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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. If you max out the $1,500 in bonus 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).
Today is the final day to activate Chase Freedom Q2 5% categories. If you activate today you will retroactively receive 5 points per dollar for all bonus spending since the beginning of this quarter!
Q2 spending is valid from 4/1-6/30 for:
- Grocery stores. This includes large grocery chains and small local grocery stores. These stores sell gift cards to other stores as well. You can lookup how a store is categorized here.
- Gym memberships and fitness clubs.
- Streaming services. This includes Disney+, Netflix, Hulu, Sling, Vudu, Fubo TV, Apple Music, SiriusXM, Pandora, Spotify, YouTube TV, Google Play, and ESPN+.
Tomorrow, you’ll be able to register for 2020 Q3 spending which will be valid 7/1-9/30 for:
- Amazon.com, including Amazon account reloads and gift cards sold by Amazon for hundreds of other stores
- Whole Foods Market
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 that can be earned everywhere with no limit.
Freedom and 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 or Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, or card then you can transfer points from Freedom to one of those cards and from there to your favorite travel currency. Those cards also allow you to redeem your points for paid travel at a value of 1.25 or 1.5 cents per point. The Freedom or Freedom Unlimited cards 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!
Where will you make your Q2 and Q3 purchases?
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32 Comments On "Last Day To Register For Chase Freedom Q2 Spending, New Freedom Q3 Bonus Categories Announced!"
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Wow Amazon! That’s amazing
Amazon is really amazing. 5 UR points per $1 blows the 5% cashback on the amazon card out of the water. Just in grocery cashback that’s 7.5%, to say nothing of higher UR redemptions when we can travel again…
Well yes, but someone with an Ink Cash card can get that all year round with much higher limits 🙂
Staples is a pain compared to Amazon
I go when they have a sale on Visa GCs anyway, so no real added pain.
I mean, obviously direct is easier, but considering how rarely Freedom has Amazon as a category, it’s not a viable long term option. Which is why I’m not that excited when they do have Amazon.
True, but not an option for those of us in Israel who can’t get to physical office supply stores.
Yes but now you also have the option to dispute if needed, on the Ink you don’t
But I agree, it’s a waste to have as a category when we could have had gas etc.
Dispute an Amazon transaction? Don’t recall ever having to do that.
Unless you can find a gas station that allows you to use a credit card to buy gift cards, gas is a pretty useless category. I have more than enough gas gift cards, all of them bought with at least a 10% discount.
Does buying visa gift cards on Amazon count?
I’d imagine anything will count.
Dan, If I activate today (I did) then does it retroactively add the bonus points for the past few months?
Yup!
Yes, it does. But that does NOT work with Discover, with them you have to activate before the purchase.
Beware Amazon is still worthless these days unless u don’t mind waiting 3 weeks for them to ship your order.
Been getting my items the next day.
Shoes? Clothing?
Unless they specifically ship 3 weeks later to non prime members.
Yes.
And they are prioritizing Prime.
So they are punishing non prime members, so non prime members beware they will hold your order for 3 weeks before shipping
Any useful gc’s on Amazon
Will buying amazon gift cards on amazon count for the bonus?
Does Whole Foods sell VGC?
I have the same question. If they don’t, the next quarter is a bad one for Chase Freedom. A 5% discount on Amazon is chump change. If you live in the USA, and have the ability to get credit cards, you can almost always buy their gift cards at a better discount than 5%. Once in a while there’s a GC deal at Amazon that requires payment by credit card — like they’ll give you 5 bucks for sending an Amazon gift card by text — and you could use Freedom next quarter. That’s about it.
Yup, no question. This is the worst quarter the Freedom has had in a while- I will literally spend $0. Ah well, can’t win ’em all. Maybe Whole Foods will surprise us with VGC.
Amazon sells VGC
Fixed or variable?
If I have both Chase Freedom and Amazon VISA (both with 5% cashback I think), is there any advantage to one over the other?
Chase freedom is 5 UR per dollar, not 5%. If you have CSR you can get well more than 1 cent per dollar on UR points, making the 5 UR points worth much more than 5% cashback.
What is CSR? I am still learning all of the acronyms (Roshei Teivos) here.
Chase Sapphire Reserve
Michigan
Rustic