Wells Fargo Premier $2,500 Bank or Investing Bonus (Requires $250,000 In Cash/Assets) – Doctor Of Credit

Offer at a glance

The Offer

Direct Link to offer | Upgrade Link (before applying, see verdict for potential $325 stack)

• Wells Fargo is offering a $2,500 bonus when you open or upgrade a Wells Fargo Premier relationship.
  • Open a new Premier Checking account at a Wells Fargo branch with a minimum opening deposit of $25 by April 1, 2023. You must provide the bonus offer code to the banker at the time of account opening.
  • Bring $250,000 or more in new deposits to qualifying linked accounts by Day 45 and maintain at least a $250,000 balance through Day 90 after account upgrade or opening.

The Fine Print

• Offer available to customers 1) upgrading an existing Wells Fargo consumer checking account to a Wells Fargo Premier Checking account, or 2) opening a new Premier Checking account.
• You must use your bonus offer code at the time of account upgrade or new Premier Checking account opening.
• Only one $2,500 bonus may be applied per upgraded account or new Premier Checking account. Limit one bonus per customer.
• You are not eligible for this offer if: You have received a bonus for opening a Wells Fargo Premier Checking account within the past 12 months or if you are a Wells Fargo employee.
• Bonus Requirements: To receive the $2,500 bonus, you must: Upgrade to a Premier Checking account or open a new Premier Checking account by April 1, 2023 AND Bring $250,000 or more in new deposits to qualifying linked accounts by Day 45 and maintain at least a $250,000 balance through Day 90 after account upgrade or opening.
• Qualifying linked accounts include (a) bank deposit account balances (checking, savings, time accounts (CDs), FDIC-insured IRAs) and (b) investment account balances (brokerage available through our brokerage affiliate Wells Fargo Advisors, and eligible foreign exchange transactions). Excludes applicable bank fiduciary and custody accounts, and annuities.
• We will deposit your bonus into your Premier Checking account within 30 days after you have met all offer requirements.
• The Premier Checking account must be open at the time we attempt to deposit any earned bonus payment. Please note that an account with a zero balance may be closed by us without prior notice, as further described in the Deposit Account Agreement.
• Interest on the Premier Checking account is compounded daily and paid monthly. The amount of interest earned is based on the daily collected balances in the account. The following Annual Percentage Yields (APYs) are accurate as of November 25, 2022. The account pays an APY of 0.25% if the balance is $0–$99,999.99 and 0.50% if the balance is $100,000 or more. Rates are variable and subject to change without notice. Fees could reduce earnings on this account.
• Offer expires April 1, 2023. However, this offer may be discontinued or changed at any time prior to the expiration date without notice.
• Offer cannot be:
  • Paid without a valid U.S. Taxpayer Identification Number (Form W-9 for U.S. persons including a resident alien). Non-resident aliens signing Form W-8 are not eligible for the offer.
  • Combined with any other consumer deposit offer (limit one bonus per customer). If your existing Wells Fargo checking account is enrolled with a bonus offer pending, this bonus will be forfeited once upgrading to a Premier Checking account for purposes of this upgrade bonus offer.
  • Reproduced, purchased, sold, transferred, or traded.
• The actions required to earn this bonus are separate and distinct from the options available to you to avoid any applicable monthly service fee for the checking account you upgraded to.
• You are responsible for any federal, state, or local taxes due on the bonus and we will report as income to the tax authorities if required by applicable law (form 1099). Consult your tax advisor.

Avoiding Fees

The Premier Checking account has a $35 monthly service fee. The fee can be avoided each fee period with $250,000 or more in statement-ending qualifying linked (a) bank deposit account balances (checking, savings, time accounts (CDs), FDIC-insured IRAs) and (b) investment account balances.

Our Verdict

Since this offer is available for both new accounts and upgrades, the best play here would be to open a new Wells Fargo ordinary checking account online and get a $325 bonus with $1,000 direct deposit; that bonus is slated to end on February 27th. Then (after the bonus posts and before April 1), go to a Wells Fargo branch and upgrade to a Premier relationship. Then, sometime in the next 45 days, transfer over $250,000 in cash or assets and leave it there until day 90. Be sure to get yourself the email code now in case the offer gets pulled. Once you have the email code, there shouldn’t be any issue, even if the landing page gets pulled before April 1st. The fine print seems clear that you can get the Premier offer so long as you have not done a Premier checking offer in the past 12 months, even if you did a standard checking offer in the past 12 months.

The Wells Fargo Premier checking account earns an interest rate of either .25% or .50%, depending if your balance is over $100k.

It looks like Wells Fargo has a self-directed investment option, and so I’d assume you can ACAT transfer over any ETFs (and possibly mutual funds) from another brokerage, and that would work toward the $250,000 qualifier. I’d assume you can also buy U.S. Treasuries, brokered CDs, or other safe mutual funds which would earn top interest rates as well, see our post: Utilizing Money Market Funds & Treasury Bills For Brokerage Bonuses.

Let’s break down the math for those who want to do this bonus with a cash transfer and for those who want to use the Wells Fargo investment arm:

• Cash Deposit Option: deposit $250,000 in cash for around 46 days. Let’s just round it up and say you’re money will be in transit for 2 months, you’ll still be getting around 6% return for those two months, plus the regular .50% interest. That’s a solid couple percentage points above what you’d earn from a regular high interest savings account. Note, however, that you might get stuck with the $35 monthly fee during that first month or two, before you transfer in the $250,000 balance. (Most banks waive the first couple of months, I don’t know what Wells does.) You also might get stuck with a $35 fee for the the final month after you transfer out your balances back to your regular high yield savings account and before you manage to close the account. Optimistically, I think it’s possible you can do the whole thing without getting hit with any fees, and you’ll end up with maybe ~$800 more than you’d have gotten from a bank account which earns 4.50% APY.
• Investment Deposit Option: I have no experience with Wells Fargo investing, but hopefully you can easily move over your ETF investments and easily earn the $2,500 without much work. Or you can move cash into your Wells brokerage account and buy up money market funds that will earn around the same amount as a high yield savings account. Again, you’ll net the full $2,500 bonus without any trade-offs.
  An advantage of using the investment option is that you can move the investments immediately and avoid any $35 monthly fees given your $250,000 balance. (Possibly you’ll get hit with one $35 fee on your out, and maybe Wells investments charges and ACAT-in fee or ACAT-out fee; I can’t currently verify what Wells fees for ACATs are.)

If anyone is familiar with Wells Fargo investments, please let us know if this can work. We’ll add this to our list of Best Bank Bonuses and Best Brokerage Bonuses.

Hat tip to readers 14lopeza and VC