At times I hesitate to write about bonuses that may not apply to all audiences. We are all at different stages of our lives and in different financial circumstances. Katybug and I are retired and have a few bucks in the bank,  Bank Direct to be exact, earning American Airlines miles at the rate of 100 frequent flier miles per thousand dollars on deposit per month.

But for the next few months, we will be moving some of these funds to Fidelity and TD Ameritrade for their sign-up bonuses. Whether or not we keep the funds with them will depend on our return on investment. This could just be a short term play until the sign-ups pay off and then it’s back to Bank Direct. We’ll see what the future brings

Fidelity Investments offers two airline associated sign-up bonuses: American Airlines and Delta Airlines. I have already had the AA bonus and was told by phone that I could not participate again with American. I have not done it with Delta and got the go-ahead to sign up. My current Fidelity account with the American Airlines association has $1.04 in it. Katy and I will each sign up individually. She will use our mailing address and I’ll use our physical address, just to keep them separated as best we can. The stakes are steep with Fidelity and Delta. It takes $100,000 of new deposits to earn a 50,000 mile Delta sign up bonus. Notice I said $100,000 of new deposits, not a $100,000 initial deposit. See the difference? Here is their wording:

“New accounts must be opened within 30 days of registering for the offer. Additional deposits to the eligible Fidelity account may earn you a higher mileage award provided such deposits result in cumulative new deposits in the account being at or above the next eligibility tier (up to a maximum of 50,000 miles). For new accounts, initial and subsequent deposits must be made within 90 days of Fidelity account opening. For new money deposited into existing accounts, all deposits must be made within 90 days of registering for the offer.”

So if I put in $25K, withdraw $22K leaving $3K in the account and redeposit the $22K, my new deposits will total $47K. Rinse and repeat enough times within 90 days to reach the $100K requirement. These are their rules, not mine. Frankly, I don’t have $100K to be depositing at one time with Fidelity, but we can probably fund a couple of individual accounts with this method.

Here is the link for Delta

And here is the link for American 

TDAmeritrade offers a bonus with the ever-popular Starwood Preferred Guest points, or SPG as we all call them. A $25,000 deposit pays a sign-up bonus of 20,000 SPG points. I have done this promotion before, BUT secured an email telling me that I could not make another deposit to my existing account ($3.12) and expect the points, but if I opened a new account, my points would be posted.

We were able to open both TDAmeritrade accounts online and fund them in about 30 minutes. Now we wait for the points to post. I kept the email, re: the opening of new accounts and miles posting. Remember: Keep records.

Here is the TDAmeritrade and SPG Link

So my goals this month are to pick up 100,000 Delta frequent flier miles (50K in each of our accounts) and 40,000 SPG points (20K per account).

Again, this play won’t work for all of you as the stakes are high. But there are lower bonuses available for smaller deposits. Moving money around requires documentation and time. I think the rewards are worth the effort.