No joy for me yet. It’s been more than 30 days, both my BOA and ME accounts posted statements a week ago and still says ineligible. I called ML and they got someone from the rewards group on the line who told me I would have to wait three months from account opening regardless of my balances and whether 1/3 of my balance after one month would meet the threshold the top tier.

So a great package once you have it, BUT TERRIBLY DESIGNED TO BE USED AS A MARKETING TOOL to attract new, high net worth customers. I will use the card for travel to meet the spending threshold hefore the 90 days are up to lock in the card bonus and I will use it much more once the qualification for Platinum clears.

My 300 stars from a Saturday purchase posted this morning… Thanks OP!

Here we go again, the March round of Starbucks Bingo for up to 325 bonus stars:

Order on the Way – order ahead using the app, on two separate days
Great Morning – Breakfast sandwich or Sous Vide Egg Bites
All Day – make a before and another after noon on the same day
Coffee with Friends – three beverages in the same order
Two for Yum – Iced beverage or Frap and a bakery item after 2:00 on a Friday
Monday Funday – any purchase after 2:00 on Monday
Weekender – two purchases on separate weekend days
Lunch Break – purchase a sandwich or protein box after 11:00
On a Roll – make a purchase 2 days in a row

This one is a bit higher cost than the last one, but it can be done pretty efficiently, except for the coffee with friends (for me at least). Here’s my first attempt at running the board:

Starting with (or ending with) a Friday, buy an iced beverage (or Frap) and a bakery item after 2:00 (must be on a Friday),
then on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, but one of the following items each of the days (order doesn’t matter):

• a breakfast sandwich
• a lunch sandwich (or protein box) after 11:00
• 3 drinks in a single order

To minimize costs these should be on separate days (Saturday, Sunday or Monday) to meet the Weekender and Monday requirements, and Monday has to be after 2:00. In addition:

• On one of the 4 days, you’ll need a second purchase of something to meet the All Day requirement of before/after noon on the same day. So you’ll need 5 purchases in total (Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, plus one other on same day for before/after noon)

• Two of the purchases need to be via Mobile order

You get 5 stars for each of the goals (5 x 9 = 45) + 5 extra per line (5 x 8 lines = 40) + 240 bonus stars for completing the board.

Fine Print at the bottom of the web page:

• Offer valid 3/1/18–3/28/18 at participating Starbucks® stores. Limit of one Bingo board per customer. Must pay with your registered Starbucks Card or your registered Starbucks Card through the app. This offer is exclusive to you and this Starbucks Rewards™ account and cannot be reproduced, transferred or used by anyone else. Stars may not be earned on purchases of alcohol, Starbucks Cards or Starbucks Card reloads.
  Taxes, tips, donations and fees (such as delivery fees, shipping and handling fees, gift wrapping fees and bag fees) may also be excluded.
  See starbucks.com/terms for details.

Thanks, that’s really good to know. Since I wasn’t an existing banking customer, i guess I will have to wait/see how they do it for me (since instead of a 3 month history, I will only have one month).

In your case they had a history, so your first month statement close after the deposit bumped you up, and I am hoping mine will too, at least partially (even if they average in two months of zero and one month of my balance, I should qualify for one of the higher tiers — though technically an average should phase in when there is no prior data).

In case anyone who wasn’t previously a BOA customer or didn’t already satisfy the Preferred Rewards average balance requirement is looking at getting this card, you’re likely going to have to wait to qualify for status. I know it requires a BOA checking account and looks at the combined balances of your BOA and Merrill Edge accounts, but it looks like they use the 3-month rolling average to not only determine the ability to maintain status, but also for initial qualification. Said another way, you need to wait (up to) 3 months before joining the program.

From what they’ve told me, you cannot qualify based on a current balance level, and then keep the 3-month balance to maintain your status – as noted in some other threads, they only re-qualify you annually, so once you’re in, you’re good for a year. That’s great once you are in, but it really makes no sense to get new customers.

For example, since Capital One is getting out of online brokerage (and I don’t want to be transferred to E-Trade), I decided to move my accounts to Merrill Edge. Since I was moved > $100K to ML, I thought i would give BOA a try too since I’ve never been thrilled with Chase over the last 20+ years. This credit card and the 50k point offer was presented when I submitted the banking application, so I figured why not…

Unfortunately, I can’t avoid the non-BOA ATM fees, get the extra points, etc. until I qualify for Preferred Rewards, so that basically means I have to have the account open and wait 3 months until I can really start using it since I usually hit a non-home bank ATM a couple of times a month.

From what they’ve told me, I have to wait until April (3 months after opening the account). Which from a marketing new customer perspective gets a D- grade from me.

Yes, I know what an average balance is (and how to calculate it), but the few bank programs I’ve participated in always used those to maintain status, and allowed participation by initial qualification.

Yeah, they definitely elevate the deals to require a lot of work…

I generally use their percent-off coupons when something yields new ECBs (e.g., a $5 item that provides $2 in ECBs). I then try to use the dollar-off coupons with my ECB certificates for something on sale.

For those that subscribe, today’s FRY’s PromoCode Deals email entitled “Ready… Set… Gold!” has a code that works on this drive at Fry’s for $99. if you click where it says “Tap Here for all 232 deals”, and scroll down a bit you’ll see it…

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be available for shipping, though it does seem to be available in most stores for pickup and also for local delivery.

It might come back in stock for shipping (I’ve experienced that a few times with Fry’s) – but at $99 + 1,083 for delivery to me to New York, the delivery charge really “kills the deal”!

Thanks for sharing the stats.

I am SHOCKED that BackBlaze is using desktop-grade hard drives for about half of their drives. The Seagates they are using are desktop grade drives – the HGST are enterprise grade. I realize they have a fault tolerant setup, and while I am not an IT expert here, it seems like they are taking financial short-cuts…

Regarding Seagate, while the failure rates on the linked site are for one quarter, if you drill down you can get the Q3 2017 cumulative “lifetime info” via download. The Seagate model that represents 40% or so of their inventory, has a 3% annual failure rate, which is pretty amazing considering the average age of the these drives is a bit under 3 years and they are operating in an environment they aren’t designed for (24/7 data center). The 3.27% shown here is for one quarter, the cumulative rate is 3.00% over several years, which isn’t great but isn’t unexpected for 24/7 use of a product not designed for such use.

All that said, the HGST enterprise grade drives have cumulative failure annual rates of 0.5 - 0.8%, and those drives are ~4-5 years old. That’s still impressive, given their age – about 1-2% of the drives have cumulatively failed in roughly 4 years in a harsh data center environment.

I’ve not used E*Trade before, but personally used this opportunity to open a Merrill Edge account for the bonus (up to $600) and to qualify for the BOA rewards program.

There bonus code is 600ME (widely publicized) for both non-retirement and retirement accounts, but there appears to be a targeted code of 900ME for 50% higher bonuses that is for retirement accounts only. Of course YMMV on the latter code.

@mistercheap

Thank you, once again, MC!!!