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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 Q1 5% categories. If you activate today you will retroactively receive 5 points per dollar for all bonus spending since the beginning of this quarter!
Q1 spending is valid from 1/1-3/31 for:
- Gas stations: This includes most 7-Eleven stores and gas stations that sell gift cards for other stores as well. You can lookup how a store is categorized here.
- Drug Stores: This includes everything from prescriptions to gift cards for other stores bought from stores like CVS and Walgreens.
- Tolls: Including tolls paid to attendants or via EZ-Pass prepaid or postpaid payments.
- You can also buy gift cards at any of these stores above to lock in savings!
In March only you can also earn 10 points per dollar for hotels booked by Chase.
Tomorrow, you’ll be able to register for 2019 Q2 spending which will be valid 4/1-6/30 at:
- 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.
- Home Improvement stores. This includes large chains like Home Depot and Lowe’s and smaller home improvement stores. These stores sell gift cards to other stores as well.
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 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, or Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card card then you can transfer points from Freedom to one of those cards and from there to your favorite travel currency. 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!
Where will you make your Q1 purchases?
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22 Comments On "Last Day To Register For Chase Freedom Q1 Spending; New Freedom Q2 Bonus Categories Announced"
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Q1 mostly at pharmacy
Just wondering, how can you see how much you’ve spent in each category during the quarter? Thnx!
If you log into your cc account, and go to your ultimate rewards dashboard, it should be there
grocery!!
@DAN
You mention “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!”
HOW DO WE LEARN OR KNOW THE VALUE OF A PARTICULAR MILE? I AM A BEGINNER AND WANT TO BE IN THE KNOW!
I write about valuable uses of miles all of the time.
Click on the points and travel category above and then on miles and points.
The value of a mile used is the paid price of a flight divided by the number of miles required.
So basically the rule would be that you should not transfer to miles that would be less that 1.5cents Is that right?
Anyone know if fresh direct is considered a grocery?
Hi Dan, using your provided link “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.” It shows the Walmart near me as “GROCERY STORES/ SUPERMARKETS/ BAKERIES – 5411”. This is different than I have been lead to believe in the past. I hope it is correct as this will make it much easier to max out the second quarter!
The fine print typically excludes Walmart and Target. That should be released tomorrow.
Nothing excluded online on my account HOWEVER when I return to the Chase Freedom application page it shows Target and Walmart excluded. Not sure why Chase does this 🙁 my Chase branch is inside Walmart.
Is the Freedom Unlimited also eligible for the 5%? I tried registering and didn’t work..
the 5% only works on the regular Freedom Card. NOT the Unlimited
Are you able to bounce between Chase freedom and unlimited? Or Biz ink and Biz Unlimited? Like get my 5% in select categories and then move to the Unlimited version to get 1.5 % on the rest of purchases? Assuming you dont have both…
Yes.
Grocery Stores and Lowes and Home Depot next quarter will make it easy to reach $1500 in purchases without even buying gift cards.
Can you update the post to clarify whether activating today will retroactively get points for purchases made earlier in the quarter?
Done.
What’s an example of a grocery store in Lakewood that sells giftcards?
So I would need to spend 30k on a card every quarter to get MAX benefit.
No.
$1,500/quarter.