Updated May 2024. Merrill Edge is the self-directed brokerage arm formed after Bank of America and Merrill Lynch merged together. They are currently offering an increased cash bonus of up to $1,000 for moving “new money” or assets over to them from another brokerage firm. The offer code is 1000PR. Offer valid for both new and existing IRAs and taxable brokerage accounts (they call them Cash Management Accounts).
Here’s an overview along with my personal experience as I’ve had an account with them for a few years now.
Cash bonus. If you are holding shares of stock, ETFs, or mutual funds elsewhere, you can simply perform an “in-kind” ACAT transfer over to Merrill Edge. Your 100 shares of AAPL will remain 100 shares of AAPL, so you don’t have to worry about price changes, lost dividends, or tax consequences. Any cost basis should transfer over as well. Make a qualifying transfer and/or deposit to your new account within 45 days and maintain your balance for at least 90 days. The fine print version:
- You must enroll by entering the offer code in the online application during account opening or by providing it when speaking with a Merrill Financial Solutions Advisor at 888.637.3343 or at select Bank of America® financial centers. You are solely responsible for enrolling or asking to be enrolled in the offer.
- Fund your account with at least $20,000 in qualifying net new assets within 45 days of account opening. Assets transferred from other accounts at MLPF&S, Bank of America Private Bank, or 401(k) accounts administered by MLPF&S do not count towards qualifying net new assets.
- You must be enrolled in Preferred Rewards as of 90 days from meeting the funding criteria described in Step 2.
- After 90 days from meeting the funding criteria described in Step 2, your cash reward will be determined by the qualifying net new assets in your account (irrespective of any losses or gains due to trading or market volatility) as follows:
- $100 bonus with $20,000+ in new assets
- $200 bonus with $50,000+ in new assets
- $400 bonus with $100,000+ in new assets
- $1,000 bonus with $250,000 or more in new assets
Customers not enrolled in Preferred Rewards as of 90 days after funding will receive the following cash reward: qualifying net new assets of $20,000 to $49,999 receive $100; for $50,000-$99,999, receive $150; for $100,000-$249,999, receive $250; for $250,000 or more, receive $600.
This offer includes “instant” Preferred Rewards status, which does require a Bank of America checking account:
When you enroll in the Preferred Rewards $1000 More Cash Offer, you consent to early enrollment in the Preferred Rewards Program. Once you satisfy the funding requirement for the offer, you will be enrolled in Preferred Rewards within 45 days based on your current balances at that time rather than the usual requirement of three-month average combined balances. You also must have or open an eligible Bank of America personal checking Advantage Banking account to be enrolled in Preferred Rewards. All Preferred Rewards benefits available in the tier associated with your combined balance level will be active within 30 days of enrollment.
More fine print:
For purposes of this offer, qualifying net new assets are calculated by adding total incoming assets or transfers (including cash, securities and/or margin debit balance transfers), and subtracting assets withdrawn or transferred out of the account within the preceding 24 weeks.
After I did a similar bonus a couple years ago with a partial transfer (just enough to satisfy one of the tiers), a Merrill Edge rep contacted me and offered me a custom bonus to move even more assets over. (The bonus ratios were about the same, but higher limits.) Therefore, if you are considering this and happen to have more than $250,000 to transfer over, you may want to give them a call and see if they can offer even more money.
You can even transfer in Admiral Shares of Vanguard mutual funds – they won’t let you buy any additional shares, but you can only hold or sell them. You can, however, buy more shares of the corresponding Vanguard ETF if you wish. (Alternatively, you should consider having Vanguard convert your Admiral share into ETFs on a one-time basis that will preserve your original cost basis. After you have ETFs, you can move those over to Merrill Edge and trade them as you wish.)
The features for the account itself seem like most other online brokerages. Unlimited commission-free online stock, ETF and options trades (+ $0.65 per-contract fee). You can trade ETFs, fixed income, mutual funds, and options.
