My bank is encouraging interesting spending habits

So, my bank this week launched a new checking account product, where as long as you (1) get e-statements, (2) get a direct deposit or withdrawal at least once a month, and (3) use your debit card at least 10 times in a month, you get a phenomenal 6% APY on the checking account. (If you don’t meet the requirements, you get a reasonable-nowadays 0.5% APY for that month.) The first two requirements I already meet, of course. Meeting that last one will require some effort, because currently I use my credit card for all my day-to-day purchases (and several automatic recurring bills) due to its nice cash back program. However, being able to have my main savings in my main checking account simplies my finance tracking, and I think if I use the debit card on small purchases and the credit card on large purchases I’ll end up earning more than I am now, if only slightly.

The really interesting thing to me, though, is that it purely counts the number of transactions, without paying any attention to the dollar amount. Thus it encourages me to do tricks like pump my gas a third of a tank at a time, stopping the pump and then restarting it by swiping my card each time, to artificially bump up my transaction count. In theory I could just meet my quota by pumping a dollar’s worth of gas 10 times, and then using my credit card like I always have been.