A few months ago SoFi made headlines by offering free money to people who open new checking accounts. Now, Bask Bank has a new and unique offer of their own. For a limited time (until February 29, 2020), you can earn 5,000 bonus American Airlines AAdvantage® miles when you open a new savings account with Bask Bank!

Account Details

A Bask Savings Account is a different type of savings account. Unlike traditional savings accounts where annual interest gives you pennies on the dollar, this account earns airline miles instead of interest. For every dollar deposited, you earn one American Airlines AAdvantage® mile annually, paid in monthly installments into your AAdvantage® account. Some other highlights of Bask Bank are that it’s FDIC insured, there are absolutely no account fees and you can earn an unlimited number of miles.

In addition to earning miles based on your account balance, Bask Bank is currently offering a one-time account opening bonus, a feedback bonus and a tiered balance bonus.

Below are the details on these three bonus offers:

New Account Bonus Offer

To take advantage of this offer, open a new savings account with Bask Bank. Hold a minimum balance of $1,000 in the account for 30 days within 60 days of opening the account. The 5,000 bonus AAdvantage® miles will be awarded within 10 business days after meeting the offer qualifications.

• This offer is for customers that have not previously opened a Bask Savings Account
• You must provide Bask Bank with an AAdvantage® number in the same name as the savings account
• You must open the account by February 29, 2020

Feedback Bonus Offer

Bask Bank is also offering 1,000 bonus AAdvantage® miles for giving feedback about their program.

• You must provide feedback through their online banking website or mobile app
• You must provide Bask Bank with an AAdvantage® number in the same name as the savings account
• This offer is valid through June 30, 2020

Tiered Balance Bonus Offer

This offer kicks in if you maintain a minimum balance of $25,000 and gets increasingly more lucrative if the balance is at least $50,000 or $100,000.

• If you maintain a minimum balance of $25,000 for 12 months, you’ll earn 10,000 bonus miles
• Maintain a minimum balance of $50,000 for 12 months and you’ll earn 20,000 bonus miles
• Finally, if you maintain a minimum balance of $100,000 miles for 12 months, you’ll earn 40,000 bonus miles

After earning the bonus, should I keep the account?

For many people, including myself, this is all about the easy 6,000 bonus miles. I’m not real interested in stashing any more than the $1,000 minimum in the account. As such, I won’t earn any miles from the tiered balance bonus offer. Once the new account bonus and feedback bonus miles are credited to my AAdvantage® account, I’ll transfer the money back to my primary bank. But for those who are considering going for the tiered balance bonus, let’s crunch some numbers to see how someone could maximize this account over the long term.

So how many miles could you actually earn with Bask Bank?

Standard Savings Account

First let’s set an assumption about the average savings account. For this exercise, I’ll assume a standard savings account earns 1% interest and you have $50,000 in the account. In one year, you would earn $500 in interest.

Bask Bank Savings Account

Instead, let’s put that same $50,000 is in a new Bask Savings Account. If the account average balance for January is $50,000, you would earn 4,246 miles ($10k / 365 x 31) that month. If that same balance is maintained in February, you would earn another 3,972 miles the next month. After one year of maintaining an average balance of $50,000 each month, you will have earned a total of 50,000 miles.

So the total number of miles earned after one year would be 76,000 miles:

• 50,000 miles earned
• + 5,000 new account bonus
• + 1,000 feedback bonus
• + 20,000 balance bonus (tier 2)
• = 76,000 miles

So the question becomes, would you rather have $500 cash or 76,000 miles? Unfortunately it’s impossible to quantify the exact worth of 76,000 miles because it can vary depending on how the miles are used. But it’s very possible to get substantially more value than $500. Below is an example.

Redemption Example

You can fly round-trip from Chicago to Paris in economy for only 34,000 miles, plus $85.05 in taxes and fees. That means you’d have enough miles leftover to bring a friend as well. For 68,000 miles, you can spend a week in Paris!

The cash equivalent of this trip for two is $1,422, which is much higher than the $500 you would’ve received in interest from a regular savings account.

Is There a Catch?

With no account fees, there’s really no catch or downside. However, there is one other item to remember — as with any savings account, earnings are subject to taxes. Bask Bank will send you a 1099 form at the end of the year based on the miles earned in your account. According to their terms and conditions, miles are valued at 0.42 cents per mile, which is the equivalent of a 0.42% annual percentage yield. In our example (76,000 miles earned), the taxable value would be $319.20. You would owe taxes on that amount based on your marginal tax rate. Of course, if you had earned $500 in a regular savings account instead, you would owe taxes on that money as well.

Bottom Line

While many people may only open an account to earn the easy 6,000 miles, there’s a lot more value that can be earned. This unique savings account can be a wonderful tool to help earn valuable AAdvantage® miles. The most common way to earn miles has always been via credit card spending, flying, shopping portals, dining programs and surveys. Now there’s a new option.

This account could be especially attractive if you’ve earned a new Citi AAdvantage credit card welcome bonus in the past 48 months. Citi will only award a welcome bonus to new cardholders who have not earned a welcome bonus on the same card in the past 48 months. So now while you wait for the 48-month restriction to expire, you could use a Bask Savings Account to supplement your miles earning strategy.