Schwab currently offers $100 for opening a brokerage account through this generic referral page. But this offer has not always been around. In July 2016 DoC wrote an article on this bonus and I believe this was the first time this $100 bonus was introduced.

Anyway, fast forward to this week and we see a data point (DP) on reddit of someone getting matched for this offer after over 6 months of opening the account. Needless to say I quickly jumped over the deal and shot a secure message to Schwab to which an eService Representative responded

Thank you for your message and the opportunity to assist you. I have requested for your brokerage account to be credited with $100 in lieu of the referral bonus.

and then a few hours later $100 showed up in my brokerage account.

The weird part is I had signed up for Schwab account before this offer even existed, which as I mentioned before was over a year ago! This almost beats Citi matching a dead 40k offer from over 1.5 year ago.

Now, as this “deal” gets more attention, more people will request a match and there will likely come a time when Schwab will stop matching (or rather handing out $ to) folks so generously. If you’ve been in this game for a while then you likely opened a Schwab account without any bonus and if such is the case, I suggest you shoot a secure message to Schwab asap. Remember, early bird gets the worm.

UPDATE: I tried to replicate this deal on a 2nd account but ran into several hiccups.  My first attempt did not work through SM:

While we are not able to discuss the details of our Promotions or your eligibility through email/chat, fortunately we have a dedicated team of Promotions specialists available to assist you with this by phone. You can reach the Promotions team directly at 866-855-9102, 8:30am-8:30pm Eastern on weekdays, and they will be more than happy to assist you regarding this request.

We did not want to call so I sent out another SM and this time around I was told this offer isn’t valid to existing clients (duh) but was still given $50 as a courtesy.

Thank you for your inquiry. I am sorry, but the refer a friend promotion is for your friend to receive $100 into his or her new brokerage account, not to existing clients. Your friend would use the web site you provided to then sign up for an account.

However, because we appreciate your business with us, I have credited your account $50 into your brokerage account -xxx. The credit will fully reflect online in a few business days. Once your see it, you can either keep it in your brokerage, or move it into your checking account.

The gist of the matter is that they may have already stopped handing out $100 as a “match”. They still seem to be handing out courtesy $ but I don’t see that lasting long.