As manufactured spending channels such as Amazon person-to-person payment and Evolve Money are being discontinued or restricted one by one, credit card sign-up bonus and retention bonus opportunities become even more important. Partnership bonus is a third category worth investigated, particularly those with no financial cost. Isa just received her free 50,000 United MileagePlus miles from Fidelity through the partnership promotion with United Airlines after opening a new Fidelity non-IRA brokerage account in late August.
Q1. Why is Fidelity 50,000 United considered as no cost?
There is no setup fee or monthly account fee to open a Fidelity non-IRA brokerage account. If you already have a Fidelity account, add an extra $100,000 would also qualify. $50,000 would net you 25,000 United miles. $25,000 would net 15,000 United miles.
Q2. Why is this an attractive personal finance option compared to bank saving accounts?
If you have $100,000 parking in your bank savings account, and like travel, this is a risk-free, fee-free and trouble-free way to earn 50,000 United miles. Normal purchase price of United 50,000 miles would be around $1,800. Sometimes promotion offers 30% discount. For simplicity, assume 50,000 miles can be bought at $1,200 during promotion. Isa may want to purchase some really safe and low-return stocks within the next 12 months. If she decides to do nothing, she would still be delighted to earn 50,000 miles by doing nothing. By the way, cash in Fidelity account is as safe as in US major bank accounts, protected by an entity similar to FDIC.
Q3. Who are this Fidelity promotion good for?
- Those who already have a United MileagePlus account which has good United miles - 50,000 miles is not enough to redeem our annual Taiwan-US flight ticket yet (currently 80,000 miles is needed for one round-trip ticket), but is very useful for last minute flight. It gives me the piece of mind that should a last minute flight is needed for any reason, we can count on United Airlines at an affordable price. It also makes Business class ticket experience possible without paying business class fare
- Or, those who plan to apply for Chase United MileagePlus card and Chase Sapphire Preferred card (1st year card membership fee waived) next.
- Or, those who plan to open a Fidelity non-IRA brokerage for stock trading.
Q4. How long would the money stay in the account? What if I need to pull the money out?
Keep at least 9 months from the date the 50,000 United miles are deposited into the your Fidelity account. If there is an occurrence within the next 9 months that money needs to be withdrawn, the penalty is just forfeiting the 50,000 UA miles
Q5. Why would Fidelity offer such attractive promotion? What do they get in return?
Fidelity can use our money to fund their investment, as stock market is expected to continue to do well. They would have no problem to beat the 1.2% annual ROI ($1200 of $100,000). If one decides to make stock trades in his Fidelity account, then Fidelity earns $8 commission for each electronic trade transaction (buy or sell). To see $100,000 doing nothing in an investment account for us is not appealing. Yet it is our emergency cash buffer. Let's park the money in a safe place and get a risk-free return, in this case, 50,000 United miles.
Q6. Why not apply for 50,000 American Airlines and Delta Airlines from Fidelity instead?
Know your personal travel plan. Because I am planning for Eva Business Class tickets, so we need much more United miles. American Airlines AAdvantage miles would be nice but not as urgent as United miles.
Q7. When would one receive this promotion miles from Fidelity?
Within two to three weeks after qualified money are deposited into the brokerage account.
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