Update: DEAD! Don’t miss it if this becomes alive again. Sign up for deal notification alerts here!
Update: This limited time offer will end at 4:59pm ET on 1/13!
Also ending tomorrow is a similar bonus on the Freedom Flex card.
Table of Contents
Signup bonus:
You can now earn 20K Chase Ultimate Rewards points for opening a Chase Freedom Unlimited® card and spending $500 in 3 months. Those points are worth a minimum of $200 cash back, but they can be worth much more as shown below.
Plus, you’ll earn 5 points per dollar on up to $12,000 of grocery spending in your first year, so you can earn another 60,000 points on your grocery spending!
These are marketed as a $200 signup bonus and 5% back, but you’ll actually get 20,000 Ultimate Rewards points for signing up and 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar which can be worth much more than 5% back.
This was already one of the best cards out there for everyday spending, and Chase has made it even better thanks to new bonus categories, as described below!
Annual fee:
None
Signup bonus terms:
- You won’t get the signup bonus on this card if you have received a signup bonus on Freedom Unlimited card within the past 24 months.
- You won’t get approved for this card if you currently have an active Freedom Unlimited card.
- You will get the bonus even if you have an active Freedom, Freedom Flex, or Sapphire card or received a bonus on a Freedom, Freedom Flex, or Sapphire card in the past 24 months.
5/24:
All Chase cards appear to be subject to 5/24 restrictions, meaning that you are not likely to be approved if you have been approved for 5 or more consumer credit cards in the past 24 months. Note that the Chase system automatically counts cards like authorized user cards and store cards as cards that count towards 5/24, but if you explain to Chase that those cards are merely authorized user cards or store cards they can manually approve you for a new card.
You can check your credit report for free at the federally authorized annualcreditreport.com to check how many accounts are shows as being open in the past 24 months.
Card earnings:
- 1.5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar everywhere.
- New: 3 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar on drugstore purchases. This category applies to existing cardholders.
- New: 3 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar on dining purchases. This category applies to existing cardholders.
- New: 5 points per dollar on all travel purchased through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal. This category applies to existing cardholders.
- Limited time offer: 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar on Lyft spending through 3/31/22. This category applies to existing cardholders.
- Limited time offer: 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar on up to $12K of groceries during your first cardmembership year. Target and Walmart will not count as grocery purchases. Note that this category only applies with this new card offer, it does not apply to existing or converting cardholders.
The Chase Freedom Unlimited® Card is an amazing all-around no annual fee credit card. It’s marketed as earning 1.5%-5% cash back, but it actually earns 1.5-5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar everywhere. As each point can be worth 1.5-2 cents (or more) each, that’s like earning 2.25%-10% back everywhere.
Typically, you’ll be better off putting dining purchases on this card over Sapphire Reserve. That’s because if a dining purchase isn’t coded properly you would at least earn 1.5 points per dollar on this card versus just 1 point per dollar on Sapphire Reserve!
0% APR:
You will pay 0% APR on purchases made during the first 15 months of cardmembership!
Card benefits:
- Trip Cancellation/Trip Interruption Insurance
- Purchase protection for items damaged or stolen within 120 days
- Extended warranty protection
- 3 months of Doordash Dashpass
Increased points value:
If you or someone in your household has a Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card you can redeem Chase Ultimate Rewards points earned from any card at a value of 1.25 cents towards paid travel.
If you or someone in your household has a Sapphire Reserve card you can redeem Chase Ultimate Rewards points earned from any card at a value of 1.5 cents towards paid travel.
Airline and hotel transferability:
If you or someone in your household has a Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card or Sapphire Reserve card you can transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points into valuable airline and hotel mileage currencies.
Card convertibility:
You can call Chase to convert this card or any of the following cards into another card from the list below:
- Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card ($95 annual fee)
- Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card ($550 annual fee)
- Chase Freedom Unlimited® Card ($0 annual fee)
- Chase Freedom Card ($0 annual fee)
- Chase Freedom Flex Mastercard ($0 annual fee)
Note that some reps will only allow card conversions after you have had the card for 12 months.
Killer Combos:
Stacking multiple Ultimate Rewards cards together can supercharge your earnings by getting you more points per dollar while increasing the value of all your points.
Read more about this strategy in depth in this post.
A Chase Bifecta would consist of a household that has the Freedom Unlimited and either the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card or Sapphire Reserve.
The total effective annual fees would be either $95 with Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card or $250 ($150 for renewing customers this year) with Sapphire Reserve after accounting for that card’s $300 annual travel credit.
