Update: DEAD! Don’t miss it if this becomes alive again. Sign up for deal notification alerts here!
Chase Freedom Flex and Freedom are excellent no annual fee cards thanks to their quarterly 5% categories. While the rewards are marketed as 5% cash back, you’ll actually 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). My wife and I have 6 Freedom cards, which makes it all the more lucrative!
You can register now and start spending on the Chase Freedom Q4 5% categories which will be valid 10/1-12/31 at:
- Walmart and Walmart.com, including gift cards sold for other stores.
- Paypal, including purchases, charity, or peer to peer payments.
- Anywhere, via Paypal Key
You can check your current 5% earnings here by clicking on “Your Dashboard.”
You can currently earn a $200 signup bonus in the form of 20,000 Ultimate Rewards points for spending $500 on the Freedom Flex Mastercard. 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! Plus you’ll earn 3 points per dollar on drugstore and dining purchases and 5 points per dollar on all Travel purchased through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal. Read more about the Freedom Flex card here.
While Chase Freedom Flex 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 the same signup bonus, plus it’s excellent for everyday spending thanks to 1.5 points per dollar that can be earned everywhere with no limit, though it doesn’t have rotating 5x categories! Read more about the Freedom Unlimited card here.
The no annual fee business version of Freedom Unlimited is the Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card Card, which offers $750 in the form of 75,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points after spending $7,500 within 3 months plus 1.5 points per dollar spent. Read more about the Ink Unlimited card here.
Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, and Ink Unlimited alone can’t transfer points into much more lucrative airline or hotel miles, but if you or your spouse has an Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card, Sapphire Reserve, or Chase Sapphire Preferred® 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 or other select consumer categories and business categories at a value of 1.25 or 1.5 cents per point. The Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, or Ink 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!
Where will you make your Q4 purchases?
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17 Comments On "Chase Freedom’s Excellent Q4 Bonus Categories Are Now Live!"
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How can I get a paypal key? My paypal doesn’t show this option.
Any idea why it says coming soon when I try to sign up to pay pal key? Are they full or something?
I have the same issue with paypal key. any ideas?
Same problem! Dan, do you know what this is about?
I think Staples just started to accept PayPal
Please say this is accurate, particularly for this quarter. 🙂
Paypal charges 2.9% + $0.30 fee to pay by credit card. So is benefit only 2.1% cash back? My Citi Double Cash gives me 2%.
I don’t believe this is true unless I misunderstand what you mean. I’ve used paypal to pay by credit card many times and I never got a fee.
You’re way oversimplifying this… UR are easily worth more than 1% and your Double cash doesn’t give you 2% for free… if you want to compare apples to apples your DC gives you -0.9% – $0.30 vs 2.1UR – $0.30 and that’s assuming you’re cashing out UR @ 1%
or you can just use paypal/PPK for numerous expenses that cost you $0.00 like most people and you benefit 5UR = 1.25-2 cents per point easily vs your measly 2% DC.
Thanks! Very helpful. Sounds like PayPal Key is “key” to getting full 5% back? Which is a bummer, since not available to me.
Please note, Friends and Family or Person-to-Person (P2P) transactions made with your Chase Freedom card on PayPal may be prohibited or not eligible for 5%.
Worked for me last time. Try and let us know.
https://creditcards.chase.com/freedom-credit-cards/flexmerchants
I don’t care what it says. I care what actually happens.
This is definitely accurate. This is going to pay off big time for me this quarter, especially with the holidays fitting in here. I pay for almost everything with PayPal, connected to my credit card!
And correctly stated in a comment, peer to peer and family transactions DON’T count.
Now….. I need to go to Walmart to buy gift cards for everything else I shop for.
What happens when you use PayPal’s bill pay, does it also count?
Hey Dan – I’m seeing this on my account under my Freedom Flex card:
You’ll earn 5% cash back on up to $1500 in total spend in the eligible rewards category where you spend the most from October 1 – December 31, 2021. That’s 4% additional cash back on top of the 1% cash back per $1 USD spent that you earn on all purchases.
Plus I can combine this with the PayPal/Walmart bonus which I’m sure you know (and probably mentioned somewhere).
Do you know if “top spend” means the most $ spent or the most transactions? I assume it literally means top $ spent but want to run that by you just in case.
Thanks!