ncbill]

Got mine from Fido earlier this year.

Fido even recently rebated me the transfer fee ($125) that another brokerage charged to move an old IRA from that broker into my Fido portfolio.

 

[rai-zero]

I have account at Etrade and have twice asked for and got $2500 bonus to stay. Basically I said look if I move to TD Ameritrade $1M + they would give me $2500 and so my account manager was able to just give me that money to stay. A closed mouth don’t get fed.

 

[COcheesehead]

I did the Fido one a couple times. Beware I had to pay taxes on the bonus.

 

[f35phixer]

So what did you do with it? Blow the dough or reinvest, I WOULD BLOW THE DOUGH, its only $2500!!! Trying to decide if i want to move my TSP over to my FIDO rollover or not? Maybe to make it an even 1M and leave the rest in TSP G fund....

I don't have Roth account yet, so that is a question i have for my new guy, is my accounts a summation of Roth and rollover?

 

[RobbieB]

Nope, never did it and never will. I change companies because of non-performance or incompetence or policies I don't like. Not because some other Co. is waving dough in my face.

 

[euro]

I did collect such a bonus from Fido last year when I moved my old 401k from ex-employer over to to them. If you are going to transfer anyway then, why not take the cash. That said, the whole process of triggering the transfer, 401k custodian issuing a check, sending it to me by mail, me taking it to the local Fido office and Fido then processing the deposit, meant that my money was out of the market for probably close to 10 days. I (deliberately) did NOT track whether the market went up or down during that time, but with a balance of about a million, those market swings absolutely DWARFED the $3000 bonus. So, what I'm trying to say is: I would NOT transfer such a large amount just to collect a small bonus - the risk of losing far more than the bonus amount by being out of the market for just a few days, makes it not worth the effort. Perhaps you can avoid that if you can pull off an in kind transfer (I could NOT because the 401k did not offer that option - check only).

 

[LarryMelman]

Until earlier this year, I had 3 accounts at Fidelity (a taxable account, a TIRA and a Roth IRA... combined value about $2M). Despite that and being a Fidelity customer for over 30 years, they told me "my relationship was insufficient" to qualify for the free TurboTax deal that they had given me for the previous several years. I moved the IRA's in-kind to Schwab (where I already had a smaller taxable account) and got $2500 for it.

Meanwhile, I'll be leaving my job soon, and needing to roll over my 401k. Schwab said I couldn't get another bonus this year (or for a year? I forget) but Fidelity would be glad to take it and give me 500 free trades over a 2 year period.

I found moving an account to be a bit of a hassle. Fractional shares had to be sold, and it took up to a quarter for some dividends to be paid into the old account and swept over to the new. But for $2500 I can put up with some hassle.

 

[upupandaway]

I did collect such a bonus from Fido last year when I moved my old 401k from ex-employer over to to them. If you are going to transfer anyway then, why not take the cash. That said, the whole process of triggering the transfer, 401k custodian issuing a check, sending it to me by mail, me taking it to the local Fido office and Fido then processing the deposit, meant that my money was out of the market for probably close to 10 days. I (deliberately) did NOT track whether the market went up or down during that time, but with a balance of about a million, those market swings absolutely DWARFED the $3000 bonus. So, what I'm trying to say is: I would NOT transfer such a large amount just to collect a small bonus - the risk of losing far more than the bonus amount by being out of the market for just a few days, makes it not worth the effort. Perhaps you can avoid that if you can pull off an in kind transfer (I could NOT because the 401k did not offer that option - check only).

This happened to me when I rolled over a 401k to an IRA but it hit me on the positive side. If I recall my money was out of the market for 7-10 days and I gained a few percent after the transfer. If I was transferring a larger sum I think I would be hesitant to do it simply for the bonus. However asking my current provider to match the bonus to stay seems like a no brainer. Thanks for that tip.

 

[Sojourner]

Other than the hassle of having multiple accounts, is there any reason not to take advantage of these offers?

IMHO, there's no reason not to take advantage of these offers from time to time. It's basically free money, and the amounts are non-trivial. I moved a portion of my assets from my long-time brokerage to Ally Invest last year and received $1,200 for doing so. I spent a grand total of about one hour (maybe 90 minutes) filling out the forms online and keeping track of the transfer, etc. If you ask me, I'd say making over a thousand bucks for less than two hours of easy "work" is a pretty sweet deal.