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Registration for this offer isn’t required. Booking must be made via ChaseUltimateRewards.com
You must use cash and not redeem points for the hotel stay or car rental in order to earn 10 points per dollar. This 10x promotion is only valid for travel booked in March, though travel can take place at any time. That’s a potential 25K points per card.
I maxed out this promotion last July on 3 Freedom cards and got 75K points. Since then I downgraded a Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card to a Freedom Unlimited, so potentially I can make 100,000 points off of this promotion. It’s all about playing your cards right 😉
They advertise the bonus as 10% cash back, but you’ll really get 10 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent, which can be worth much more than 10% cash. For example they can be transferred to a Sapphire Reserve card where they’ll be worth a minimum of 1.5 cents each towards travel or they can be transferred into airline/hotel miles. If you earn 25K points on Freedom/Freedom Unlimited and transfer them to Sapphire Reserve they’ll be worth a minimum of $375 towards travel and your effective rebate will be at least 15%.
Both the Freedom and Freedom Unlimited are excellent no annual fee credit cards.
The Freedom card earns 5 points per dollar on $1,500 in quarterly spending. You can click here to activate this quarter’s Chase Freedom 5% categories. With $1,500 in spending per quarter you will earn at least 30,000 Ultimate Rewards points over the course of a year (7,500 points per quarter at 5 points per dollar spent).
2017 bonus categories:
Q1: Gas stations and local commuter transportation
Q2: Grocery stores and drugstores
The Freedom Unlimited card earns 1.5 points per dollar everywhere with no cap, an excellent card for everyday spending.
Freedom or Freedom Unlimited alone can’t transfer points into much more lucrative airline or hotel miles, but if you or your spouse has a Sapphire Reserve, Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, Ink Bold, Ink Plus, or Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card then you can transfer points from Freedom to one of those cards and from there to your favorite travel currency. You can read at the end of this post on great uses of Chase mileage transfers. The Freedom or Freedom Unlimited card can also keep your points alive for free if you do close one of those premium cards.
The value of the points will be based on where you use them, but if you use those points for a trip worth where they are worth 2 cents each then you’ll have effectively earned 10% back on those “5 point categories.” The sky is the limit of the value of airline miles as they aren’t tied to the cost of a ticket. That’s good for people in the know and bad for those who are not. 1 mile can be worth 0.25 cents or it can be worth 25 cents, it all just depends on how you use them!
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52 Comments On "Chase Freedom/Freedom Unlimited 10x Bonus Categories Added For March!"
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If someone can help me understand correctly:
Based on this value, say I book a hotel stay for two nights totaling $1566. With the 10% back on the unlimited, I would get about $156 back (which is equal to 15,600 points with Unlimited), but when I transfer to my reserve points the same points are now worth $234. Which is 50% more.
If this is the case, then of course it makes sense to use the unlimited over the reserve which would have only gotten me about 4,700 points (worth $70 with reserve).
Correct me if all my math is wrong?
If I book a car rental through this promo, I would give up the free car rental insurance I get on my chase sapphire reserve though, correct?
@turgutbey: Well, you should probably go to more expensive hotels than. 🙂
Is this the latest thing, booking with a credit card-designated travel agency that strikes a deal to give you extra points/money? Sounds similar to the Citi Prestige 4th night hotel free, which also has to be booked through their affiliated travel agency.
@Ron:
Correct.
@turgutbey:
Freedom has insurance, but its secondary to your regular car insurance.
I also have 3 freedoms + 1 FU. If only my March budget for car rentals & hotels was $10k.
Wouldn’t maximizing this on 4 cards mean spending $10K on hotels / rental cars? Even with 10-20% back, that’s steep. Any way to MS using this?
@Dan:
@turgutbey:
Couldn’t it be booked through the portal but then present a Sapphire Card at the counter when renting, and then use the Freedom when settling the bill upon return?
Are the bonus miles credited at the time of purchase or at the date on the reservation?
So there’s no way to use this for extras at a hotel (dining, spa, etc.), correct?
@Dan:
Thanks Dan. Do they include taxes and fees into the 10% bonus?
@Reuvenhunt:
@Ari:
There are, but that’s all I’ll say here.
@pH:
A month or 2 after the purchase.
@Yosef_S:
Right.
@Ron:
Yes.
i tried a couple time to book a car or at least find out a quotation for a car in TLV nothing will do. they allow only domestic booking/quotations?
If I have the chase reserve wouldn’t it be better to use UR points through the portal (at 1.5 cents) then full price and get the 10% with the freedom?
@david:
Try calling them.
@Josh:
If you have the points, maybe.
Depends on what other uses you have for the points vs the limited time bonus here.
@Anonymous:
Good question on using the freedom to make the reservation, and the reserve to pay the bill when checking out of hotel.
I think you may need to pay in full on the freedom when booking the hotel on the Chase portal.
Dan, can you confirm this?
