Chase Freedom Q4 Bonus Spending Categories Start Today

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Today is the first day of Q4 bonus spending on the Chase Freedom card. You can click here to activate this quarter’s Chase Freedom 5% categories for spending at Walmart, Walmart.com, and department stores from 10/1-12/31.

You can view credit card offers by hovering over the “Credit Cards” tab. You can then click on “Credit Cards From All Banks“ to find card offers via the logo of the bank you’re looking for.

In the past, Q4 has often been a bonus category for Amazon.com. With Walmart in all-out war mode against Amazon, it’s fitting that they took over as the Q4 featured merchant on the Freedom card. It’s still a big surprise though, as Chase issues Amazon’s co-branded credit card.

Walmart purchases include all Walmart stores, Walmart gas stations, and Walmart.com. Walmart owned stores and sites like Sams Club and Jet.com are excluded. However you can buy Walmart gift cards with this promotion and use them at Sam’s Club.

Walmart sells Vanilla Visa gift cards that can be used to purchase money orders at select grocery stores and post offices.

You can also earn 5% at department stores such as:

• Bloomingdale’s
• BonTon
• Dillard’s
• JCPenney
• Kohl’s
• Lord & Taylor
• Macys
• Neiman Marcus
• Nordstrom
• Nordstrom Rack
• Saks Fifth Avenue
• Saks Off 5th
• Sears
• Find more valid department stores here.

Chase Freedom is an excellent no annual fee card thanks to its quarterly 5% categories. While they call it 5% cash back, you’ll really get 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent which can be worth much more than 5% cash. For $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).

While Chase Freedom is a great card for the bonus categories, it’s not a great card for everyday spending. However the Chase Freedom Unlimited® card also has no annual fee and is excellent for everyday spending thanks to 1.5 points per dollar earned everywhere.

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!

If you have a Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, and Sapphire Reserve then you can earn 1.5-5 points per dollar everywhere and you can redeem those for a minimum of 2.25%-7.5% towards airfare, car rentals, hotels, and travel activities. Or you can transfer the 1.5-5 points per dollar earned to airline and hotel mileage programs for an even greater value.