With the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card you would earn 2 points per dollar on travel/dining and 1.5-5 points per dollar elsewhere by using Freedom Unlimited.
With the Sapphire Reserve you would earn 3 points per dollar on travel/dining and 1.5-5 points points per dollar elsewhere by using Freedom Unlimited.
Either way you’ll be able to transfer all of your points into airline miles or hotel points, but with the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card you can also use the points with a value of 1.25 cents each towards travel, while the Sapphire Reserve allows you to use the points with a value of 1.5 cents each towards travel.
The Sapphire cards also have limited time benefits.
- Sapphire Reserve’s $300 travel credit can also be used to buy groceries and gas through 6/30/21.
- Sapphire Reserve’s points can normally be used at a value of 1.5 cents each towards airfare, hotels, car rentals, and other travel. Through 4/30/21 they can also be used for statement credits that will reimburse your grocery, dining, and home improvement purchases that were made in the past 90 days at a value of 1.5 cents each. You can click here to redeem your points for statement credits against dining, grocery store, or home improvement purchases. After 4/30/21 there will be other categories that you can use to pay yourself back.
- Grocery purchases earn 3 points per dollar with Sapphire Reserve this quarter on up to $3,000 in spending, plus they qualify for the $300 credit, and you can use points to offset them at a value of 1.5 cents each.
Freedom Unlimited earns 1.5 points per dollar everywhere, 3 points per dollar on dining, and drug stores, and 5 points per dollar on travel booked via Chase and on groceries with this offer. By transferring points from that card to Sapphire Reserve you can normally get a value of 2.25%-7.5% towards paid travel, but now you will get 2.25%-7.5% back as statement credits to offset for grocery, dining, and home improvement purchases.
That’s quite a combo! When redeeming your points for a statement credit, you’ll effectively earn 2.25% cash back on everything (1.5 points per dollar on Freedom Unlimited), 4.5% cash back on dining, travel, or drugstores (3 points per dollar on Sapphire Reserve or Freedom Unlimited), 7.5% cash back on groceries or travel booked via Chase (5 points per dollar on Freedom Unlimited), and 15% cash back on Lyft (10 points per dollar on Sapphire Reserve).
A great feature of the pay yourself back program is that you keep the original points that the purchase earned, even though you paid yourself back for the purchase. That means your points will be worth more than 1.5 cents each, so your effective earnings will actually range from 2.43%-16.2% back!
If you don’t have enough grocery, dining, and home improvement purchases to cash out your points you can always buy gift cards for those stores, Visa gift cards good everywhere, or gift cards for hundreds of other stores like Amazon. Plus many grocery stores even give rewards for buying gift cards, on top of the 5 points per dollar, the $300 in credit, and cashing out your points at 1.5 cents each to pay for the gift cards!
Airline transfer partners:
Combined with a Sapphire card, you can transfer points at a 1:1 ratio to:
- United (Star Alliance)
- Singapore (Star Alliance)
- Air France/KLM Flying Blue (Skyteam)
- British Airways (OneWorld)
- Aer Lingus (OneWorld)
- Iberia (OneWorld)
- Emirates
- JetBlue
- Southwest
- Virgin Atlantic
Hotel transfer partners:
Combined with a Sapphire card, you can transfer points at a 1:1 ratio to:
- Hyatt
- IHG
- Marriott
The great thing about Chase Ultimate Rewards is how versatile and valuable they are:
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card card allows you and anyone in your household to transfer Chase points into miles. They also allow you to use points at a value of 1.25 cents each towards travel.
The Sapphire Reserve also allows you and anyone in your household to transfer Chase points into miles. Plus it allows you to use points at a value of 1.5 cents each towards travel.
The fixed value is excellent and doesn’t require hunting down award space, but those points can be much more valuable by transferring them into airline miles or hotel points. You can get a value of 2 cents or much more when redeeming miles!
- If I want to stay in a 5 star Park Hyatt in the Maldives, Melbourne, NYC, Paris, Sydney, or Tokyo that would cost over $1,000/night, I can instantly transfer 25-30K points to Hyatt to do that, a value of up to 6 cents per point.
- If I need a one-way flight from Cleveland (or Chicago, Detroit, Miami, Montreal, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Toronto, etc) to NYC that can cost $500 each way, I can instantly transfer 7.5K points to British Airways to book a short-haul on American with no last minute booking fees. Or if American doesn’t have availability I can instantly transfer 10K points to United for their short-haul award. That’s a value of up to 7 cents per point.
