Examined Oct 3, 2026 Employee program page Ended Sep 30, 2026 Bank of America's last checking bonus page expired on September 30, 2026 by its own terms, and on October 3 it was still up with no new date.
The offer page is still up, and it still tells you to open through it by September 30, 2026. That date has passed, and on October 3, 2026 the page printed no new one. Until then it offered $100 on SafeBalance Banking or up to $500 on Advantage Plus or Advantage Relationship Banking, to new checking customers on a page Bank of America titles an employee banking offer. What it paid is set out further down, in the past tense.
What pays what
| You, opening an account through the offer page today | Nothing under the terms as written |
|---|---|
| You, going through Bank of America's public offer address | Nothing. It says the offer is no longer available |
| An account opened through the page by September 30, 2026 | The terms as written still apply |
| What SafeBalance paid until September 30, 2026 | $100 for 20 transactions |
| What Advantage Plus or Advantage Relationship paid until then | $100, $300 or $500 by direct deposit |
Offer expires on September 30, 2026. Bank of America may change or discontinue this offer at any time before this date without notice.
Do this, in this order
- Do not open a Bank of America account for this bonus today. The offer ended on September 30, 2026, the deadline the page prints, and the page showed no new date on October 3, 2026. Judge a Bank of America account on its own fees, because no bonus we can confirm comes with it.
- Check the date on the offer page before you open anything. Bank of America may post a new date there. If it does, read the terms printed beside it, because they may not match what the old offer paid. We will re-read the page and update this guide.
- If you opened through the page by September 30, 2026, finish the activity. The terms as written still set out what you must do: 20 qualifying debit card or Zelle transactions within 60 days on SafeBalance, or Qualifying Direct Deposits within 90 days on Advantage Plus or Advantage Relationship. Bank of America attempts payment within sixty days of the requirements being met, and the account must be open and in good standing up to and including the date the bonus is paid.
- If you want a checking bonus today, use a bank that publishes one to everyone. Our bank account guides list them, each with the date we last read its terms.
What the offer was, until September 30, 2026
Everything in this part describes the offer as it ran until its printed expiry of September 30, 2026. None of it can be earned by opening an account today.
| SafeBalance Banking: at least 20 qualifying debit card or Zelle transactions within 60 days of opening | $100 |
|---|---|
| Advantage Plus or Advantage Relationship: $10,000 or more in Qualifying Direct Deposits within 90 days | $500 |
| The same accounts with $5,000 to $9,999 in Qualifying Direct Deposits | $300 |
| The same accounts with $2,000 to $4,999 | $100 |
| The same accounts with less than $2,000 | $0 |
| Anyone who owned or co-owned a Bank of America personal checking account in the last 12 months | $0 |
| Account converted to a different type before the bonus is paid | $0 |
Offer is limited to individuals who have not owned or co-owned a Bank of America personal checking account within the last twelve (12) months.
Co-owned was the word to notice: a joint account counted. Both offers carried this sentence, and both allowed one bonus per account and per customer.
Who it was for. Bank of America's portal said the Employee Banking and Investing Program's special access was for full-time and part-time active employees of participating companies, and we told readers whose employer took part to start from the portal their employer gave them. The 12 month lookback, joint accounts included, applied to both offers.
How you opened. You picked one account and opened it online, through the offer page, by September 30, 2026. SafeBalance had no paper checks, a $25 minimum opening deposit and a monthly maintenance fee of $4.95 or $0; the page said there was no monthly fee for an owner under age 25. Advantage Plus was $12 or $0 a month and Advantage Relationship $25 or $0, each with a $100 minimum to open. The terms warned that the offer might not be available if you left the page, visited bankofamerica.com, visited a financial center or called the bank, and that an account opened by other means might not be eligible.
The SafeBalance route. 20 transactions had to post inside 60 days. Debit card purchases and one-time or recurring debit card payments counted, as did Zelle payments sent from or received into the new account. Returns, refunds, fees, ACH transactions, ATM transactions, deposits, transfers, and anything still pending at day 60 did not.
The direct deposit route. A Qualifying Direct Deposit was regular monthly income such as salary, pension or Social Security, sent by the payer using your account and routing numbers. Teller deposits, wires, debit card transfers, ATM deposits, Online and Mobile Banking transfers, and transfers from a bank, brokerage or Merrill account were named as not qualifying. The deposits were totaled only once the 90 days ended, so $9,999 paid $300 and nothing more.
Waiting for the cash. The account had to be open and in good standing up to and including the date the bonus was paid. On the direct deposit route Bank of America attempted payment within 60 days after the 90 day period ended, so you allowed up to 150 days in all, which is 90 plus 60. Converting the account to a different type before then voided the offer. The bank might ask for a Form W-9 or W-8, said the bonus might be taxable income, and might issue a Form 1099.
What the offer page does not publish. It shows no date for its terms. It gives each monthly fee as a pair of figures and sends you to the Personal Schedule of Fees for how to reach $0. It names no states and no minimum age. And it says Bank of America may change or discontinue the offer at any time before September 30, 2026 without notice.
Whether it was worth it. If your employer was in the program, yes, and quickly, because the page expired on September 30, 2026. The $100 SafeBalance offer asked for 20 card or Zelle transactions and no payroll change. The direct deposit offer scaled with your pay: $10,000 in 90 days for the full $500, and a $100 minimum to open. Left unwaived for the five months you might wait, an Advantage Plus fee of $12 came to $60, so the waiver was worth learning first. If you were not in that audience, we would not have built a plan on the page: its terms named no employer, but they promised nothing to a member of the public who found it.
What Bank of America shows the general public
Its public offer addresses are dead. On October 3, 2026 Bank of America's public checking offer address redirected to an expired offer page reading “Sorry, the offer you're looking for is no longer available.” The front page of its promotions site answered “The page you're looking for is unavailable.” On September 18 we had already found two dead Bank of America promo addresses, one for a new account offer and one for Advantage Banking, and a third offer link that read “This offer is no longer available.” The bank's public Advantage Banking page describes the three accounts, and when we read it on October 3 it carried no bonus at all. The employee offer page is the only Bank of America bonus page we found still served, and it carries the expired date.
Refer-a-Friend is for credit cards. Bank of America announced it on June 10, 2026 for holders of three named credit cards, and a friend referred to one of those cards receives the current new account offer. It does not cover checking.
Is it worth your time?
Not for a bonus, because there is none we can confirm today. The only Bank of America bonus page still up printed an expiry of September 30, 2026, and its public offer address says the offer is no longer available. The readers with something at stake are those who opened through the page by that date; for them the terms as written still run.
If Bank of America posts a new date on the offer page, we will read the terms again and say so here. Until then, the offers below are open to the general public, not to one employer’s staff.