Preferred Rewards bonus. The Preferred Rewards program is designed to rewards clients with multiple account and higher assets located at Bank of America banking, Merrill Edge online brokerage, and Merrill Lynch investment accounts. Here is a partial table taken from their comparison chart (click to enlarge):
BofA checking accounts. With Gold status ($20k in assets) and above, you’ll get the monthly maintenance fee on up to 4 checking or savings accounts waived. That means you no longer have to worry about a minimum balance or maintaining direct deposit, depending on your account type. You’ll also get waived ATM fees at non-BofA ATMs at Platinum and above (12/year at $50k assets, unlimited at $100k). Free cashier’s checks.
Credit card rewards. With the Preferred Rewards boost, you can get up to 2.6% cash back on all your purchases with the Bank of America Unlimited Cash Rewards card, or 2.6% towards travel and no foreign transaction fees with the Bank of America Travel Rewards Card. You can also get 5.2% cash back on the first $2,500 in combined grocery/wholesale club/gas purchases each quarter with the Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards Card.
My personal experience. In terms of Merrill Edge, I’ve had an account with them for several years now and my lightning review is that they have a “okay/good” user interface and solidly “good” customer service (i.e. real, informed humans available 24/7 on the phone, not email-only customer service that takes hours to days like Robinhood). I am not an active trader and only make about 10-15 trades a year, but have been quite satisfied with the account. I can also move money instantly between my Merrill Edge and Bank of America checking accounts, making it relatively easy to sweep out idle cash into an external savings account, as their default cash sweep pays nearly zero interest. Don’t leave too much cash there!
The biggest financial benefit to this BofA/Merrill Edge combo with Preferred Rewards has probably been the 75% boost to their credit card rewards, allowing me to get a flat 2.625% cash back on virtually all my daily purchases. The second biggest benefit has probably been this cash bonus, and the third is the waived checking and ATM fees.
Bottom line. Merrill Edge is currently offering up to $1,000 if you move over new assets to their self-directed brokerage. This can simply be mutual fund or ETFs shares currently being held elsewhere. When you keep enough assets across Bank of America and Merrill Edge, their Preferred Rewards program can offer ongoing perks like waived bank account fees and boosted credit card rewards.
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Thanks for sharing about ML. I just did the $1K promo and have their Platinum level. I only have $100 in a Bank of America checking account since their rates are not competitive. So the 2.6% you calculated is based on the 75% boost you get in transferring the cash bonus to your ML brokerage account? I never figured out the percentage. I just know as soon as my cash reward hits $25.00 I get an additional 75% added.
I have accounts at Vanguard, Fid and Schwab. ML is best for self-directed investors who do not need any help. My experience with their call reps is poor. Most reps lack training and cannot answer basic investing questions. Schwab and Fidelity have a better trained staff.
One caveat: It doesn’t work for people on work visas like H1b. It works only for citizens and green card holders.
TD Bank provides the same deal but even for people on a work visa.
This is timely, mostly because I didn’t realize you can transfer your assets without liquidating your positions. I have a Firstrade account right now, but they don’t allow you to select your tax lot treatment. (Either FIFO or LIFO for the life of the account.) I’ll probably transfer to ML when I have enough to qualify for free trades.
Thanks.
Hilariously, three years later, I did exactly this.
In the end, Firstrade is hopelessly incompetent.
lol. Thanks for coming back to update us.
Team Merrill checking-in. It’s been good so far. I’ve found Fidelity is better for options trading overall, so I’m probably moving there at some point. But Merrill has given me no reason to complain, other than enabling Quicken access is a huge blackbox that involves going to legacy ml.com and then clicking the allow button for Direct Connection requests from Quicken. After I got that working two years ago, I was good. But what a pain, and hours of Google. (For Fidelity it Just Works.)
