What does new customer mean on a bank bonus?

"New customer" is not a feeling about whether you remember the bank. It is a list of exclusions on the offer you are about to use.

Chase writes three exclusions and a reuse rule

The Total Checking offer is not available to existing Chase checking customers, or to those whose accounts have been closed within 90 days, or closed with a negative balance within the last 3 years. ¹ You can receive only one new checking account opening related bonus every two years from the last offer enrollment date, and only one bonus per account. ¹ The offer is good for one-time use. ¹ A clean closure 200 days ago is not the same fact as a negative-balance closure last year, and neither fact is the same as "I got a bonus 18 months ago." How many bank bonuses in a year uses this reuse rule as the example of a bank that will not pay you twice inside the window. The line-by-line deposit test is in Chase Total Checking bonus requirements.

Capital One uses a calendar date

If you have or had 360 Checking, Simply Checking, or Total Control Checking as a primary or secondary owner on or after 1 January 2024, you are ineligible for the $250 offer. ² "Had" includes an account you closed. Secondary includes a joint account. The product list is specific. A Capital One credit card, by itself, is not on that sentence. Capital One 360 Checking bonus requirements has the deposit half of the same offer. Joint bank bonuses has the ownership half.

Wells Fargo says new, and stops there in the banner

The Everyday Checking offer we read is addressed to a new checking customer opening a new consumer checking account with the offer code. ³ It does not, in the portion that rendered, print Chase's two-year sentence or Capital One's 1 January 2024 date. Do not invent one. If you already have a Wells Fargo consumer checking account, ask the bank whether this offer can be enrolled, and keep the answer. How to read a bank bonus offer puts exclusions at line 7 because they void the rest.

What to check before you apply

1. Your name on any open checking account at that bank.
2. Closure dates, and whether any closure left a negative balance.
3. The last date you enrolled in a bonus at that bank, which may differ from the day the cash posted.
4. Joint accounts where you were only a secondary owner.

Then type only a bank that passes into the bank bonus tracker. An ineligible row wastes the payroll change and can create a new account you did not need. When a bank bonus is not worth taking starts with this case. A denied application is a different file from a credit score, which does opening bank accounts hurt your credit separates.