Happy Thanksgiving!

I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. Thanks for all of your support this year. DA member Pearlbrown said it well in the forum:

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family and to all in our deal-seeking community. May this holiday season bring all of us health and prosperity and the time to enjoy them with our loved ones.

I thought it would be useful and interesting to look back at some of the bank deals this year that we can be thankful for. The bank deals may not compare to the good old days when it was easy to get 5% on savings accounts, but we should remember that things this year could have been worse. Here are a few of this year's bank deals that we can be thankful for:

• We have been seeing more and more 2% CDs. The first ones were 5-year CDs, but this month PenFed has offered 3-year 2% CDs and IRA CDs. We’ll have to wait until December to see if the 3% CDs will return.
• A few small credit unions around the nation have offered 2% CDs on short-term CDs. Two good deals were the 2.02% 18-month CD at Horizon Credit Union in Washington State and the 1.90% 19-month CD at Money One FCU in Maryland. This Money One CD special is still available.

The best deposit deals are liquid accounts with a top rate that’s guaranteed to last for a certain period of time. That gives you the best of both worlds: the liquidity and a rate guarantee. There were a few of these kinds of deals this year:

• At the start of the year Capital One Bank was still offering its checking account promotion which guaranteed 1% for 12 months on its High Yield Checking. That has changed to a savings account promo, but it still guarantees a 1% APY for the first 12 months of account opening. This is only available in its market area.
• BBCN Bank just recently began offering a money market special with a 1% APY guaranteed to last through 2014. This requires a branch visit.
• Union Bank with branches on the West Coast was offering a money market account with a 1% APY guarantee for all of 2013.
• For those with large balances, PacTrust Bank in Southern California was offering a savings account with a 1.25% APY guaranteed for all of 2013.
• For those in Texas, Libertad Bank had a great money market special which guaranteed a 1.50% APY until July 2014.

I know some of these deals had issues, but let's focus on the positives today.

What deposit account deals were you thankful for this year?