A question, Jonathan, regarding Vanguard Admiral shares transferred…you say we can hold them or sell them, but NOT buy additional mutual fund shares. Are reinvested dividends and gains considered a “buy”? Thanks!
Yes, the last time I asked they said you can set it to automatically reinvest dividends. I would double-check if this is critical to you.
I am considering but will check first how good they are with payable upon death (pod). If I move assets over I want to make sure my family will have access.
I really cant tell from the offer’s website if existing BofA & Merrill Edge customer are eligible if they simply move the required amount of assets over to their existing account. Any advice?
Yes, existing clients are eligible but it must be new assets from an external broker. If you scroll down to fine print #1:
“Offer valid for new and existing individual Merrill Edge IRAs or Cash Management Accounts”
A few updates for everyone since I used this promotion in April and last week collected the bonus:
1) Vanguard funds did not transfer via ACAT, only my ETFs. Fortunately this was the form in which I held most, but this means I have a small leftover at Vanguard. ACAT worked perfectly otherwise; thank you for teaching me of its existence, Jonathan. Cost basis info came over, just as you said.
2) I was able to collect the $900 bonus, but it did not come on its own. I waited four months and then sent a message asking about it using “Send & Receive Messages,” subject line “$900 incentive bonus appears to be late.” The bonus was deposited about a week later.
It’s otherwise been a very good experience. While I did this fully intending to ACAT back to Vanguard once I got the bonus, the credit card bonus is great for us, and the ability to speak to a human at a bank has been nice for a couple of unusual inheritance-related actions. I think ME may actually have earned me as a longtime customer, so this promotion did what it was meant to do. Since I don’t mind using ETFs, this is fine.
Thanks for sharing your experience. That’s interesting as I *only* transferred over mutual funds from Vanguard to Merrill Edge when opening my account. They were even Admiral shares.
I wonder what the issue was. Are your mutual fund and ETFs perhaps held in separate accounts still, as they still have a traditional mutual funds-only account and Vanguard brokerage account?
That’s a good guess, but no, it’s in a Brokerage Roth IRA account, I just double checked. I remember doing the account “conversion” or whatever they called it back in ~2014.
They are admiral shares, but you said that worked for you. Anyway, I can’t explain it, but it happened! About 100 shares got orphaned at Vanguard, making my life just a tad more complicated.
Strangely, many people have to follow up with ML for this bonus. Their system for doing it automatically doesn’t work well. Heads up to everyone to check.
Question regarding this offer:
Is this bonus credited to the newly opened IRA/Roth IRA account OR would it go into the Cash/Money account. I have a taxable brokerage account there as well.
If they credit to Roth IRA account it will create tax complications with regards to over contribution.
Thanks
I would ask ML directly about this question.
So i guess if you’ve already done this and gotten a bonus you won’t be able to do it again – as it says only one ‘in aggregate’ per account holder
If you want to do it again, I would call them up on the phone and ask directly. As noted, they do have some discretion and if you are moving a sizable amount and it has been a while, they may allow it.
Jonathan, The link you provided above (for Merrill Edge + Preferred Rewards = Up to $900 Bonus For Moving Assets) expired on 7/15/20. However, after speaking with a Merrill advisor I got a new code which will give up to $1,000. The new code is “1000BONUS”
*facepalm*. How did I miss that? I need more fresh air! Thanks for the code, I used it to find the link to the new offer and updated the post. Apologies for the late comment approval, your comment was incorrectly placed in the spam folder by an automatic plugin.
Which Bank of America checking account do you find useful in order to maintain Preferred Rewards status? Can one expedite Preferred Rewards enrollment after 1 month if transferring $200K?
I believe that BofA has different checking account structures for different regions/states. You usually either need direct deposit or some minimum balance to avoid a monthly maintenance fee. However, if you have the $200k you’ll soon have Platinum Honors which will waive the monthly maintenance fee on any checking account anyway once you reach the status. (Even $20k gets you Gold which waives monthly maintenance fee on up to 4 accounts.) With Plat Honors, you’ll also get unlimited waived non-BofA ATM fees. If you sign up under this offer, the $200k will get you Platinum offer within 45 days.
