That special vacation: it's free when you open a HELOC.

• Position: Marketing News - Home-equity lines of credit - Brief Article

The Columbia Bank, Columbia, Md,, discovered that it could motivate customers to open home-equity lines of credit (HELOC) by offering vacation packages.

The bank, which has assets of $1.08 billion, started the offer in 2002 and has conducted two more promotions since then, the last one ending on May 31, 2003. The institution gave away packages to local hot spots as well as to California, Florida and Las Vegas. Customers had the option of transferring the packages to another person.

To qualify, customers had to open up a HELOC and then to draw down $20,000 or more (the amount was increased to $25,000 after the first promotion). The bank also picked up the closing costs. Existing HELOC customers could participate if they increased their existing utilization of the credit line by $20,000 or more.

During the first promotion, the bank doubled...