The Morgan Stanley (MS)
Platinum CashPlus [morganstanley.com]account offers a
$550 (Update July 2021: Now $695) Annual Engagement Bonus to cover the entire annual fee of a Morgan Stanley Platinum Amex Card. The MS Platinum Card has all the features of a vanilla Platinum Card ($200 annual airline credit, lounge access, etc)
To avoid the fees on the CashPlus account ($45/month) you have to have
- $25000 average daily balance
- $5000 Monthly Deposits (Doesn't have to be net, you can just transfer in/out this amount )
- Active Morgan Stanley Investment Account (easiest is Access Investing with initial $5k minimum, sadly E-Trade accounts don't count)
To obtain this deal
- Open and fund an Access Investment Account [morganstanley.com]
- Open and fund your CashPlus account (I did this over the phone the day after opening my access account)
- Within the CashPlus account, follow the link and apply for the Amex Platinum
- Spend at least $1000 on the Amex to keep the engagement bonus tax free
In addition the current sign up bonus for the Amex is
60k points after 5k spend (July 2021: 100k after 6k spend), not the best but also no annual fee!
While this seems like some work, that's a 2.2% return on the cash tax free. Further sweetened if you can take advantage of the authorized user (AU) and any other deals (e.g., $30 monthly PayPal credit, $15 monthly Uber credit etc). This is part of my emergency fund so investments in the market are out of the question. Account is FDIC insured.
The Access Investing account has an annual 0.3% fee (So ~$15 a year).
Morgan Stanley defines monthly deposits to include payroll, social security, Zelle, mobile check deposits, wires and any external transfers, so that requirement should be fairly easy to meet. Plus, any amount of social security benefits deposited each month will waive the $5,000 monthly deposit requirement.
https://www.morganstanley.com/wha...t/cashplus
348 Comments
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"Further sweetened if you can take advantage of the authorized user (AU) and any other deals (e.g., $30 monthly PayPal credit, $15 monthly Uber credit etc)."
Does that mean the AU can have his own 15$ monthly uber credit besides the main cardholder having it as well? Further, what is this 30$ monthly PayPal credit?
Thanks and reps.
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The driver behind changing Premier Cash Management ($1+m AUM or $100k in debit card transactions to waive fees and get the engagement bonus) to the CashPlus program (this) was to increase the deposits for Morgan Stanley Private Bank. They started running into problems chasing lucrative loan deals because they didn't have the deposit backing to meet the demand.
So unsure how long this will continue or if they will increase the annual credit for the rumored platinum fee increase coming in July.
For now it's a great deal - you get the platinum for a year, get grandfathered into whatever changes come in July and get to see if MS continues the relationship.
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$5,000 monthly deposit (or Social Security deposit in any amount)
-and-
$25,000 Average
Daily Cash Balance (in the Bank Deposit Program)
in order to save $550/yr? Hmmm, not quite for me
"Further sweetened if you can take advantage of the authorized user (AU) and any other deals (e.g., $30 monthly PayPal credit, $15 monthly Uber credit etc)."
Does that mean the AU can have his own 15$ monthly uber credit besides the main cardholder having it as well? Further, what is this 30$ monthly PayPal credit?
Thanks and reps.
Pretty good article covering it: https://thepointsguy.co
Note the MS platinum doesn't have the 10x gas and grocery offer going on now.
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Pretty good article covering it: https://thepointsguy.co
Note the MS platinum doesn't have the 10x gas and grocery offer going on now.
I just got mail for invitation for platinum with 550$ fees and 100k points. It does mention 10x points on gas and groceries.
You have to apply for the MS Platinum from within your CashPlus account. The MS co-branded platinum are similar but not the exact same as the vanilla one direct from Amex.
$5,000 monthly deposit (or Social Security deposit in any amount)
-and-
$25,000 Average
Daily Cash Balance (in the Bank Deposit Program)
in order to save $550/yr? Hmmm, not quite for me
For the 25k minimum point me to a FDIC insured account that's giving >2% right now. For those with an appropriate sized emergency fund it's a good place to park that cash.
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