Ally Invest Offering $3,500 for New Account Holders Bringing Over $2 MM

For many years, ETrade and TD Ameritrade have given customers $2,500 for bringing over $1,000,000 in cash or securities into a new or existing account (these bonuses are ordinarily limited to one per year).

Ally Invest today sent an email to their savings and CD customers, matching the ETrade and TD Ameritrade offer, and offering an additional $1000 (for a total of $3,500) for those new accountholders bringing a total of $2 million or over. The Ally Invest offer expires on July 31, 2018 and you must have completed moving your assets into the Ally Invest account within the following 60 days in order to receive the full credit.

Ally Invest is also offering smaller cash and trading bonuses for lesser deposits. The full details are below.

Cash bonuses from online brokerages, of course, are reported on 1099-MISC forms and subject to taxes at your ordinary income tax rate. TD Ameritrade and Fidelity once gave bonuses in the form of Apple gifts cards (also reported on a 1099-MISC) or your choice of American, United or Delta miles. The frequent flier miles are not reported as taxable and therefore considered more attractive by many.

See how BestCashCow values frequent flier miles from the major programs here.

Brokerage bonuses of this nature usually contain a provision requiring that you not remove the assets from the broker for a year. Nevertheless, a prudent self-directed investor who views online trading platforms as largely all providing the same level of service can easily receive one of these bonuses every year by rotating their account between ETrade, TD Ameritrade, Ally Invest and perhaps others. Even though these bonuses are fully taxable, they represent a nice windfall when you make a practice switching brokers in order receive one every year.

See our comparison of online brokers here.