Money Market/Checking Account Bonus (Airline Ticket/$100) at SunTrust

SunTrust Bank just started a new promotion for its Premium Money Market Performance Account. For most SunTrust customers, you can get a free round-trip ticket on AirTran Airways when you deposit $10,000 of new money into a Premium Money Market Performance Account. It requires a checking account (either a Smart Solution Plus Checking or the Signature Advantage Checking).

Here's the SunTrust promo page for the bonus. Deposit most be made by March 9, 2007.

To qualify, you must live in one of the following states: Alabama, Arkansas, Washington DC, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia or West Virginia. You can open these accounts by phone or at a branch.

There's also a $100 bonus available to some customers instead of the airline tickets. The requirements are the same. I called SunTrust and was told that this $100 bonus is only for customers in east Tennessee, Tallahassee, Florida and West Virginia. It was advertised in yesterday's Knoxville paper. The ad is available online here. There's also a SunTrust promo page for this bonus, but it's not correct based on the Knoxville ad and what the CSR described.

Some of the important details for the AirTran bonus include:

• Premium Money Market Performance Account clients must maintain a minimum incremental balance of at least $10,000 for 90 days from the date of deposit.
• The money market account is tiered with an interest rate of 2.25% APY for balances of $10K to $25K (see rate table). Rates may vary by state.
• You can avoid a $15/month fee in the money market account if you maintain a $2.5K balance
• The Smart Solution Plus Checking requires a $100 opening deposit. You don't have to maintain this after it's opened.
• If you maintain at least $5K in the money market account, you can avoid the $14/month fee for the Smart Solution Plus Checking.
• And here's an important detail about the tickets: Reward seats are subject to availability and blackout dates. Taxes and fees are extra. The September 11th security fee of up to $2.50 per segment is not included. A segment is defined as one takeoff and one landing.

I was told by the CSR that SunTrust does not do a hard credit inquiry for opening this money market or checking accounts. She mentioned that they only do a soft pull.

SunTrust is FDIC insured.

Thanks goes to Adam who mentioned this special in the finding deals post and to this FW thread.