Most of the bank bonus posts I write about deal with fintech banks, primarily because a lot of those banks have easy bonus terms to meet, no fees or minimum balance requirements, and give you the ability to refer other people. Bank bonuses can be intimidating, so I like to use fintech banks as a way to introduce people to the world of bank bonuses. These fintech bonuses have low stakes and – in my opinion – you really can’t lose with them. That being said, there are a few legacy bank bonuses that I’ve been meaning to write about and one of them is the Discover Savings Account bank bonus.
This is a bank bonus from a large, legacy bank, but unlike many other legacy bank bonuses that require you to do large direct deposits, keep your money tied up for months, and make you manage the account to avoid fees, this one doesn’t have any of those issues. That means, similar to the fintech bonuses I write about, you can open the Discover Savings Account, get your bonus, take your money out, and keep the account open forever without any worry.
A word of warning. When you read about how this bonus works, you might be intimidated, especially since it requires depositing a huge amount into the account. There are ways around this requirement, however, that I’ll explain in more detail.
With that said, in this post, we’ll go over the Discover Savings Account bank bonus and give you a step-by-step guide on how to earn your bonus from this bank.
Discover Savings Account Bank Bonus Step-By-Step Guide
The Discover Savings Account typically usually offers a good bonus for new users. In general, you can expect to earn $200 to $450 from this bonus.
Briefly, here’s what the terms usually require:
- Open a Discover Savings Account using a specific promo code from Discover (here’s the current bonus offer as of 10/31/23).
- Deposit a certain amount of money into your Discover Savings Account within 30 days of opening your account (usually at least $25,000).
- Your bonus will post to your account within 30 days of meeting the requirements (but it usually posts immediately after meeting the deposit requirement).
You don’t need to keep your deposit in your savings account, so once you fund the account, you can immediately pull all the money out. The bonus posts quickly – faster than the 30 days they list in the terms – so you should know right away if you met the terms.
As for when this bonus is available, it comes and goes, but I’ve found it’s usually available most times of the year (I’d say at least 75% of the year, Discover is offering a bonus for this savings account). How much this bonus offers can change though, but unfortunately, there’s no easy way to guess if the bonus will go higher.
At the time I’m writing this (10/31/23), Discover is offering as much as a $400 bonus if you open the account with the promo code.
You can find the current Discover Savings Account bonus offer at this link. I’ll try to keep this page updated, but if you find the link doesn’t work, do a Google search for the Discover Savings Account bank bonus and you should be able to find it. Otherwise, you’ll almost always find the latest bonus on this page at Doctor of Credit.
The part most people find difficult is meeting the deposit requirement – depositing $25,000 or more isn’t easy for most people. But, there is a little trick that you can use to get around this requirement, as I’ll explain in the next section.
How To Meet The Deposit Requirement For The Discover Savings Account Bank Bonus
While the Discover Savings Account bonus terms require you to deposit a large amount into your savings account to earn your bonus, there’s no requirement that the deposit be completed in one lump sum. Instead, you can do cumulative deposits so that the total amount that’s ultimately deposited into your account equals $25,000 (or whatever amount you have to deposit to earn your bonus).
That might sound a bit confusing, so let me explain a bit more. With Discover, you can meet the deposit requirement by depositing the same money over and over. Discover looks at the total amount of money you deposited into the account but doesn’t care what you withdraw from the account.
For example, if you need to deposit $25,000 into your Discover Savings Account to earn your bonus, you can meet the deposit requirement by depositing $10,000 into the account, withdrawing that same $10,000, and then depositing the same $10,000 again. Continue to do that until you reach at least $25,000 in cumulative deposits. Discover will look at the deposits and add them up. Once it reaches $25,000 total, it’ll trigger the bonus. The fact that you withdrew the $10,000 and deposited it again doesn’t matter.
Note that some banks have fairly low limits on how much you can transfer between banks, so you’ll want to use a bank that has high transfer limits. I recommend Ally, as I think they’re the best overall bank and they also have very high transfer limits. To transfer money between Ally and Discover, log into your Ally account, link Discover to it, then initiate the transfers from Ally to Discover.
That’s exactly how I earned my Discover Savings account bonus back in the day (I did this bonus in 2018). At the time I earned my bonus, I had to deposit $25,000 to earn a $200 bonus. I didn’t have $25,000 that I could transfer in one go, so to meet the deposit requirement, I transferred $7,500 from Ally to Discover, withdrew the $7,500 a few days later, then sent it back again. I did this four times until I had $25,000 in cumulative deposits, which earned me my bonus.
Important Things To Know With The Discover Savings Account Bank Bonus
There are a few things you should be aware of when you’re doing this bonus. The most important is that you have to complete your deposits within 30 days of opening your account. That means if you’re meeting the requirement with cumulative deposits, make sure you time it correctly so that all your deposits make it into your savings account within 30 days. Assuming you’re doing large enough cumulative deposits, you should be fine.