My husband had a portion of his retirement with a Merrill advisor for a decade. They never made money. Even when the stock market was up 20% in a year. The best they didn’t was one year when the market was down 19%, they were down 17%. Their fees are high. I don’t know that their people are that qualified. It’s all about sales into a brokerage that probably won’t make you money. They are desperate for wealth management clients though so think you’ll get good up front treatment. This account bonus is great, but I definitely would stick with self directed. Their checking accounts are okay. You have to wait very very long times to talk to anyone on the phone and the branches are phasing out all their tellers. If you’re doing it for the account bonus, hit it and quit it. Don’t linger.
From what I understand, you have to have an average daily balance of the required amount over a three month period to qualify for the reward tier. It isn’t a crossing the threshold once thing to get it. Once you’re in, Bank of America reviews the account once a year to see if you can renew. They give you a warning that you need to get your balance up to x or risk losing the reward status before they pull it the following year. Technically, once you’re in, you can pull your money out and keep your reward tier all year until review, rinse repeat.
Their reward tiers for credit cards aren’t quite as generous as they would first seem as they have limits per quarter of $2500. So while yes, it’s great to earn that 3.5% tier reward, it might be fairly easy for some people to max out on line shopping bonus category or groceries at $2500 a quarter. Worse, they don’t give you anything on line to tell you you’ve maxed out and are no longer earning a platinum/gold/ etc reward for the quarter. Once you stop earning you’re down to 1%.
Personally I found the Bank of America rewards programs too opaque, too hard to keep track of. I think you could just have their credit card and use it for one thing-like shopping at Costco-but it’s easier in the long run just to have a straight up cash back card at 2-2.5% for everyday.
My husband had a portion of his retirement with a Merrill advisor for a decade. They never made money. Even when the stock market was up 20% in a year. The best they didn’t was one year when the market was down 19%, they were down 17%. Their fees are high. I don’t know that their people are that qualified. It’s all about sales into a brokerage that probably won’t make you money. They are desperate for wealth management clients though so think you’ll get good up front treatment. This account bonus is great, but I definitely would stick with self directed. Their checking accounts are okay. You have to wait very very long times to talk to anyone on the phone and the branches are phasing out all their tellers. If you’re doing it for the account bonus, hit it and quit it. Don’t linger.
P.s. personally I prefer a credit union or a bank like FNBO. Free checks and free safe deposit boxes. Tellers when you need them. Sterling service. There are a lot of good banks out there. I wouldn’t settle for subpar management of money at a big bank.
The BofA Premium Rewards card is even better than the Travel Rewards Card. It has an annual fee, but is offset by perks and additional cash back, airline credit, sign-up bonus, and 3.5% on travel + dining, plus you can set the redemption to be automatic rather than having to go in each month.
The nice thing is if you transfer a ROTH account, the bonus is treated as a dividend and added to your ROTH account, thus the $1000 will not be taxed.
Anyone when is the cost basis info is transferred over?
mine stock are transferred in 4 business day, but the cost basis haven’t. (6th business day as of now)
customer support say need a few more days to have everything transferred over.
Also what is the value of the stock is considered for the promotion?
is it the value on the previous closing date or the day’s closing price when they receive the stock?
or at the exact moment they receive it?
will I get an email or stated in the account?
customer support don’t know, need to ask …, so I just told them I wait a few days.
this cs seems to be a newbie as he doesn’t know anything promotion question and need to ask his colleague.
Today will be the 6th business day.
I recently transferred my assets over, and it did take a week or two to get the cost basis information, but it worked without incident.
mine never did after 2 months.
I gave up and I had to fill out the basis info form to have it done. and that was done in less than a week.
