Ally Bank Checking (Spending Account): $300 Bonus w/ Direct Deposit

Bonus is back, now $300. Ally Bank has a new checking account promotion for their “Spending Account”. You must open your first Spending Account by 11/18/2025 and use the promo code GET300, fund it within 30 days of opening, and set up qualifying direct deposits of at least $1,000 a month for two consecutive months. Your first monthly qualifying direct deposit(s) totaling at least $1,000 must post to your Spending Account within 60 days of when you open the account. You’ll then get a $300 bonus within 30 days of the qualifying direct deposits.

If you don’t have an Ally Spending account already but are using their Savings account, this is a good bonus to grab. If you don’t have an Ally Savings account yet, I would open a Savings first grabbing this $100 bonus (which works for both Savings and Checking and only works if you have no Ally accounts as well), and then pick up this bigger $300 bonus for your first Checking (which allows you to have other Ally accounts).

Spending Account mini-review. Their Spending Account is solid but nothing extraordinary – a checking account with no monthly fees, no minimums, online bill payments, ATM rebates up to $10 per statement cycle, but it only pays a sad 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 use the Ally Savings Account. You can set an Ally Savings account to be the automatic (and free) 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 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 me at least 1% APY more on an after-tax basis due to my local state income tax deduction.