One thing I recommend if you’re meeting this bonus requirement with cumulative deposits is to schedule your deposits and withdrawals in advance. Ideally, you schedule your first deposit into the Discover Savings Account, then schedule a withdrawal a few days later, then schedule another deposit a few days after that, and so on. If you schedule everything in advance, you won’t have to think about it.
The second thing to know is that Discover limits customers to one bonus per lifetime. If you’ve ever earned a Discover Savings Account bonus or have ever had a Discover Savings Account (regardless of whether you earned a bonus on it or not), you are not eligible for this bonus. I earned my bonus back in 2018, so, unfortunately, I’m not eligible for a savings account bonus from them ever again (which has been a bummer because they’ve had some even better offers since I first earned the bonus in 2018).
Final Thoughts
The Discover Savings Account bank bonus is one of the big bank bonuses that I think is good for everyone, even beginners in the bank bonus world. Because the account has no fees or minimum balance requirements, you’re not at risk of messing up and paying a dumb bank fee. It’s also nice that the bonus doesn’t require any direct deposits either.
The bonus for this account changes regularly and isn’t always available, but most times of the year, you will find this bonus available. Again, if my link isn’t updated, do a Google search or check Doctor of Credit to see if there’s an updated link.
While this bonus can seem intimidating at first because of the large deposit requirement, it’s not as big a deal as it would seem since the deposit requirement can be met with cumulative deposits and doesn’t require you to keep the money in the account (i.e. you can deposit the money and withdraw it immediately).
Hopefully, you find this post helpful. If you’re interested in learning more about bank bonuses, check out my post, The Ultimate Guide to Bank Account Bonuses. Feel free to leave any questions or comments below.
Gaboose says
So sorry to hear this! I’d recommend calling Discover to ask them why you didn’t get the bonus. Only thing I could think is that a promo code wasn’t entered when needed.
nick says
Thank for the tip. Reached out to Discover and they said I never entered the code. Oops! Told me to search google for the codes that went out Oct/Nov 2022 and submit for consideration. While I qualified for $450, (deposited net $35k within 30 days), they said the code I submitted was valid for $150 ($10k) or $500 ($50k) bonus. They will grant me the $150 bonus, so not a total loss! Somewhat surprised they worked with me and retroactively applied the code.
Gaboose says
I pulled money into Discover from Ally on 10/31, the money was received on 11/1, but was not available until 11/4.
A few minutes ago (on 11/4), I pushed money from Discover to Ally, and I am seeing that the transfer will be available on 11/10.
These transfers seem to take a long time! Is anyone else seeing the same thing? I was hoping to use the same funds for my wife’s future Discover acct (she is still not signed up yet), but at this transfer rate, I might barely be able to fulfill my requirement within 30 days.
NC says
Mine took 3-4 days AFTER the money was in discover for them to “verify” it and it become “available”. Annoying. I opened account Nov 19. Funded 3 separate rounds to get to 35k total by dec 19. Did it and still have not seen the bonus posted. It doesn’t look promising based on FP saying they pay out relatively soon after the 30 day period completes. Fingers crossed. I hope this helps.
Anonymous says
Correction: “Bonus will be credited to the account within 30 days of the account qualifying for the bonus.” This is the fine print for the offer via Discover’s page. Looks like the bonus should post by Jan 19th or by the end of January at least.
Gaboose says
I’m crossing my fingers as well. Although the transactions took a long time between banks, I was able to meet the requirement back in November and received the full bonus. I have since tried for the $500 bonus on $50,000: I received a $150 bonus 3 days after my third/final deposit, so I’m hoping the remaining $350 comes in sooner than later.
Gaboose says
Just received the remaining bonus! It took a few weeks, but I got it. $500 total.
Anonymous says
Nice! Congrats! Fingers crossed mine is in the pipeline!
NC says
Still nothing for me. Qualified for at least $450 ending Dec. of bonus and haven’t seen a penny of it. Thinking since it’s mid Feb already, I likely did something wrong. Which I cannot figure out what it would have been… I used the link. created new bank account. had current credit card with discover but fine print said that didn’t interfere with this bank account bonus offer. At least the money was earning 3%+ during all of these maneuvers so not all for a total loss. Still a bummer tho. Grr!
IM-PCP says
Thanks for highlighting the offer–it was a much more generous offer than I have been receiving from Discover by e-mail. And, it finally pushed me to move some money to a high(er) yield savings account.
Financial Panther says
Glad I could help!
Financial Fives says
Ally also has a bonus of $500 if you deposit $50k, but looks like Discover’s is less restrictive (I think they have a referral bonus too).
Citi came out with a larger than expected bonus, up to $2k, but you have to keep the money longer and their APY is nowhere close to these.
Financial Panther says
Yeah, Citi is always a tough one because you have to keep the money in there for so long – its almost always over 180 days. Ally is a good one if you have the cash. But still everyone who can should take advantage of the Discover bonus if you can.
Anonymous says
Thank you! can we open two accounts one each for myself and wife?
Financial Panther says
Yep, you can do this bonus for both of you.
Anonymous says
Thank you!
Leann says
Great info, thanks!
Financial Panther says
Glad I could help!