Ally Bank Spending Account (Interest Checking) Promotion: $200 Bonus

Ally Bank is running a new checking account promotion, now called their “Spending Account”. You must open your first Spending Account by 11/30/2023 and use the promo code GET200, fund it within 30 days of opening, and set up direct deposits totaling $1,500+ within 90 days. You’ll then get a $200 bonus within 30 days of the qualifying direct deposits.

If you don’t have an Ally Spending account already, this is a good bonus to grab. Note the following details about bonus eligibility from the fine print:

Notably for this offer, we are defining a New Customer as: someone with no current, nor within the last twelve (12) months, Ally Bank Spending Account(s) [formerly known as Ally Bank Interest Checking Account], at any ownership level, whether it be primary owner, joint/secondary owner, or fiduciary owner. Additionally, customers who received a cash bonus from Ally Bank within the last twelve months for setting up Qualifying Direct Deposit, regardless of account type, are not eligible for this bonus and not considered a New Customer.

Spending Account mini-review. Their Spending Account itself is nothing special, a checking account with no monthly fees, no minimums, online bill payments, ATM rebates up to $10 per statement cycle, and it only pays 0.10% APY interest on balances up to $15k and 0.25% APY on balances above $15k. However, it does pair well if you already have Ally Savings accounts. You can set an Ally Savings account to be the automatic backup funding source if you overdraft the Spending account. You can also have multiple Savings Accounts (useful when they enforced the six withdrawals per month limit). So when Ally was my primary account, I would keep a very minimal amount in my Spending Account, a bigger amount in Savings Account #1 as overdraft backup, and another bigger amount in Savings #2 or Savings #3 or No Penalty CD or whatever.

All deposits would go straight into Savings #1, earning higher interest right away. You can even do mobile check deposit directly into Savings. Bill Pay must come out of Spending/Checking, but all of my 5-10 payments would be scheduled on say the 2nd of the month. (You can request to shift each of your credit card due dates to match up.) I would then schedule a big transfer from Savings #1 to Spending/Checking on the 1st of the month. If a random withdrawal hits my Spending/Checking, it would just trigger an auto-withdrawal from Savings #1. The result: maximum interest earned from Savings and minimal idle cash in Spending/Checking.

While I have used my Ally Bank accounts regularly for years due to their well-designed bank-to-bank transfer service and overall solid customer service, the Ally Savings APY has been lagging a bit during this period of interest rate hikes, usually 1% APY behind the rate leaders. Most of my idle cash has moved into money market mutual funds (like VUSXX or FDLXX) and Treasury bonds, both earning ~5.5% effective APY due to my local state income tax deduction.
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