Best bank to open a checking and savings?

[TopHatFox]

There are many that offer hundreds of dollars to just make a checking and savings account. Pretty cool. I currently have a credit card with Capital One and a Checking + Savings with a local credit union in my old home town.

I'm thinking of switching the Checking + Savings to a national bank rather than a credit union, for the greater bank safety measures, geographical convenience, and generous initial sign-up bonuses. Chase has some good ones.

Thoughts?

[slowtraveler]

Chase has monthly fees unless you do auto direct deposit or X minimum balance.

Capital One360, Schwab, and Fidelity checking accounts are the free ones that I think work best.

[slowtraveler]

To be honest, credit card bonuses have been better for me. The fine print clauses always end up deterring me from what I thought was a nice checking bonus offer.

You are still under 5 (new cards)/24 (months) so Chase Reserve, Preferred, and Ink would be my first cards if you plan on travelling. The points can be redeemed at a cent each for cash so that's over a thousand dollars (if redeemed for cash instead of travel) between the 3 cards. Paying taxes with cards meets min spend requirements.

[GandK]

Synchrony.

[Chris]

The current Chase banking offer isn't that appealing to me. For savings, after 90 days, you get a $200 bonus for depositing $15k. But you need to keep the money in for at least 6 months, or they deduct the bonus. For those 6 months, you have $15k of immovable money earning .01% interest.

The current CIT offer is more appealing. The bonus is lower, but they're currently paying 1.15% on deposits. So over 6 months you might actually want to keep your money there.

Since you already have a Capital One credit card, I would suggest looking at their 360 Savings and checking products. The bonus is small, but easy to achieve: $25 for a $250 deposit, available for both savings and checking (my referral link).

[TopHatFox]

@Chris: Casual

But I'm inclined to agree!

[Gilberto de Piento]

No offense, but could we not do the referral link thing here? It's really annoying at MMM because people respond to threads just to get their links spread everywhere.

[classical_Liberal]

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