I’ve done my share of bank hopping. But now that I have a mortgage with my bank (how old fashioned of me) which requires that I maintain a checking account there to pay said mortgage, I’m pretty much stuck in this marriage, whether happy or not.

But for most people, aside from inertia and the hassle of filling out the new forms (quite pricey in terms of time and frustration as many of us know), it won’t cost a lot to switch to a new bank.

And these days, with online banking and lots of competition, you can find banks offering free ATM use around the world and money market accounts offering interest rates of more than 5 percent. Not to mention there’s no need to switch banks just to take advantage of good deals on CDs or savings accounts. Although I’ll tell you from experience the maintenance can be tedious if you open too many (a good way to set and forget your savings is to forget your multiple passwords).

Today, I learned about a new Capital One money market account that offers consumer rewards in the form of airline miles or merchandise based on the average balance per month. That’s on top of a decent 4.65 percent APY. I read the fine print so you don’t have to.You’ll need a lot of money to travel anytime soon. You get a measly mile for every $20 average balance for the month. Put $500 within 30 days of opening the account and you’ll get a 2,500 mile bonus.A ticket worth more than $350 requires 50,000 miles. A monthly balance of $10,000 gets you 500 points.

Why not invest your money with an account earning more than 5 percent and then buy your own darn ticket?I don’t think it’s worth the trouble of switching my vacation fund into this account. There probably won’t be miles by the time I’d earn a flight.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 13th, 2007 at 3:59 pm and is filed under saving. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.