- If I want to stay in a non-chain hotel that costs $300/night and don’t want to pay cash, I can redeem 20K points for the room thanks to my Sapphire Reserve card’s minimum redemption value of 1.5 cents per point or 24K points with the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card ’s minimum redemption value of 1.25 cents per point
- If I want to fly in a $25,000 ANA First Class Suite round-trip from the US to Tokyo, I can instantly transfer 110K or 120K points to Virgin Atlantic. That’s a value of up to 23 cents per point.
- If I want to book a $2,281 business class ticket on Air Canada to Tel Aviv I can redeem 152K points for the flight thanks to my Sapphire Reserve card’s minimum redemption value of 1.5 cents per point or 182K points with the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card ’s minimum redemption value of 1.25 cents per point, plus I’ll earn Qantas miles for more future travel as it’s considered a paid flight instead of an award flight.
- And thousands of other possibilities from Singapore couples suites to booking Southwest awards with 2 free bags and free cancellations, to stealing 2nd base in middle of an MLB game.
Will you signup for this limited time offer?
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74 Comments On "[Ends Tomorrow!] Signup For Chase Freedom Unlimited® And Get 20K Points, Plus 5 Points On Groceries; Bonus Points On Travel, Drugstores, And Dining!"
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If I have the unlimited already how to I apply for another without closing my account (hurting my credit score)?
You can change it to any other card here: https://www.dansdeals.com/credit-cards/signup-chase-freedom-unlimited-get-20k-points-plus-5-points-per-dollar-groceries-now-bonus-travel-drugstores-dining-spending/#Card_convertibility
Is this the best option for the FU card or should I wait for a diff signup bonus? (I’m not in a rush to signup for this card…)
This is the best its been. For a very long time it was 15K with no grocery bonus.
Same 3 points per dollar as CSR. Better to use this card at dining since even if coded incorrectly get 1.5 vs 1 for CSR. Only reason to use CSR would be for the purchase to be eligible for pay yourself back.
This is a good point (and a half)!
I just got approved for the freedom card and I already have the sapphire preferred. My understanding is that there still a reason to get this one for the grocery and other specific category bonuses. Is that correct?
I yes, I would rather limit the number of inquiries under my name. Would it work if I do this under my wife’s name instead of my own or is it better to have them all under one name?
Correct.
Sure, you can definitely do some under your name and some under your wife’s name. You can then transfer points between your accounts to make them more valuable.
Where does it say that I’m going to get 5% on groceries?
(I have this card already)
“Limited time offer: 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar on up to $12K of groceries during your first cardmembership year. Target and Walmart will not count as grocery purchases. Note that this category only applies with this new card offer, it does not apply to existing or converting cardholders.“
I applied for this card Sep 14. Got approved today (Sep 16). Didn’t see grocery bonus on offer. Is that only from Sep 15? Will they add it, was only approved today.
I just received my first statement and I did not get the 5x for groceries. I am a new cardmember.
Did your offer state 5x on groceries?
Call Chase?
I called Chase. They are going to add it to the account. Does it make sense that since I used someones referral code, I didn’t get that offer of the 5x?
After I called to tell them I am not getting the 5x cashback on groceries, they escalated the claim, but I received a letter that the offer expired and they are not going to honor it. Any suggestions? I still see that the offer exists online…
Where/when did you apply for the card?
Chase knows if your signup offer mentioned groceries or not…
I applied through a referral from another account. I don’t specifically remember if did or didn’t have that actual but I definitely thought it did. Do you think that could the reason why?
Of course that’s the reason why, the referral offers often are not as good.
Do you think I will have any luck trying to get them to add it? I really only opened the card for this bonus.
Nope.
You used a referral that didn’t offer 5x groceries and you say you only opened it for 5x groceries. And Chase clearly knows you did that.
You’re not making any sense here. Next time use the offer link that you want.
I just checked the referral link again and it clearly shows that the bonus for groceries is there. I really don’t know why it is not showing up on their end.
It was recently added.
If I have CSR and Freedom (not Flex), does it make sense to sign up for Freedom Unlimited of Freedom Flex? It seems like they’re indistinguishable, except that Unlimited offers 1.5% on everything. So what’s the advantage to Flex–the quarterly 5% bonus categories? Which would then be redundant since I have a regular Freedom?
When did you get the CSR bonus?
CFF is very similar to CF, but having both means you can double up on quarterly bonus spending.
Got CSR bonus in 2016. Get enough benefit out of it to slightly outweigh the fee, but we did cancel my wife’s last year.
I never end up maxing out the CF quarterly categories, so not realistic to double up. Thanks for the help! Will be signing both of us up for Unlimited.
Downgrade CSR to CF, signup for CSP+CFU?
Is this still a Visa card? Are Costco purchases coded as groceries? Majority of my grocery purchases are from there.
