A $300 Checking Bonus:
what counts as a qualifying direct deposit

Salary moved across, and no bonus

A bank offered a few hundred dollars for opening a checking account and setting up a direct deposit.

You opened it, moved your salary across, and waited. Nothing came.

A code that was never attached

1. You received an offer by email or post, with a code and a deadline.
2. The conditions were an amount of direct deposit within a set number of days.
3. You arranged it with your employer, which took a pay cycle or two.
4. The deposits landed inside the window.
5. The bonus did not arrive on the stated date.
6. You called. You were told the code was not applied at account opening.
7. The offer has since expired and cannot be added retrospectively.

Why the deposits do not matter if nothing is watching

The bonus depends on a code attached to your account when it was opened. If it was not attached, the deposits do not matter — nothing is watching for them.

Nobody checks this at the time. You find out at the end, when the payment does not come, and by then the offer is closed.

The conditions are also more specific than the advert suggests. What counts as a direct deposit varies, and a transfer from another account of yours often does not, even though it looks identical on the statement.

The signal: an expected payment that did not arrive

The deposits landing, matched against a deadline, and then a payment that was due and did not arrive. All three are visible in the account itself.

Where Plenee fits

• It tracks the qualifying deposits. Direct deposits into a new account, totaled from

the day it opened, against the target. Nobody else is counting.

• It counts down to the deadline while you can still act. If your employer's change

takes two pay cycles, knowing that in week two matters.

• It watches for the bonus itself. An expected payment of $300 on a known date that

does not appear is exactly the sort of absence Plenee is built to notice.

• It closes the loop with the case for you. Account opened on this date, deposits of

this much on these dates, bonus due and not received.

This and Met the Spend Target and Still Lost? why a sign-up bonus may not pay are the same problem in different products, which is a reason to solve it once.

Evidencing a checking bonus

• Keep the offer email with the code. Without it, this is very hard to win.
• Ask whether the code was attached at opening, and ask for the answer in writing.
• Check what counts as a direct deposit under the terms. A transfer from your own

savings usually does not.

• Escalate rather than accept the first no. These are frequently paid on the second

or third attempt.

How often advertised terms are the complaint

Complaints about advertised terms not being honored on a new account are about one in fifty bank account complaints.¹ The overwhelming majority are about a bonus.²