Update: This offer is now expired. Please visit this page for current CIT Bank products and rates.
Expired offer details:
CIT Bank is an FDIC-insured bank (now a division of First Citizens Bank) that has offered competitive interest rate options to savers in the past including the Savings Builder and No-Penalty CDs, so you may already have an account with them.
The CIT Bank Money Market account has launched a new Amazon Prime deposit promotion: when a new or existing customer makes a deposit of $15,000 from an external funding source and keeps it there for at least 60 days, they get an additional bonus of a 1-year Amazon Prime subscription (cash value of $139). Additional details:
- Open a CIT Bank Money Market account here using the promo code AMZN22.
- Fund your account with at least $15,000 within 15 days and keep a minimum balance of at least $15,000 for 60 days following the 15-day funding period.
- Within 30 days following the end of the funding period, if you’ve fulfilled the requirements, CIT Bank will send you an email with your Prime membership code.
- Yes, this works for existing Amazon Prime users. Customers who are already Amazon Prime members can use the one year of Amazon Prime to renew their membership for an additional year.
- Existing CIT Bank members are eligible, but you have to open a new Money Market account (you can have more than one) and fund with “new money” outside of CIT Bank.
Bonus math. If you assume the bonus is worth $139, this is a ~0.93% bonus on $15,000. Let’s assume an overly-conservative minimum holding period of 90 total days, which makes it the equivalent of ~3.71% APY annualized. The bonus is on top of the standard interest rate, currently 1.55% APY as of 11/30/22. This total of roughly 5.26% APY over 90 days makes it a great short-term rate at that balance size. CIT Bank also has a decent history of offering competitive products and promotions on their savings account and CD products.
I plan on grabbing this year of Amazon Prime – I already have accounts at CIT Bank and I already have idle liquid cash elsewhere sitting at effectively the same base APY. Nice to see another bank itching to gather deposits.
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Unfortunately I just left CIT, otherwise I might have done this promo. No regrets as I was tired of transferring $100 into my Savings Building account every single month in order to get the “higher” interest rate, which was not really very high. Combine that with a few other reasons I was not happy with this bank, and I was out. I really did not like the fact they were always introducing new savings products which would make the one you recently signed up for less attractive. This involved constantly closing accounts and opening new accounts within CIT Bank, in order to keep up with the higher rate product. The final straw was they recently merged with another bank (or were taken over) which would have included my spending extra time learning how to navigate through their newly revamped website. Thumbs down on CIT for me.
Thanks for pointing this out Jonathan, Yes, the site is a PITA, doesn’t download into Quicken easily and a forced password reset was a time confusing nightmare with broken email links but this bonus seems worth exploiting for 60 days or so.
I am taking advantage of this offer, and unlike my awful Citi Bank experience, applying for an account at CIT Bank has got to be the smoothest and most intuitive bank account application I’ve ever experienced.
Anyone know if they have an OFX server to use with Microsoft Money? Based on Joshua’s comment, probably not.
Off topic, how are you using MS Money to download bank/investment since download no longer works when it got sunset. I’ve seen a util that you have paid years ago, but nothing free.
Pocketsense https://sites.google.com/site/pocketsense/home/msmoneyfixp1 works very nicely at importing from those financial institutions that still have OFX /QFX servers. For those that don’t, many allow you to export your data in OFX or QFX format from their website.
I just checked, you can manually download in OFX format (one of 4 choices) but unsure if it will automatically import it for you. I can’t get Quicken to do such lately (it once did). Not worth fighting it for 2 transactions per month. Very cool you are still using MSM, I curse the day I was forced to buy Quicken in 2011 and should have gone the pocket sense route. I’d go back in a minute but now have 11 years of quicken data and don’t see a way to import it into MSM without losing all my categorizations. If you have any hints or tricks, please say so!
joshua, let’s not mess up jonathan’s blog further. Click on my name to discuss MSM further…
I read the terms and conditions…
“There is a limit of one Money Market promotional offer per account and per customer.”
My initial thought on this was to open one account for me and have my wife open her own account…that way we could get two (2) one-year Amazon Prime membership e-mails. One for me, one for her. I did not see anything about one promotion per address??
Further, it states:
“…one-year Amazon Prime membership must redeem it no later than 03/23/2024.”
That’s plenty of time to redeem one this year (currently we’re Prime till Aug) & then use the other in Aug 2023 for a 2nd year.
Thoughts on doing two promo’s per address??
Could you redeem the code in advance of the renewal date for Amazon Prime, and would it just extend it now for an additional year based on when it was set to renew?
I wouldn’t think an address would be unique determining factor but the SSN would be. You could always add an apartment number (“Apt A”) to your house if necessary.
I tried opening an account three times and each time, at the every end when asked to create a username/pw, I get a sorry, something went wrong message. When I called in, the system said the wait time to talk to someone would be 72 minutes! Doesn’t bode well.
Make sure you follow the username instructions to a T…
One thing that I noticed when creating a username was that they required numbers???
Why they require numbers in a username, I don’t know but again make sure you are clearly reading and rereading the directions on creating a username and password.
I know this may not be your particular problem… But was my problem and I just wanted to relate the experience.
That makes sense, I noticed my CIT username contains numbers and is slightly different than my “usual” usernames.
Thanks, Jonathan. I just signed up. I already had a CIT Bank account, so creating a new MMA account and transferring the funds was super easy. Now I’m off to open the SoFi account you recently wrote about. 🙂
I just got the link for Amazon prime but I currently have Amazon prime till next year. If I click on the link will it extend the membership another year after my membership ends? Want to see what the process is before I click on the link. Thanks
I’m still waiting for the link for Amazon prime subscription. I’ve met qualifications and haven’t received anything yet.
Did you receive the link for the free years subscription from CIT Bank or from Amazon prime?
Here is the sample timeline:
03/23/2022 – The Money Market account is opened by a customer who uses promotion code AMZN22.
03/30/2022 – The account is funded with a $15,000 via ACH transfer(s) from an external account(s).
04/07/2022 – This is the end of the Funding Period, the 15-day period after account opening, during which the account must be funded with at least $15,000.
04/08/2022 – This is the start of the 60-day period during which the end-of-day balance in the account must remain at $15,000 or higher.
06/06/2022 – This the end of the 60-day period during which the end-of-day balance in the account must remain at $15,000 or higher.
07/06/2022 – This is the end of the 30-day period during which the successful participant will be sent an email with instructions on how to redeem the one-year Amazon Prime membership.
I’m expecting it to show up tomorrow, along with June’s interest. We’ll see…
The fine print states: “Customers who are already Amazon Prime members can use the one year of Amazon Prime to renew their membership for an additional year.”
and
“All customers who qualify for the one-year Amazon Prime membership must redeem it no later than 03/23/2024. Customers who fail to redeem by this deadline will forfeit the one-year Amazon Prime membership from CIT Bank. “
I recevied the email with a link that points to amazon prime site. I have no use for prime. How do I retrieve the amazon prime code to pass on to family members. Did anyone figure out the code from the link the came in the email.
Forward the email or copy the original link from the email and send that to the recipient.
Anybody know how to convert this to credit? I find that everything is cheaper at Walmart and Target – have no need for Prime!
Just got my renewal today!
Do you remember what the email subject was?
I opened and funded on July 5 and don’t remember getting the Amazon promo email?
Thank you!