What a hub account is
A hub account is a checking or cash management account you never close. It holds your float, receives your paycheck, and pushes and pulls money to every bonus account you open. All external links live at the hub, so each new bonus account only needs one connection.
Without a hub, every bonus account needs its own web of links to every other account, and your money map turns into spaghetti. With a hub, the map is a wheel: one center, many spokes. When a bonus account closes, you delete one spoke and nothing else changes.
The hub is also your fallback. When a bonus bank's transfer system is slow, limited, or broken, you push from the hub instead and route around the problem.
What makes a good hub
Free, always. No monthly fee, no minimum balance, no excuse for the bank to charge you while your balance swings between $50 and $15,000. Bonus churning produces exactly those swings.
High external transfer limits and fast ACH. You want to move five figures in and out without hitting a $2,000 daily cap, and you want next-day or same-day ACH so deadlines do not depend on three-day float. Free outgoing transfers matter too. Some banks still charge for ACH pushes, which disqualifies them.
Good push coding for direct deposit requirements. The dream hub sends ACH pushes that bonus banks count as direct deposits. This is the trait that makes brokerage hubs so popular: their pushes have historically counted as DD at many banks. As always, coding behavior shifts over time, so verify per bank.
- ▸No fees and no minimums
- ▸High daily and monthly ACH limits, fast settlement
- ▸Free outgoing pushes
- ▸Push transfers that often code as direct deposits
- ▸Stable bank that will not be your next churn target
Commonly cited hubs
Four names come up constantly in the community. The Fidelity Cash Management Account is the classic: no fees, ATM rebates, strong transfer limits, and pushes that have a long record of counting as direct deposits at many banks. Schwab's checking account has a similar reputation and adds excellent international ATM treatment.
SoFi and Ally are the popular online bank picks. Both are free, both have clean transfer interfaces with reasonable limits, and both pay real interest on idle cash, which matters since your hub holds your float between bonuses.
There is no single right answer, and many churners run two hubs: one brokerage account for DD-coded pushes and one online bank for fast everyday transfers. Pick from the proven names rather than experimenting, because the hub is the one account where reliability beats every other feature.
A sample setup, in words
Picture the flow as one straight line that fans out. Your paycheck lands in the hub by employer direct deposit. The hub holds your buffer and pays your real bills. When you open a bonus account, you link it to the hub once, in both directions.
To meet a direct deposit requirement, the hub pushes the required amount to the bonus account. If the hub's push does not count at that bank, you temporarily split your real payroll to the bonus account instead, and the hub keeps covering your bills from buffer.
When the bonus pays out, the hub pulls everything back: bonus, deposits, every dollar. The bonus account sits at minimum balance until the early termination window passes, then you close it and delete the link. The hub never changed. Repeat with the next bank.
Record-keeping
Churning several banks at once without records is how people miss requirements and eat clawbacks. Keep one spreadsheet with a row per account: bank, open date, bonus amount, the exact requirements, the deadline for each requirement, the date the bonus posted, the early termination fee window, and the earliest safe close date.
Track clawback terms specifically. Many banks reclaim the bonus if you close within 90 or 180 days of opening, and some count from bonus payout instead. Write down which clock applies and set a calendar reminder for the safe-close date.
Save the offer page as a PDF the day you apply. Offer terms vanish from bank sites, and the PDF is your evidence if a bonus does not post and you have to escalate. Also log every 1099 the accounts generate, because tax season arrives with a stack of them and you want your numbers to match the bank's.
- ▸One spreadsheet, one row per account, every deadline dated
- ▸Calendar reminders for DD deadlines and safe-close dates
- ▸PDF of every offer page on application day
- ▸A folder for 1099s as they arrive