Much like Bank of America’s Museums on Us promotion, Target Arts + Culture is a program put on by Target in which you can get discounted or complimentary passes to a variety of arts and cultural sites in your area. The program isn’t nearly as widespread as Bank of America’s program but in many cities you can get discounted or free tickets to local venues. The larger the city, the greater the number of options.

For example, Baltimore has just one discounted venue (Port Discovery) while New York City had eleven free venues. If nothing else, it’s worth checking out to see if there’s something fun you can do on the cheap!

(Photo: hellomokona)

If you recently received a 1099-MISC from a credit card company or a bank and wondering if it’s a legitimate form, try to remember if you opened up any new accounts for the cash or reward point bonuses in the last year. In the tiny print at the bottom, the financial institution likely stated that a 1099-MISC would be issued in the event you satisfied all the promotion conditions. The 1099-MISC is a legitimate 1099 form and is used for Miscellaneous Income, banks consider these promotional payments to be miscellaneous income.

On the flip side, they don’t consider reward points earned through purchases as income. It’s like getting a rebate, you’re ultimately getting a discount on your purchase, not a commission payment for doing something (like signing up for an account). So, it’s generally accepted that you do not pay taxes on credit card rewards, but the IRS has yet to formally weigh in on the subject.

Here’s the kicker – some financial institutions are issuing 1099-MISCs for promotions involving reward points. So those promotions where you got 50,000 miles for signing up for a credit card? They’re valuing those miles in terms of dollars (well, in terms of cents) and issuing a 1099-MISC for it. What stinks about that scenario is that you didn’t get actual cash to start with and you’ve effectively “purchased” those miles at whatever rate they determine. It’s very sneaky (or very clever, depending on how you look at it).

Bank of America sparked a bit of an outrage (ha!) when they announced a new $5 monthly fee for debit card users and Everbank counters with sixty bucks in bonus cash if you open a Yield Pledge Checking Account before November 30th. One bank announces a $5 monthly fee, another bank offers $5 a month as a cash incentive – can you see where this is going?

Brick and mortar banks can’t compete with online banks on the basics of banking – checking, savings, and certificates of deposits. The finances are what they are. Online banks have lower overhead and so they can pass along some of that in better rates. As of 10/24/2011 Bank of America has a 9 month no-penalty CD yielding 0.30% APY and a 12 month CD yielding 0.50% APY (rates). Everbank’s 12-month CD is 0.80% APY. It won’t wow you but it’s 60% higher.

So if you want to try a checking account that pays you $5 a month, rather than one that dings you $5, think about Everbank.

Clever marketing!

If you were thinking about opening a checking account at Citizens Bank, they have a promotion where you can get $240. All you need to do is open a Green Checking, Circle Checking, or Circle Gold Checking account and make at least 5 qualifying online bill payments of $50 or more each month. Every month you do that, they’ll give you $40 and they’ll do that for six months.

It’s one of the trickier promotions out there, you’ll have to find five online bill payments, but it’s also one of the richest as each of the checking accounts have existing promotions. For example, if you go with paperless statements, you can get paid up to $120 a year for that. The “cheapest” account is the Green Checking, which waives the $4.99 monthly service charge if you make 5 qualifying bill payments each month or maintain an average balance of $1500.

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As the economy recovers and banks are taken off life support, in the good way, financial institutions are becoming more aggressive with their promotional offers. The days of toasters and coffee mugs are long gone. The big banks are offering a Benjamin for new accounts. Sometimes two, if you’re happy jumping through their hoops.

What does the prototypical bank promotion look like? The bank wants to get new accounts and it wants those new accounts to stick. The typical bank promotion will require a minimum balance, a scheduled direct deposit each month, and that you keep the account open for at least a hundred days. A few banks will deviate from this prototype a little, perhaps adding in a bill payment or two or debit card activity, but they all follow this pattern.

Is it worth trying to sign up for a bunch of these?

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You may have seen an increase in the number of bank deals listed on Bargaineering lately. The reason for the uptick has to do with the economy. As the economy recovers and banks start offering more incentives and promotions to attract new customers, the number and size of these bonuses has been increasing. Two years ago, the bank offers were paltry, if not extinct. If you got more than a toaster out of a new account, you were doing well.

With the return of $100 and $150 cash offers for new accounts, you might be wondering whether or not you have to pay tax on the promotions.
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TDAmeritrade has partnered with the Starwood Preferred Guest program to offer a travel loyalty related promotion – hotel loyalty reward points as a promotional bonus for a large initial deposit. TDAmeritrade has done these in the past but what’s notable is that the highest tier is at “only” $25,000.

There are three tiers of promotional bonus points:

• 20,000 points for an initial deposit of $25,000.
• 10,000 points for an initial deposit of $10,000.
• 3,000 points for an initial deposit of $2,000.

Unfortunately, IRA and tax-exempt accounts are not eligible and you must keep the account open for at least 9 months. Once you open your account, it’ll take six weeks to get the first half of your bonus. Six months after the first of the points post, the balance will be posted to your account. This offer expires March 31, 2011.

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Discover is running a new promotion where you can earn up to a 2% cashback bonus on up to $500 in purchases. It’s not going to be a crazy amount of cashback, since it’s 2% on $500 in purchases, but if you already use a Discover Card you might as well sign up and get the extra cashback.

There are four cards that are eligible:

• More Card by Discover
• Motiva Card by Discover
• Open Road Card by Discover
• Miles by Discover -you get double miles, instead of cashback

The promotion has balloons and says “Celebrate your BIRTHDAY” but it doesn’t appear that it actually has to be your birthday month. You just have to pick a month and you’ll earn double cashback on up to $500 in purchases retroactively applied to the start of the month. There doesn’t appear to be an expiration date. Here are the T&Cs:

Sign up to earn 2% Cashback Bonus on up to $500 in purchases from the first day of the birthday promotion month for which you enroll (or the date on which you sign up, whichever is later) through the last day of that month. Purchases earning 2% Cashback Bonus will not count toward your total annual purchases to determine your tier level. These purchases must post to your account by the last day of the month. Allow up to 5 weeks for this reward to be added to your Cashback Bonus account. See Cashback Bonus Program Terms and Conditions for further details about your reward program.

Just a quick word of warning if you have a Discover card you opened for a 0% balance transfer – any new purchases you make will accrue interest immediately since you’re carrying a balance. That and depending on how they put your payments, you may be paying a lot in interest.

M&T Bank has really gotten very aggressive in its promotions lately and this time they’re offering up to $175 in “Family Value Bonuses” when you open a checking account. You can access the promotion by visiting a specialty built website, BuiltForFamilies.com, and entering your zip code to see if there are eligible accounts in your area.

I already have an M&T Bank account, so I’m not eligible, but I really like how their account comparison page tells you everything you need to know. How many other places explain their fees in plain english? If you open an M&T Select Checking, there’s a $14 monthly service fee unless you have a balance over $5,000 or total balances of $10,000, or have a mortgage originally over $100,000. Their Totally Free Checking has no minimum balance or monthly fee and is eligible for $25 in cash, $50 in gift cards.

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There’s a “special limited-time online offer” for Bank of America credit card holders (I put that in quotes because these promotions come and go all the time) when they open a MyAccess Checking account online. It’s an online only offer of $75 when you open a new MyAccess Checking account and make a qualifying deposit. A qualifying deposit is one that is at least $125 made within 30 days of opening the account. There is no direct deposit requirement for this bonus, though it’s a way to avoid the maintenance fee (the other way is maintaining a balance, more on that in the fine print section).

The offer code for this promotion is CH75OL1 and you can find out more on their promotion page.

Some of the other fine print:
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