Is the Capital One NYC Cafe convenient for you?
http://cafes.capitalone360.com/new_york/
If so, I'd sign up w/them. Then you can make cash deposits at their ATM & still have all the benefits of an online bank.
What benefits would that include, the Online banking I mean? If we were to do Capital One 360 we would only be getting the 20% APY interest since the amount we keep in there would be small. At that rate, we might as well open the Chase Total Checking and get the initial $300 bonus. Makes more sense, right?
I guess it depends on how much money you keep in the account. Their checking rate is only .2% but the savings is .75%. That will eventually outweigh the inital $300 bonus from Chase, but how long it will take depends on your balance. The other thing I like is the account is 100% free with no minimum balance and no direct deposit requirement. And, if you travel, no forex fee on withdrawals at a foreign ATM is a nice perk. For us, it's the right balance of the benefits of online accounts & brick and mortar, all at the same bank.
Note the OP specifically asked for a
checking account, not a savings account.
Well considering you need a balance of at least $50k to reach the 0.74% rate on the checking account, even if we were to assume for a second that the OP wants to maintain $49,999.99 in the account (which I doubt), then it would take 2.994 years to accumulate $300 of interest in the account. Any less than this amount (most probably true), and it will take longer. And while it's doubtful that the interest rate will remain the same over the next three or so years, it's highly likely that the OP will not be able to accrue $300 of interest from capital One's 360 in under six months, the minimum time required to gather the Chase signup bonus and close the Chase account without any fee.
And mlipps, you're excluding the possibility that OP could open the Chase account, fulfill the terms of the signup bonus, and then close the account and just use Capital One 360 (I chase bank signup bonuses like this).
If you want to look at the Capital One 360 savings account vs $300 signup bonus, then if we were to assume the OP will maintain about $15k in the savings account (again, no idea how accurate this is), it would take 2.65 years to accumulate $300 of interest at 0.75%.
I can attest to using one of those Chase coupons on eBay before. Just one data point here, but better than nothing I suppose.