Inspired by my conversation with @HeavenRobinson, has anyone here ever tried opening an account with one of those bonus features they have? What’s the catch in those things?
If you’ve tried it, what happened to your account? Do you still have it?
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Good question! I’m curious to know if people wound up finding that there was a catch after all.
You mean the brokers with the $30 bonus?
Oanda has this promo now, $500 bonus if you open a $500 account I think. @HeavenRobinson there is a catch lol. I saw something but now reading the fine print 
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I opened a $900 account with EGM Securities and my account was credited a bonus of $150. It only covers for margin and it’s not eligible for withdrawing unless after 30 days.
Trading.com had (has?) a $30 bonus for opening a live account. I didn’t even transfer money in. Just needed to verify my account and the $30 was added. The only rule was making a single trade. I didn’t try to immediately withdraw it, but I think you wouldn’t be able to. Only profits made using that $30.
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Many offer this so called ’ no deposit bonus’, 30 or 50 USD or EUR, tried some of them,the problem is you have to trade with a given small, maximum lot size in a certain time period with a minimum lotl quantity turn over to withdraw profits, and later the entire bonus amount- in many cases absolutely unrealistic to achieve and it turns out it’s wasted time to trade the bonus free…
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Okay I finally looked up the fine print and yeah the $500 bonus has a pretty steep price lol. I thought it was just a matter of depositing $500 but:
That notional trade volume requirement 
Relevant links here:
https://pages.oanda.com/2022-welcome-bonus-us.html?division=oc
Here’s the promo image for reference:
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Yup this is exactly what I found too lol. Good to know for sure.
Ah, nice to see that you dug deeper into it! Knew there was something lol
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I’d rather use leverage instead of signing up for these bonuses. There are some requirements and restrictions that would definitely ruin my strategy one way or another.
There is no real value behind. I see it as a smart way to get newbies involved. And we all know how this ends up…
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Another point is the so called “deposit bonus” - that’s better, cause often you get a fixed percentage of your deposit as trading money, ( often between 20 and more than 100 % of your deposit).
You can withdraw all the profit achieved with the bonus but not the bonus itself.
I had a broker who offered each deposit up to 130%bonus!!, I speculated with that money on index overnight gaps when Corona was at the peak and high volatility to the downside was imminent - as I won to much with his free money, he cancelled account🤣
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Exactly. But also wow, that’s some rich newbie they’re trying to get with that $500 bonus!
Do you mean the broker? You were still able to withdraw your profit right? 
Yes, the broker referred to a certain sentence in the agreement every customer has to except that" the company has the right to close any time without mentioning a reason the customers account just by notifying the customer that this happened"
But I must say that I was on the lucky side, because he gave me a deadline- date (one week later) untill that I had to withdraw all my remaining funds, and that worked correctly without delay
It was now clear, that the broker was one of those companies who lost money when the client made profits and vice versa - not every broker has that accounting scheme.
This right here.
There are plenty types of different bonuses that a broker can offer. Most commonly is Non-deposit bonus which as the name say doesn’t require a bonus (it a low bonus like $50). Main point is for trader to check out broker trading condition and their services.
You were lucky because you were smart! Good thinking there! Happy it worked out just fine.