I’ve been wondering this as well as I buy a lot from Costco. What about Sam’s Club? What determines if the merchant is “grocery”?
Just answered my own question. Answer is no, warehouse stores not included.
https://www.visa.com/supplierlocator-app/app/#/home/supplier-locator
How does this CFU card compare to FF (Freedom Flex) MasterCard?
CFU is better for everyday purchases.
CFF is better for rotating bonus categories.
Hey Mr guru, question for you, is this a good card choice for my 18 yo daughter for a first card sign up?
Certainly worth a shot.
[May be off topic, as it’s about converting to Flex] I converted my Freedom Unlimited to Flex, added the Flex at Amazon, tried to link it to Shop w/ Points, getting error messages. Meanwhile, the Unlimited also stopped working for Shop w/ Points. I chatted with Amazon, and they tell me the issue w/ the Flex is that it is a Master card and therefore I can’t shop at Amazon with the reward points. However, Chase clearly gives the option to link the card. Any idea?
If I applied for this card, how long after should I wait to call the reconsideration line?
Whenever you want.
Hi Dan I opened a Chase freedom unlimited this year July 22nd and I haven’t been receiving the 5 points on groceries
Then you didn’t use a DD link.
Oh wow I didn’t realize that. So you mean this promotion of 5 points on groceries is only if I applied with DD link?. Can I try opening a new account under my wife’s name
Sure.
Dan,Please send me the link for the Chase card we can earn 5x on groceries. Now I’m getting 3x with my Chase Sapphire
It’s the first link in this post.
Does the 5x apply to grocery stores in Israel?
Yes, but there’s a 3% forex fee.
If my husband has a sapphire card, can I receive 1.5 UA on this freedom card? Or do I have to have a Saphire card?
You can. Just transfer your Freedom points to his Sapphire card.
Does the Freedom Flex intro bonus also end 1/13?
Yes
https://www.dansdeals.com/credit-cards/limited-time-offer-signup-brand-new-chase-freedom-flex-get-20k-points-plus-5-points-per-dollar-groceries-rotating-categories/
I have chase sapphire and all chase business cards should I get this card?
Sure, it’s a great offer!
Hi Dan. I have a sapphire preferred for a year so I’m being charged the annual fee again now. I still have about 60k points. Should I sign up for this offer and transfer points or is it better to downgrade? Also they offered me no annual fee sapphire any reason 2 do that? I’m sure there is a DDF or a post on this, I searched but I can’t find it.
Thanx!
What Chase cards do you currently have?
I have only sapphire preferred.
No need to keep Sapphire for transferring points to miles or 25% bonus value for points?
You could try for a Freedom Flex and Freedom Unlimited 2BM.
https://www.dansdeals.com/credit-cards/limited-time-offer-signup-brand-new-chase-freedom-flex-get-20k-points-plus-5-points-per-dollar-groceries-rotating-categories/
And then downgrade the Sapphire Preferred to Freedom or Freedom Flex to have more ability to earn 5x points on $1,500 quarterly spending on rotating categories.
Thanx for the response. I am not spending/redeeming enough to make it worth $95 now. With the freedom will I still have all the same transfer options albeit 1:1 transfer rate?
Only sapphire preferred/reserve can transfer.
But you can always upgrade when you’re ready.
I would be charged the $95 upon upgrade, correct? Is there a reason not to downgrade now to the no annual fee sapphire?
Correct.
You can do that, though Freedom is a better card.
If you spend the required amount but want to take advantage of the 0% APR so don’t pay off the card until the intro offer of 0% ends do you still get the bonus? Does it have to be paid off within 3 months?
No, the bonus goes by spending, not when it’s paid.
Thank you
Question: When there is a minimum spend in 3 months, does it go from when the card is approved, when it is received, or is it the 3rd statement date?
I had the experience of not getting a bonus even when I spent the minimum within 3 months of when I applied, just because it was after the 3rd statement closed.
3 months from card approval. You can call and get the exact deadline.
Thank you very much. https://www.dansdeals.com/
Hi Dan, thank you so much for this post. Just curious, if I got the freedom flex in October and got the bonus for it, would I get the bonus for this as well?
Yes.
I don’t see the 20k offer anywhere, only the $200. Any advice?
Read the “Signup bonus” section of this post again.
If I upgrade a chase slate card to a freedom unlimited will I be able to get the bonus and/or 5x ponts on groceries?
Thanks
No.
Looks like this is alive again
Hi Dan. I have a plain chase freedom card. Not unlimited nor flex that I have for many years. What can I do to make it more worthwhile?