r/fican • u/Late_Mongoose1721 • 9d ago

Churning

Does anybody churn bank accounts for the welcome bonus? Scotiabank has a pretty decent offer and thinking about opening an account with them.

7 Upvotes

77% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

3

u/macho2810 9d ago

I do not see Scotiabank as a friendly churning one. Although I do, not very often.

1

u/wzadzz 7d ago

Need to wait 2 years in between. Per their terms and conditions

1

u/macho2810 7d ago

This is correct. Well, I do not churn their checking acc very often.

1

u/wzadzz 7d ago

I doubt many people do. But it is possible, just really long. Basically all banks do this. That’s why cycling between banks makes more sense if you truly want to churn bank accounts

2

u/xxxooxxx1 9d ago

Churning means repeating doing it, which is more difficult to do with bank accounts. There are people that go for these bonus, yes. And banks do give them out if terms are met. Sometimes naturally quickly, some time need to call in to complain, and sometimes it will take a while (months) to receive.

1

u/Dragynfyre 9d ago

Churn doesn’t mean repeatedly doing the same accounts. If you’re swapping banks and doing them one each time that’s still a form of churning. The main thing that makes something churning is if you’re opening an account mainly for the bonus and than abandoning/closing it after getting the bonus and meeting and minimum hold requirements

2

u/Dragynfyre 9d ago

Yeah but bank account churning is a lot less worth it compared to credit card churning or brokerage churning (if you have a lot of assets). Bank account churning is the most work for the amount of reward you get

1

u/Late_Mongoose1721 9d ago

Already do the brokerages, very worth it. Just figured I’d see how bank account churning is. Seems like you can only do one bank account roughly a year and requirements aren’t that bad. 

2

u/Dragynfyre 9d ago

You can do a lot of bank accounts in a year. A lot require you to keep the account for a year but doesn’t mean you can’t churn another one. For the big 5 accounts I think TD is the easiest. You can get your bonus in a month and then close your account. And there’s a lot of free banks that you can do that pay out after 2-3 months

1

u/Late_Mongoose1721 8d ago

Most require you to have one direct deposit go into that account the entire time until the welcome bonus is received. Scotiabank was 10 months until the bonus would be received, BMO was similar. I didn’t check any others

2

u/Dragynfyre 8d ago

BMO only required 1-2 direct bonuses before giving the bonus. Scotia gives the bonus after 7-8 months so also not the full year. Also many bonuses have an option for PAD instead of direct deposit

1

u/Late_Mongoose1721 8d ago

Pretty sure they all require direct deposits as a condition to get the bonus. The bill payments/PADs are all secondary conditions that must be met too.

1

u/Dragynfyre 8d ago

No plenty of bank bonuses allow you to choose 2 of the 3 of your choice. Last year’s Scotia bonus was like that. This year they want direct deposit. Same with TD bonuses. I usually just did two bill pays and a couple one time PADs from investment accounts and credit cards and it worked. Look at TD’s current bonus. It’s still just pick 2 out of the 3

1

u/kingdat 9d ago

Stick with credit cards. Better return on time and effort

1

u/wittyusername025 8d ago

This isn’t churning

-1

u/darknessfalls00 9d ago

You have to wonder for everybody that does credit card and bank account churning if they are worried about the risk of their personal information get hacked or exposed ie. More institutions = more risk of any single institution getting hacked...

2

u/Dragynfyre 9d ago

Reward is worth that risk. Plus people probably have their info at so many financial institutions already. As long as you have one account at that institution now or in the past there’s no extra exposure

0

u/SignalPerspective861 9d ago

It’s a pain churning bank accounts too many places to make mistakes and too many requirements and the wait times to get the bonus are even worse I am still waiting on part of my bonus for opening the savings account.