BonusWave

If you're churning bank account bonuses, you already know the hard part isn't finding the bonuses - it's keeping track of them. Which accounts have you opened, what are the requirements, when's the deadline, did you set up that direct deposit yet, is it safe to close the account? Miss one deadline and you've lost hundreds of dollars.

I earned $2,950 from bank bonuses in 2025 across 8 accounts. For most of that time, I tracked everything in a Google Sheet. It worked - until it didn't. Here's what I learned about the different ways to stay organized, and why I eventually built something better.

The Spreadsheet Approach

This is where most churners start, and for good reason. It's free, flexible, and you can set it up in five minutes.

My spreadsheet had about 10 columns: bank name, bonus amount, account type, date opened, conditions, deadline, bonus date, days to bonus, whether I received it, churnable date, and close date. For the first couple of bonuses, this was more than enough. When you're only running one or two accounts at a time, you can do a lot of the "heavy lifting" by just remembering what you need to do.

The problems started when I scaled past 3-4 active bonuses. Spreadsheets are great at storing data but terrible at surfacing what needs your attention right now. Every time I opened my sheet, I had to scan every row, do mental date math, and figure out which accounts were approaching a deadline. There's no concept of "this one is urgent" - it's just rows of data.

Some churners build much more elaborate spreadsheets with conditional formatting, countdown formulas, and color-coded statuses. That works, but now you're spending time maintaining your tracking system instead of just tracking bonuses. And spreadsheets can't nudge you - if you forget to open the sheet for two weeks, you might miss a deadline silently.

Spreadsheets work best when: You're running 1-2 bonuses at a time and have a good memory. If that's you, a simple Google Sheet is honestly all you need.

Spreadsheets fall apart when: You're juggling 3+ active bonuses with overlapping deadlines and different requirement types, or when you want something to remind you before a deadline slips by. That's when things start falling through the cracks.

Notion and Airtable

Some churners have moved their tracking into Notion or Airtable, using their native database features. The setup is similar to a spreadsheet - you're still creating columns for bank name, deadline, requirements, etc. - but you get some nice extras like filtered views, different layouts (table, kanban, calendar), and better mobile access.

The advantage over a plain spreadsheet is that you can create views like "show me only active bonuses sorted by deadline" without fiddling with filters every time. Airtable in particular has good automation features - you could set up a reminder when a deadline is within 7 days.

The downside is that you're still building and maintaining the system yourself. You have to decide what fields to create, what views to set up, and how to structure everything. It's a general-purpose tool that you're bending into a bonus tracker, which means it'll never be as streamlined as something built specifically for this purpose.

Notion/Airtable work best when: You already use one of these tools daily and want to keep everything in one place.

They fall apart when: You want something that just works out of the box without configuration, or you want bonus-specific features like requirement checklists and status-based grouping.

Dedicated Bonus Tracking Tools

There are a few tools and sites built specifically for bank bonuses. Here are the ones I'm aware of (as of March 2026 - features and other details may have changed since this was written).

BonusWave (bonuswave.app) - Full disclosure, I built this one. It started as my own replacement for the spreadsheet I described above. The core idea is a dashboard that shows you what needs attention right now instead of making you scan rows of data. Your bonuses are grouped by status - "Action Needed," "Expecting Bonus," and "Ready to Close" - so you immediately know where things stand. You can log a new bonus in 3 fields (bank, amount, deadline) and expand to the full form if you want to track requirements, fees, and notes. It recently added a weekly email digest that summarizes your active bonuses and flags approaching deadlines - the thing I wished my spreadsheet could do. It's free, has no affiliate links, and doesn't do deals discovery.

The Bonus Stack (thebonusstack.com) - A deals-focused site that lists bonus offers tagged by difficulty. It has a basic tracking feature where you can mark a deal as "tracking" and check off requirements, but everything is stored in your browser's local storage - there are no user accounts. That means if you switch devices or clear your browser data, your tracking data is gone. Good for browsing deals, but limited as a long-term tracking system. Revenue comes from affiliate links.

BonusFlow (bonusflow.app) - A newer deals-forward tracker that also has account-based tracking with a dashboard view. It has notification toggles in settings, though in my experience these don't appear to be active yet. The deals section currently only covers credit cards and business checking accounts, so coverage is limited compared to Doctor of Credit or BankRewards.io. Worth keeping an eye on as it develops.

BankRewards.io (bankrewards.io) - Primarily a bonus aggregation and comparison site. They list hundreds of bank, credit card, and brokerage bonuses with detailed filtering and sorting. It's more of a "find your next bonus" tool than a personal tracker. Revenue comes from affiliate links. Good for discovering bonuses, but you'd still need something else to track your active ones.

What to Look for in a Tracking System

Whatever you choose, here's what matters most for staying organized:

Deadline visibility. The number one thing that costs churners money is a missed deadline. Your system needs to make upcoming deadlines impossible to ignore - whether that's a countdown column in a spreadsheet, a calendar view in Notion, or status-based alerts in a dedicated tool.

Requirement tracking. Most bonuses have multiple requirements - direct deposit, debit transactions, minimum balance. You need a way to check these off as you complete them so you know at a glance what's still pending.

Status awareness. A bonus goes through stages: meeting requirements, waiting for payout, received, ready to close. Whatever you use should make it easy to see which stage each bonus is in.

Low friction to update. If it takes more than 30 seconds to log a new bonus or update a status, you'll stop doing it. The best system is the one you'll actually use consistently.

Some kind of reminder. Whether it's a calendar event, an email, or a built-in notification - you need something that reaches out to you when a deadline is approaching. Passive systems that rely on you remembering to check them will eventually let something slip.

My Recommendation

If you're just starting out with 1-2 bonuses, a simple Google Sheet is fine. Don't overthink it.

If you're scaling up and want something that does the thinking for you - surfacing deadlines, grouping by status, sending you weekly reminders - try BonusWave. I built it because I needed it, and it's free.

If you want to discover new bonuses, Doctor of Credit (doctorofcredit.com) is the gold standard - I've found every bonus I've ever done through their site. The Bonus Stack and BankRewards.io are also good for browsing deals. You might end up using one of those for finding bonuses and something else for tracking them - there's no rule that says you have to use one tool for everything.

The most important thing isn't which tool you pick. It's that you have a system and you use it consistently. A missed $400 bonus because you forgot a deadline is an expensive lesson - and one that's completely avoidable.

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I'm building BonusWave as a free tool for the churning community. If you try it, I'd love to hear what you think - reach me at hello@bonuswave.app.