If I did not book the car rental through Chase UR but I use a Chase Freedom card to pay for the car rental, do I receive the 10 UR per dollar spent?
So I have a few hotel stays in March. It sounds like using my Chase Freedom Unlimited at checkout is more advantageous than my SPG card with Platinum status or AMEX Hilton with Diamond status?
@Dan:
Dan that’s all you say Here..where do you say the rest?
@CUBS FAN:
No- you have to make the reservations using the freedom card on the chase travel portal. If the reservations are already made, just use whichever card offers the highest point value.
@Joe- no- you need to use the chase portal to make the reservation in order to be eligible for the bonus
Isn’t it more expensive to book hotels there through chase than elsewhere?
@David: I’m sure it varies by case. In my search for hotels for a specific trip, I found that the chase portal was cheaper than the hotels website by $200-300 total for the stay
Is this new that they offer 10x for the Freedom Unlimited card or do they do this from time-to-time? Also, more info on MS would be appreciated.
How do you downgrade from sapphire preferred to FU?
And if you do it within a year will you be charged the annual fee?
More info on what MS even means would be greatly appreciated 🙂 !
Dan, at least direct us where to find the ms info, pls. I get the std way of buying gc when needing to hit spend etc, but this is different. thx
@Baruch: @Baruch: You just call the number in the back of the card. You will not be charge the annual fee once the card has been downgraded.
Will buying gas gift cards at gas stations themselves, qualify for the 5x quarterly bonus?
i want to downgrade my sapphire preferred, as i recently got the sapphire reserve.
should i go with freedom or freedom unlimited ?
Dan, if you book a hotel for someone else using your own card will you still get the 10x points?
So if you have both Freedom and FU, would you get $2,500 max spend between them, or $2,500 each?
I believe MS is manufactured spend. Not sure how it works or anything.
Would love to learn more if someone wants to post about it.
@Baruch: you do it via secure message. Now first you downgrade to the sapphire regular (no af), then another sm to downgrade to fu, voila!
@Eli: Well….decide if you prefer 1.5 on everything, or 5x on changing categories
@SPC: its based on how the purchase codes, not who’s named on the itinerary
@Don: I’ll give you the first word then you find the rest k. Manufactured
All nice and good
Not hotel planned
We stay with friends on our travel
Are you all booking hotels?
@Moish:
Moish give us the tricks on manufactured spend.
Someone share the love
Remember bookings thru the ultimate rewards website may be more expensive. I found at least 20% less on rentals thru carrentalsavers.com or Costco.com for members.
@ Dan (comment 12)
“There are, but that’s all I’ll say here.”
You condescending jerk. You make a living off the the supporters of your website, then wave it in our faces that you know secrets, but you’re too pretentious to share them.
Such hypocrisy.
I’ll bet you learned the secret from someone else.
@Tim:
1. The point I’m making is to dig deeper. I didn’t get where I am by being lazy.
2. I actually did figure it out on my own, thank you very much. People these days just want to be spoon-fed, nobody has the patience to research and experiment.
3. Sure I could just post it here. And it will be dead by tomorrow.
So what exactly will be gained?
4. I used to share these types of secrets in DD seminars. I ran some 15 of them and donated every cent raised to charity.
But then other bloggers started attending them and they made posts on the secrets, claiming them as their own. And of course they killed several of them,
http://www.dansdeals.com/archives/94908
And those bloggers would have never approved your comment.
So does this all make me a jerk?
I don’t think it does, but you are surely entitled to your own opinion.
Cheers!
thanks for the post.
and ur patience is admirable.
Dan, Sorry for the Newbie type questions:
1. In the past, I have always received UR’s from the Chase portal regardless of the card I used. Can one reserve a car with the mileage plus card and receive the 10% bonus and the primary rental insurance from the card?
2. Re. Hotel stays, At Hyatt & SPG, Can you receive A. Benefits of having top status? B. Night/stay credits? C. Receive hotel points for the spend?
Thanks
…It is unfortunate you didn’t require a non disclosure agreement for your seminars. You might have been able to put some of the crap bloggers out of business.
@Grif:
1. No.
2. Probably won’t get any of those, but YMMV.
3. Doubt it would have helped.
What does it mean (from the terms):
Bonus cash back will post to your account within a week of the transaction posting, and will appear on your monthly credit card billing statement and be available for use within 1-2 billing cycles.
Dan- If I book a Starwood hotel thru the chase portal using my freedom unlimited card, do i get the credit for stays/nights with SPG also?
@Joe:
Seems self-explanatory to me, what’s your question?
@Ron:
No.
@Dan: Why is that if the rates are being paid for and not using any points?
@Ron:
Need to book direct with hotel chains to get elite credit and points.
@Dan: Got it thanks. Any spend at the hotel itself will accrue extra points if using my starwood card though?
will this work with ink cards as well?
Us there a way to rent a car threw chase ultimate and not threw a airport? Like just from Brooklyn