Changes to Fidelity UNIQUE College Investing Plan
Post viewed 2829 times, 6 so far today
Before I applied for the then Fidelity 529 College Rewards MasterCard (now Fidelity 529 College Rewards American Express Card) back in March, I opened a 529 plan with Fidelity in order to invest the 2% rewards I could earn from the card. The plan I chose was Fidelity UNIQUE 2024 plan (which is also Fidelity’s nationally available plan), sponsored by the State of New Hampshire. In addition to the rewards earned from the credit card, I also put $100 every month into the account. The fund has annual expense ratio of 0.50% and one year return of 9.09% (click here for performance details).
Today, I received a letter from Fidelity about some changes to the plan:
- The annual account maintenance fee of $20 has been eliminated;
- Account minimums have been lowered from $1,000 to $50 - or $15 a month with automatic investment;
The elimination of the account maintenance is definitely a welcome change as the $20 is about 1.67% of the total annual contribution. I have another 529 plan with Vanguard which is linked to my Citi Upromise Credit Card. That account, however, continues to charge $20 maintenance fee, though it has a one-year return of 15.94% (I chose Vanguard Aggressive Growth Portfolio for my daughter’s 529). According to a BusinessWeek online article in May, “Vanguard and Upromise charge a premium.”
In 529s where Vanguard teams up with rebate-outfit Upromise to provide administrative services - or where Upromise runs the plan alone - account holders may be paying up to twice as much in fees as their counterparts in other plans with Vanguard funds.
The plan itself has another 0.65% annual plan fees, higher than what Fidelity charged for its 529 plans, though the rebates from Upromise can offset the fees a little bit.
If you enjoyed reading this post, subscribe to the RSS feed.
Featured Financial Products
- Seeking higher returns for your cash? Take a look at the latest interest rates from leading online banks and find out where to get the most for your money.
- Earn up to 5% cash back from these cash back credit cards while shopping at gas stations, grocery stores, or online.
Related Articles You Don't Want To Miss
3 Comments
Share Your Thouhgts
Your opinion matters. Please use the form below to share your thoughts on Changes to Fidelity UNIQUE College Investing Plan with us.Recent Entries
- Free Inc or LLC Service from MyCorporation This Week
- Fidelity to Reopen Contrafund and Low–Priced Stock Fund
- You Can Now Link Your ShareBuilder Account to ING Direct
- November 2008 Score Card — Part I: Net Worth
- 10-Year Treasury Note Yield Reached All-Time Low - Chart of the Day
- Rate Updates: EverBank 4.00% Bonus Rate, Capital One 3.40% APY
- WTDirect Promotion: Get up to $250 Bonus When Opening a New Account
- TradeKing $50 Bonus Ends Tomorrow
- Regular Mortgage versus Reverse Mortgage: A Comparative Study
- Happy Thanksgiving!
- Why You Should Make Room for Charitable Giving in Your Budget
- Quarterly GDP Down 0.5% in Third Quarter - Chart of the Day
- Firstrade Black Friday Promotion: Get a FREE iPod Nano
- Get Your Free EASEUS Partition Manager Pro
- FDIC Problem Bank List Now Includes 171 Banks
- Safest Cars from Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
- American Express $20 Cashback for Shopping at Walmart
- Quicken Online New Features and Demo Video
- Update on DollarSavingsDirect Account
- Weekend Linkage - November 23, 2008
- Citi Closed My Dividend Platinum Select Card
- The Growing List of Failed Banks
- iShares 529 Plan: Save for College with ETFs
- Dow, The Near 6-Year Low
- Transfer A Brokerage Account: How Much Does It Cost?
Sun, congrats on being named as the blog of the week at AFM blog.
Fidelity has replaced credit card with American Express. I found that from
http://www.plans529.com/Directory/tabid/145/rrcid/41/rrepp/5/Default.aspx
It allows to earn rewards points at a rate of 1.5% of net retail purchases which convert to cash when they are automatically contributed to your Fidelity managed 529 plan account.
Actually, the new card offer from Fidelity is not as good as the one they had before. They used to give 2% back with their MasterCard, but now with the AMEX card, as you said, you can only get 1.5% cashback. I got the Mastercard early this year, and they said, at least for now, my card won’t be converted to the new AMEX card. So I can continue to earn 2% cashback to invest the rewards in Fidelity 529 plan for my daughter. Are also using Fidelity card? 1.5% is not as good as before, but still better than other cards which usually offer 1% reward.