TradeKing, a newish online brokerage that offers $4.95 trades and no maintenance or minimum fees, is again offering $100 for opening an account with $1,000 and executing one trade using the promotional code TRADE expired!.

I already received my $100 bonus the last time they offered it with little problem.You must maintain a balance of $100 for the first six months. Buy a small amount of something stable if all you want is the $100 minus the commissions, or see my previous post for what I did. Here’s the fine print:

* To qualify for this offer, new accounts must be opened and funded with a $1,000 minimum and one trade executed. Offer excludes retirement and custodian accounts. Offer is not transferable or valid in conjunction with any other offer. Open to US residents only. One offer per household. TradeKing can modify or discontinue this offer at anytime without notice. A minimum balance of $100 is required in the account for the first six months. Other restrictions may apply.

I couldn’t find any specific expiration date, but since they can ‘discontinue it at any time’ I’d act sooner rather than later.

The offer actually worked for me, as I’m keeping my account open even after the six months is up. I think it’s a pretty decent brokerage, although some have complained about bad fills. If Scottrade doesn’t start offering online funds transfers soon like they promised in ‘Summer 2006’ (umm… is October still Summer?), then I might switch over completely. I already plan to close my now-liquidated Ameritrade I-Zone account with $5 trades.

As a follow-up to my post on Earning More Bonuses Using Business Credit Cards, here are two additional non-airlines cards with nice bonuses:

CitiBusiness Card with ThankYou Network – 10,000 ThankYou Points after first purchase, redeemable for either $100 cash towards student loans, or a $100 Gift Card at Home Depot, Target, gas stations, Gap, etc. There is also a 0% balance transfer intro offer with this card.

The New Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN –  Now offers 3X points on airfare, 2X points on advertising, gas, and shipping and 1X point on everything else. The annual fee for this card is $175 but it is waived for all new cardholders. You can also get unlimited additional gold cards for an extra annual fee of $50 but this fee is waived for the first year as well.

Bank of America (merged with MBNA) is offering a free baseball jersey as well as an iPod Nano with their MLB Extra Bases card. Looks like you need to spend $2,000 on the card with 90 days of account opening to get the iPod. Pertinent fine print quoted below.
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I’ve been too trained to read the fine print on all these offers, and I missed the big bold print on this TD Ameritrade iPod Offer (expired) I mentioned yesterday that reads “Open an additional TD AMERITRADE account and receive a FREE Apple? iPod? nano!” So this one will actually work for existing account holder like myself.

You must open with $10,000 and keep it in there for 9 months to get the iPod. Thanks to some research by reader Brandon, one low-risk option is to buy a 9-month CD from Ameritrade paying 5.10% APY. Currently, top 9-month CD yields are at ~5.60%. The 2gb iPod Nano has a retail value of $199. I’d estimate the resale value at about $150 since you will get it in 8 weeks. Overall, this deal has the potential to make the equivalent of about 7% APY on the $10,000, or at least $100 more than putting it in another CD. Not bad if already have $10k you won’t need for 9 months.

Just a quick note while I have some free WiFi on the road – the popular $20 Unwired Buyer bonus will be ending as of Wednesday, September 6th. That means if you want to sign up, do it by the end of Tuesday, September 5th! You just need to register by then, after which you will still have 30 days to complete a phone bid to qualify for the free $20. More details and helpful tips in my original Unwired Bonus info post.

I looks like I might not get back until Tuesday evening, so I’ll be catching up on e-mails then.

Everyone hears this sage advice: back up your files regularly. I am horrible at this, except for occasionally e-mailing files to myself. One solution is Mozy:

Mozy is a secure, automatic remote backup service for any PC in any home or office. It’s simple to install and configure. No external hard drive, expensive subscription services, CD’s or DVD’s to burn. All you need is a broadband connection and you are ready to go!

I’ve been trying out Mozy for the past week or so, and I must say that overall I like it. It tries hard to be stupid-proof and lazy-proof, and mostly succeeds by backing up your files on its own when your computer is idle so you don’t have to do anything.
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If you didn’t get in on the SunRocket deal, here’s another deal for 2 years of unlimited VoIP phone service for $199 from a different company – ViaTalk. Note that there is also a $10 shipping and $30 activation charge. Offer ends soon at 2 pm EST, Friday August 18th. I’ve never used them so I can’t offer any opinions, but the reviews at DSLReports are pretty good. Thanks to Brian for the tip.