Citibank $200/$400/$700 Checking Account Bonus 2020

Citibank has tiered $200, $400, and $700 bonus offers when you open a new eligible Citi checking account by 6/30/20 and deposit and maintain a certain balance for 60 to 150 days. There is also a $1,500 bonus if you have $200,000 to move over. This offer is restricted to those who have not had a Citibank checking account within the last 180 calendar days. Here are the highlights followed by a few tips on how to optimize the bonus.

$200 bonus details:

• Open a new eligible checking account in the Basic Banking Package during the offer period 4/01/2020 to 6/30/2020.
• Within 30 days of opening your account, deposit $5,000 in New-to-Citibank funds into the new checking account.
• Maintain a minimum balance of $5,000 for 60 consecutive calendar days.
• You will receive your cash bonus within 90 days after you complete the required activities.
• For the Basic Banking Package, to waive the $12 monthly service fee, make one qualifying direct deposit per statement period and one qualifying bill payment per statement period, or maintain a $1,500 or more combined average monthly balance in eligible linked accounts.

$400 bonus details:

• Open new eligible checking and savings accounts in the Citibank® Account Package during the offer period 4/01/2020 to 6/30/2020.
• Within 30 days of opening your account, deposit $15,000 in New-to-Citibank funds between the new checking and savings accounts.
• Maintain a minimum balance of $15,000 between the checking and savings accounts for 60 consecutive calendar days.
• You will receive your cash bonus within 90 days after you complete the required activities.
• A monthly service fee of $25 and a $2.50 non-Citibank ATM fee apply to the checking account in the Citibank Account Package if a combined average monthly balance of $10,000 or more is not maintained.

$700 bonus details:

• Open new eligible checking and savings accounts in the Citi Priority Account Package during the offer period 4/01/2020 to 6/30/2020.
• Within 30 days of opening your account, deposit $50,000 in New-to-Citibank funds between the new checking and savings accounts.
• Maintain a minimum balance of $50,000 between the checking and savings accounts for 60 consecutive calendar days.
• You will receive your cash bonus within 90 days after you complete the required activities.
• A monthly service fee of $30 applies to the checking account in the Citi Priority Account Package if a combined average monthly balance of $50,000 or more is not maintained. There is no monthly service fee for a checking account in the Citigold Account Package.

$1,500 bonus details:

• Open new eligible checking and savings accounts in the Citigold Account Package during the offer period 4/01/2020 to 6/30/2020.
• Within 30 days of opening your account, deposit $200,000 in New-to-Citibank funds between the new checking and savings accounts.
• Maintain a minimum balance of $200,000 between the checking and savings accounts for 60 consecutive calendar days.
• You will receive your cash bonus within 90 days after you complete the required activities.
• If you do not maintain a minimum combined average monthly balance of $200,000 in eligible linked deposit, retirement and investment accounts, your Citigold Account Package will be converted to the Citi Priority Account Package and your accounts will be subject to the terms and conditions then in effect for that package.

Fine print analysis and value calculations. A tricky part of this bonus is the following fine print:

At the time the Cash Bonus is paid, it will be credited to the new Eligible Checking Account. If the Eligible Checking Account is closed, then the Cash Bonus will be credited to the new Eligible Savings Account. Open accounts must be in good standing.

You explicitly cannot “downgrade” your account to one with lower monthly fees during the 60 day maintenance period, but this seems to also suggest that you need to maintain the package that you opened until the bonus arrives. (It’s not 100% clear, but that is the conservative interpretation.) That means that in order to avoid the possibly hefty monthly fees, you would have to leave a certain amount of money in the account not for 60 days, but up to 150 days until the bonus is deposited.

After the 60 day maintenance period, you would want to withdraw everything not need to avoid the monthly fees, as both the checking and savings account pay negligible interest. Here’s how that would work for each tier:

• $200 bonus tier. Deposit and maintain $5,000 for 60 days, then lower to $1,500 for 90 days.
• $400 bonus tier. Deposit and maintain $15,000 for 60 days, then lower to $10,000 for 90 days.
• $700 bonus tier. Deposit and maintain $50,000 for 150 days.
• $1,500 bonus tier. Deposit and maintain $200,000 for 150 days. (There may be some alternatives like moving over some investments to satisfy the Citigold requirements.)

Bonus will be reported on 1099-INT (as should be expected). Here is the rough equivalent annualized APY earned from each bonus if you followed the schedule above exactly, got the promised bonus at the 150 day mark, and then downgraded/closed/moved your money out:

• $200 bonus works out to ~16.5% annualized interest.
• $400 bonus works out to ~8.0% annualized interest.
• $700 bonus works out to ~3.4% annualized interest.
• $1,500 bonus works out to ~1.8% annualized interest.

I have done Citibank bonuses in the past and haven’t had any issues, although they did wait until the last possible moment to post the bonus. I did not experience a hard credit check upon opening. However, others have reported having to call them up and ask for the bonus, and some have reported that they were denied the bonus improperly. Their above-average complaints of unreliability is a big reason why I would not downgrade the accounts, in order to help maintain proper bonus tracking. For all bank bonuses, be sure to keep track of your promotion details and transaction dates in a Google Doc or other spreadsheet.

Bottom line. Citibank has a set of tiered bonuses for opening a new checking and savings accounts with them, which I have broken down how to optimize based on the fine print. If you were planning on opening an account anyway, this can be a good offer. Be sure you understand the terms and conditions first.