So I need to open a new checking account and I'm also looking for a good travel rewards credit card. After reading about the benefits of Chase Checking, Chase Freedom, Chase Sapphire Preferred being used together I thought I could kill two birds with one stone.

My question is: given my situation, which checking/card combo would be best?

Chase checking/Freedom/Sapphire Preferred
Citi Checking/Double Cash/Prestige or Premier
Capital One Checking/Quicksilver/Venture
Some other combination?
Maybe one particular hotel card?
I just got an offer for AMEX Premier Rewards Gold - 50000pts

Background:

I already have Capital One Quicksilver.

I have excellent credit and never carry a balance.

My spending is between $1000-1500/per month. (CSP sign up bonus would take some planning but not impossible).

My spending is mainly groceries/dining/shopping and whatever monthly bills let me pay with a credit card. I don't buy much gas.

I'm an airline employee - I almost always fly stand-by and most of my travel spending is lodging. I'm not yet part of any hotel loyalty programs so I'm flexible on this.

Lounge access is not important to me.

Citi offers free global entry - I don't have this yet but it would be nice.

Citi's $450 yearly fee is pretty steep for me.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Do you have Bank of America near you?
If so,
I would do BofA Core Checking (Which is what I personally use), combined with BankAmericard Travel Rewards (no annual fees & instead of most cards where you only get 1 pt/dollar, you get 1.5 pts/dollar).

If not,

I would do checking at Alliant Credit Union www.alliantcreditunion.org (It's an online credit union that pays .65% interest on your checking balance) & I would do Amex Platinum, with a backup Visa to use wherever Amex isn't accepted (Standard BankAmericard is a good one, or Alliant's Platinum Card).

Whatever you do, do not go with Chase. Visit www.chase-sucks.com for more information on why you shouldn't bank with Chase.

Hope I helped!

Welcome both to Flyertalk.

Why would you recommend this card for wherethe3at's situation? Membership Rewards is a very weak program for hotel rewards, and its best value is for airline rewards which would seem to be a minimal interest in this instance.

BoA is the only one off the top of my head that offers better tiers of rewards to CC holders based on account size.

Chase ended the Freedom's 10% points dividend for Chase Checking customers last year for new customers.

I don't bank with Citi. I don't think there is a ton of value here pairing CC with bank, unless you could get a top relationship tier with BoA

Fidelity Cash Management account for the checking/savings (no monthly fees) + a Fidelity Visa and/or Fidelity Amex, neither of which have an annual fee and both of which are great cash-back cards. (This obviously isn't a travel-rewards program, but if you already fly for free, you might not really need one.)

Citi Thank You Premier card (50,000-point sign-up bonus) + a Citigold account (using the 50,000-point sign-up promo). You can fund the Citigold account with the Premier, which should take care of the $3,000 (?) minimum spend, and then turn right around and pay the Premier balance using the money you just deposited. After making the required bill pays, downgrade the Citigold account to Citi's free checking (requires only $1,500 balance). (Or, pair the Citi Prestige with the Citigold; the annual fee drops to $350 if you're a Citigold customer at the time of application, and with the $250 annual travel credit, it's really only a $100 annual fee card.)

The Amex PRG is also a great card, and the 50,000-point offer you received is the best available.