How does ME can offer a Preferred Deposit rate of 4.24% higher than other banks even BoA? Can someone educate me on the Preferred Deposit account? Pros and Cons? How easily to liquidate the cash and is your money fairly accessible from this ME Preferred Deposit account? Is it FDIC insured?
I’ve been trying to figure this out for a couple months now. Those are the same questions I have. Were you able find some information?
Heads up I opened an account with Merrill to take advantage of the Rewards program early upgrade (“All Preferred Rewards benefits available in the tier associated with your combined balance level will be active within 30 days of enrollment.” instead of the 90 day average) but they did not honor that. They play ping-pong with me B of A says they can’t “see” that promo in their system and Merrill says that Rewards program is tied to the checking account and not within their sphere of control. Neither is effective so beware if your dealing with a matter that involves both organizations they are as effective as S**t. Makes me wonder how I lasted as a B of A customer for 35+ years.
I have an existing BofA checking and Merrill acct. Merrill is okay, but I think BofA is horrible from a customer service standpoint.
Unfortunately, from the language above, it seems current customers are eligible for the offer, but not if you are already a preferred rewards member.
“Customers not enrolled in Preferred Rewards as of 90 days after funding will receive the following cash reward: qualifying net new assets of $20,000 to $49,999 receive $100; for $50,000-$99,999, receive $150; for $100,000-$249,999, receive $250; for $250,000 or more, receive $600.”
Bummer.
Jonathan,
You mentioned that admiral mutual funds can be transferred. What about vanguard money markets such as the VMFXX or VUSCX. Merrill Edge does not have great money market options so wondering if they’ll accept these?
I am not 100% sure about that. I would call them up and ask.
Merrill offers Blackrock Liquidity Funds (TMCXX), which as of 7/2024 has a 5.30% SEC yield. It’s an institutional rate, but ordinary Merrill clients can buy shares with little or no minimum. I’ve bought shares with as little as a $10.00 investment.
Merrill offers Blackrock Liquidity Funds (TMCXX), which as of 7/2024 has a 5.30% SEC yield. It’s an institutional rate, but ordinary Merrill clients can buy shares with little or no minimum. I’ve bought shares with as little as a $10.00 investment.
Is there any special you did. I cannot even pull the sticker TMCXX in Merrill Edge. I have both a regular taxable account and an IRA.
I have a checking account at BofA but never bothered about Preferred Rewards and only use it for physical branch convenience (deposit checks when Ally rejects etc.) and maintain minimum balance. If I am going through the hassle, I would like to maximize the rewards. This is what I am thinking but I am confused about Preferred Rewards category and Merrill Edge which seems like chicken and egg.
Applicable bonuses
1. Get $1000 for ACAT transfer of $100k to Merrill Edge
2. Get $200 bonus for Bank of America Unlimited Cash Rewards credit card – I prefer flat cashback (2.625%) with no fees to chasing categories. Currently I use Citi 2% flat cashback everywhere
Given the above and based on what I am reading here and there, following are the steps I think I need to do. Can anyone validate the steps.
1. Fund BofA checking account with additional $20k in new money and setup Preferred Rewards status as Platinum Honors
2. Apply for Bank of America Unlimited Cash Rewards credit card
3. Open Merrill Edge with the promo code to get $1k bonus
4. Do an ACAT transfer for $100k+ in assets – VTI or VOO
5. Spend $1k on Bofa Credit card in 90 days to get the $200 bonus – this should be easy with our current spend.
Questions.
1. Am I missing anything in the above steps.
2. When can I withdraw the $20k from the Step 1 above from the checking account and not miss out on the bonuses. Can I do this as soon as Merrill Edge account has the ACAT transfer completely received.
3. What do I need to do to connect the Checking account, Credit Card account and the Merrill Edge investment accounts. Do they “auto-connect” based on the SSN used or is there a specific process.
4. What happens if market falls down and assets go below $100k during or after the transfer.
5. Any other caveats that I need to look for ?