I got really excited when recently Suntrust Bank started offered a bank account with Delta Skymiles as the reward. Considering money in the bank makes absolutely no interest, I find it much more valuable to earn a stockpile of miles on our money.

Suntrust is currently offering up to 30,000 Delta Skymiles when you open a new Suntrust checking account with direct deposit and the Delta Skymiles World Check card. Direct deposit must be a minimum $100 per month to earn 15,000 bonus miles. The additional 15,000 miles comes from opening up the Delta Skymiles World check card.

The annual fee for the Delta Skymiles check card is $75 and is not waived the first year.

The Suntrust Delta accounts must be opened by June 30, 2012.

At first, the annual fee on the check card ($75), plus the minimum balance requirements to avoid monthly fees made me hesitate at opening an account. However, when I realized our boys had cash sitting in the bank that was earning them negligible interest, it made sense to temporarily move the money over and earn some miles that were more valuable than the interest.

How to Maximize Returns?

The cheapest option, in my opinion, is to open the Balanced Banking account. There is a $100 minimum deposit and a $12 monthly maintenance fee. However, if you have an extra $3,000 doing nothing for you, it makes sense to drop it into the Balanced Banking account to avoid the $12 monthly maintenance fee.

After opening up an account online, I was immediately approved. However, I had some trouble verifying my outside accounts for transfer into the account, and had to call to get everything straightened out, and gain access online. I immediately moved in the full $3,000 into the account, and I plan on doing nothing with it until 6 months from now.

There is an early account closure fee of $25 if closed within 6 months. Therefore, plan to house your money with Suntrust for at least 6 months to avoid additional fees and depletion of the value of the bonus miles.

I opened my account about three weeks ago and finally received the check card. Now I just need to make my first purchase using the card, and I will earn the bonus miles. I also confirmed with Suntrust that there are no dormancy requirements on the account. So in other words, I can get the card, activate it, make one purchase on the card, and sock it into the safe. Our account will still maintain activity due to the direct deposit requirement.

The account will earn 1 Skymile per dollar spent though, so it may make sense to utilize the card since I have already paid the annual fee.

So for a total out-of-pocket cost of $75, and temporarily storing one of our sons money with Suntrust, we will walk away with an extra 30,000 Delta Skymiles. I think that is something to get excited about!

A nice bonus is that opening account only results in a softpull on your credit report. As long as you have the extra cash sitting idle in an account, it pretty much is a no-brainer to add some real value to your Delta Skymiles portfolio.

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