How bank and credit card bonuses work, and how BonusGPS plans them
Banks and card issuers pay new customers to open an account: $200 to $1,000 for a checking or savings account that receives direct deposits or holds a balance for a few months, and the equivalent of $500 to $1,500 in points for a credit card that meets a spending target. Collecting these bonuses on purpose, one after another, is called bank churning. It is legal, it is work, and the money is real.
The route
Every bonus is a small contract: open the account, meet a requirement inside a window, keep the account open long enough, collect the payout. The difficulty is not any single offer, it is sequencing many of them against the limits you actually have: one paycheck to split into direct deposits, a fixed amount of idle cash, normal monthly card spending, and issuer rules that restrict how many accounts you can open and how often.
BonusGPS treats that as a routing problem. You enter four numbers (your state, the paycheck you can route, the cash you can park, and the cards you opened in the last two years) and it builds a month-by-month plan: which offers to open in which month, what each one is worth after tax, fees and the interest your parked cash gives up, and the exact steps and dates for each. The plan respects Chase 5/24, Capital One and Wells Fargo spacing, ChexSystems sensitivity, cooldowns from bonuses you already earned, and anything you pin or block out.
What makes a bonus worth taking
A $400 bonus that needs $5,000 of direct deposit is a different proposition from a $400 bonus that needs $25,000 held for 90 days. The first costs you nothing but attention. The second costs the interest that $25,000 would have earned elsewhere, which at today's rates is around $250, so the real gain is small. The planner does this arithmetic for every tier of every offer and only schedules the ones that clear your bar.
Keeping the money
Bonuses are lost in the follow-through: closing early, missing a fee waiver, using the wrong kind of deposit. When you track a bonus, BonusGPS writes the dates into a checklist and a calendar feed, with the early-closure date and the annual-fee decision included, and reminds you before each one. Other users' anonymous reports tell you which direct-deposit sources a bank actually counted and how long the payout took.
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Frequently asked questions
Is bank churning legal?
Yes. Banks publish these bonuses to win new customers, and meeting the published requirements is exactly what they ask for. Each bank sets its own limits: how often you can earn a bonus (usually once every 12 to 24 months), how long you must keep the account open, and whether it checks ChexSystems or Early Warning Services before approving you. BonusGPS keeps those rules in the plan so you stay inside them.
How much can you make?
It depends on three numbers: how much of your paycheck you can route as direct deposit, how much cash you can park for a few months, and how much you spend on cards anyway. A household with a $6,000 monthly paycheck, $25,000 of savings and $2,500 of monthly card spending typically clears several thousand dollars a year after tax. The planner shows your own number.
Do bank bonuses affect your credit score?
Most checking and savings accounts use a ChexSystems or Early Warning Services check, not a credit inquiry, so they do not touch your score. A few banks do a hard pull and the planner marks them. Credit cards always use a hard pull, and the planner spaces them by issuer rules such as Chase 5/24.
Are bonuses taxed?
Bank bonuses are interest: the bank sends a 1099-INT and you owe ordinary income tax on them, whether or not a form arrives. Credit card sign-up bonuses earned by spending are treated as rebates and are not taxed. The planner values every offer after tax.
What goes wrong?
Closing an account before the early-closure window and losing the bonus to a clawback. Missing a monthly fee waiver. Using a transfer that the bank does not count as direct deposit. Applying to an inquiry-sensitive bank right after several other openings. Forgetting an annual fee. The tracker turns each of these into a dated reminder.