Another recent change at Vanguard is that their Voyager membership tier is now available to those with household assets totaling $50,000 or more. The minimum was previously $100,000. The minimum for Voyager Select remains at $500,000 and Flagship remains at $1,000,000.
Eligibility
Here’s the fine print from Vanguard. 401k plan assets also can count if they are administered by Vanguard and are invested Vanguard mutual funds. Households are also determined by address, so if your spouse or parents use the same address and have Vanguard assets, that can count as well.
Membership is based on total household assets held at Vanguard, with a minimum of $50,000 to qualify for Vanguard Voyager Services®, $500,000 for Vanguard Voyager Select Services®, and $1 million for Vanguard Flagship Services®. We determine membership by aggregating assets of all eligible accounts held by the investor and his or her immediate family members who reside at the same address, including investments in Vanguard mutual funds, Vanguard ETFs®, annuities through Vanguard, The Vanguard 529 Plan, and certain small-business accounts. Assets in employer-sponsored retirement plans for which Vanguard provides recordkeeping services may be included in determining eligibility if the investor also has a personal account holding Vanguard mutual funds. Note that assets held in a Vanguard Brokerage Services® account (other than Vanguard ETFs) aren’t included when determining a household’s eligibility.
If your assets nudge above $50k one day, Vanguard might not bump you up to Voyager immediately. It’s probably worth a phone call and they’ll change your membership level, which should stay that way even if your balances drop due to market fluctuations (and not withdrawals).
Voyager Benefits
Here are the main perks of Voyager when compared with a regular investor with less than $50,000 in assets.
- Voyager representative. I believe you get a different phone number to call. (Look on the top right after you log in.) Perhaps this results in shorter hold times? I wonder if Voyager representatives are more experienced or otherwise “better”.
- Possibly lower account fees. You no longer need electronic statements to waive their mutual fund account service fees. (Otherwise $20 per year for each Vanguard fund in which you have a balance under $10,000.) At Vanguard Brokerage Services, you also avoid the $20 annual account service fee.
- Possibly lower commissions. You get $7 trades on all stock and non-Vanguard ETF trades, instead of for only the first 25 per year. (Otherwise $20 per trade afterward.)
- A financial plan from a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) costs $250 instead of $1,000.
This is a nice change for us… I’m happy to report that I am a Voyager client now.
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I’m still waiting to get bumped up. I have $37K in the Roth and $38K in the 403b. I sent them an email asking for Voyager consideration. After that, I will open the brokerage account.
As a former employee of Vanguard, I can tell you that at that time (around 2007), Voyager reps were typically more experienced than the reps for “everyone”. It used to be a promotion *to* a Voyager rep. That has changed a little bit, but it’s still a more experienced rep. Flagship was an even bigger promotion.
Does this mean a shorter wait time? Somewhat, but not considerably. But yes, it’s better.
Got this email reply:
With the recent changes to the eligibility for Vanguard Voyager(R)
Services, your Vanguard accounts will now be eligible for Voyager Services.
We are manually completing the enrollments for all the new Voyager clients, and this should be completed by the beginning of June. You will soon receive information about the many benefits available to you as a Voyager(tm) member.
In the meantime, you can learn more about the benefits of Voyager
Services(tm) at: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/accounttypes/services/ATSVoySvcsOVContent.jsp
I see that they will waive the annual fee for mutual funds in a SIMPLE IRA account if you are in the voyager category. They used to require $100,000 in investments before they would do that. Sweet that now it’s only $50,000.
I was ever so briefly the 100k Voyager status and then the economy hit. I wondered why they didn’t bump me down, now I know why!
All I did to change my status is send them and email. It was super easy. I got this back:
Dear Ms. XXXX:
Congratulations!
We’ve reviewed the status of your Vanguard(R) accounts, and we are pleased to confirm that you are eligible for membership in Vanguard Voyager Services(R).You have been enrolled in this enhanced services program and will soon receive information about the many benefits available to you as a Voyager(R) member.
In the meantime, you can learn more about the benefits of Voyager
Services(R) at:
https://personal.vanguard.com/us/accounttypes/services/ATSVoySvcsOVContent.jsp
If you have additional questions, please call Vanguard Voyager Services(R)
at 800-284-7245. You can reach us on business days from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.
and on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Eastern time.
Sincerely,
John McInally
Registered Representative
Vanguard Voyager Services(R)
Hey, nice move. Now bring the next level down a bit from a million, and there I go! Thanks for all the great work.