When should you get rid of a checking account?

Anonymous · ‎01-25-2017

I've had my primary checking with Bank of America for 6 years. I'm going to school in a place where the nearest branch is an hour away.

I've wanted to join NFCU and do checking with them because of the 50,000+ ATMs and deposit/withdrawal locations around the US, so it would be very easy to deposit cash.

I also just opened a High-Yield Investor Checking Acct. at Charles Schwab which gives you a debit card with no ATM or foreign transaction fees. I would get into NFCU for their GoRewards CC with a high limit, to build history with them for when I would need an auto loan in 2-3 years, and for cash depoits. Then I would use my Charles Schwab for my main checking purposes.

I currently have my Bank of America checking and really see no use in it since their auto loan rates aren't too competitive and I don't see myself getting any of their credit cards. Is it worth closing the account for the other two, or to just keep BoA for the future just to have?

I heard to never close a checking account, can someone let me know if that is accurate and why.

What is some advice I could have?

Anonymous · ‎01-26-2017

Close bofa it's not like it's a 6 year old credit card. If you move across country and there are nothing but Bank of Americas you can walk right in get an account again and they will treat you well. They remember closed deposit accounts much longer than credit accounts.

Anonymous · ‎01-27-2017

@Anonymous wrote:
I've had my primary checking with Bank of America for 6 years. I'm going to school in a place where the nearest branch is an hour away.

I've wanted to join NFCU and do checking with them because of the 50,000+ ATMs and deposit/withdrawal locations around the US, so it would be very easy to deposit cash.

I also just opened a High-Yield Investor Checking Acct. at Charles Schwab which gives you a debit card with no ATM or foreign transaction fees. I would get into NFCU for their GoRewards CC with a high limit, to build history with them for when I would need an auto loan in 2-3 years, and for cash depoits. Then I would use my Charles Schwab for my main checking purposes.

I currently have my Bank of America checking and really see no use in it since their auto loan rates aren't too competitive and I don't see myself getting any of their credit cards. Is it worth closing the account for the other two, or to just keep BoA for the future just to have?

I heard to never close a checking account, can someone let me know if that is accurate and why.

What is some advice I could have?

When should you close a checking account? When it is no longer going to be used and may charge you fees for inactivity or lack of direct deposit etc. An open, unused account could open you up to fraud as well.

I am not sure who told you never to close a checking account. As long as you have a new checking account ready to go and have set it up so that no more automatic drafts are being taken from the old account, you may certainly close it.

Anonymous · ‎01-27-2017

I close checking accounts all the time, since I am a bonus chaser. (Open a new checking account, get the $300 promotion for doing so, then close it, usually six months later.) Closing checking or savings accounts is totally not a problem and not considered a bad mark against you in any way.

I note that you don't plan to ever get a BOA credit card, as far as you can see. There are at least two BOA cards I can think of that you should consider: the Better Balance Rewards card and the Merrill Lynch card. Both have no annual fee. The BBR pays you $120 a year to use the card and the ML card has a 50,000 point signup bonus that is worth $500 in cash or $1000 in airfare.

That's just an aside. You should still close the checking account regardless.

Anonymous · ‎02-28-2017

I was reading the info on the BofA site with their BBR, and was curious about it. It says to use it "responsibly" for the bonus reward. Do you have to charge a certain dollar amount/percentage per month for that? For instance, if I just charged one meal per month on it, and paid it off each statement cycle, would that still get the $10 for the month?

I couldn't find any more details on it within their website in regards to fine print or anything like that for the reward.

EDIT: My bad, I definitely was not reading any of it correctly. So to clarify, transfer a balance, pay it down over the 12 months (without charging anything) and get $25 back per month just for paying off a balance transfer? No catches like a minimum spending/balance limit, aside from paying more than a min payment?

Anonymous · ‎02-28-2017

@Anonymous wrote:
I was reading the info on the BofA site with their BBR, and was curious about it. It says to use it "responsibly" for the bonus reward. Do you have to charge a certain dollar amount/percentage per month for that? For instance, if I just charged one meal per month on it, and paid it off each statement cycle, would that still get the $10 for the month?

I couldn't find any more details on it within their website in regards to fine print or anything like that for the reward.

EDIT: My bad, I definitely was not reading any of it correctly. So to clarify, transfer a balance, pay it down over the 12 months (without charging anything) and get $25 back per month just for paying off a balance transfer? No catches like a minimum spending/balance limit, aside from paying more than a min payment?

You do not need to transfer a balance and you do not get $25 per month.

Anonymous · ‎02-28-2017

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
I was reading the info on the BofA site with their BBR, and was curious about it. It says to use it "responsibly" for the bonus reward. Do you have to charge a certain dollar amount/percentage per month for that? For instance, if I just charged one meal per month on it, and paid it off each statement cycle, would that still get the $10 for the month?

I couldn't find any more details on it within their website in regards to fine print or anything like that for the reward.

EDIT: My bad, I definitely was not reading any of it correctly. So to clarify, transfer a balance, pay it down over the 12 months (without charging anything) and get $25 back per month just for paying off a balance transfer? No catches like a minimum spending/balance limit, aside from paying more than a min payment?
You do not need to transfer a balance and you do not get $25 per month.

The $25 per quarter, I apologize. Is that a one year promo or an on-going thing?

Anonymous · ‎02-28-2017

It is not a promo. In theory it will last for the next 50 years. Of course, BOA may decide that they don't want to offer this particular card a week from now -- anything is possible -- in which case presumably they'd switch everyone to some other no AF card.

If you are going to do it, I would recommend opening a BOA savings account, since you get an additional $5 per quarter if you deposit your quarterly bonus into the savings account.

Feel free to spend some time googling reviews of this card, and doing searches on myFICO. Lots of people have done extensive writeups on it.