An easy 90 day, 4% return

Have you been looking for a way to combat inflation with your money lately? Got a way to direct deposit funds and a little bit of cash to play with? Look no further than Chase Bank’s new promotion for their checking and savings accounts to earn 4% on your money in only a 90 day period.

I’d ramble on to make this introduction more catchy, but there’s really nothing else to say about this since its a simple math equation, so I guess let’s just jump right into it?

Here's the promotion

The real terms and conditions

Now aside from the well structured web page that the marketing team at Chase produced, if you’re like me you’re wondering, “Okay, this sounds good. But whats the catch?”

And if that’s your question. You’re a smart cookie. Because as with anything that sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Are you tall enough to ride the ride?

The promotion from Chase consist of two major parts: a checking account and a savings account.

To qualify for the checking account bonus all you need to do is apply for the account and then set up your direct deposit to start being deposited there. Easy enough!

However, in order to get the promotion for the savings account you have to open an account, fund it with a minimum of 15K and then not touch it for 90 days. A little more challenging than the first hurdle…

Is this a good deal?

Although not everyone has 15K laying around to play with, all and all I belive this is an excellent opportunity for those that have the ability to take advantage of this deal. And here’s why:

Year over year (YOY) inflation is at levels we haven’t seen since the 1970’s, and it doesn’t appear to be declining anytime soon.
Although interest rates are up and money market account yields are increasing, the return you’d see on your capital by utilizing this promotion over a 90 day period is far better than what you’d see in an entire year in an money market account. However, the 90 day tie up period could potential carry a large opportunity cost for those allocating a significant amount of their working capital in order to take advantage of the promotion.
Chase provides an excellent user interface for online banking
Credit reports typical don’t consider checking / savings account history in their reporting. So no potential harm there!