[Update: Only Valid On Freedom Flex] WOW! Chase Adding A Bonus Freedom Flex 5x Category, Stack To Earn 9 Points Per Dollar With Paypal!

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Update: This top spend 5x offer can now be viewed on Chase.com. It is only valid with the Freedom Flex card. You can convert a Freedom Visa card to Freedom Flex Mastercard or you can open a Freedom Flex Mastercard even if you have a Freedom Visa Card.

You are automatically registered for the top spend offer when you registered or will register for the Q4 bonus categories. You will earn 5x points on $1,500 of spending in your top spend category from select categories during the entire Q4, retroactive to spending from 10/1.

The eligible top spend categories are Travel (including Transit), Dining, Home Improvement Stores, Grocery Stores (not including Target and Walmart purchases), Drugstores, Gas Stations, Select Live Entertainment, Select Streaming Services, Fitness Clubs. See category definitions here.

The top spend category bonus points will post your account by the end of February 2022.

  • If your top spend category is dining or drugstores that already earn 3x points, you will earn a total of 7x points.
  • If your top spend category is groceries and you have a new customer offer that already earns 5x points on those purchases, you will earn a total of 9x points.
  • If your top spend category is travel and you book travel via the Chase portal that already earns 5x points, you will earn a total of 9x points.
  • If your top spend category is on the list above and you paid for it via Paypal, you will earn a total of 9x points.

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:

As a bonus for Freedom Flex only, you can also earn 5x points on your $1,500 of spending in your top spending category this quarter!

Eligible rewards categories include travel (including transit), dining, home improvement stores, select streaming services, select live entertainment, gas stations, drugstores, fitness clubs, grocery stores (not including Target and Walmart purchases).

Purchases made in your top spend category through PayPal, a Q4 quarterly bonus category, will earn a total of 9 points per dollar after 1 point for dollar for base spending, 4 bonus points per dollar for the Paypal category and 4 bonus points per dollar for your top spending category.

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 Reserveor 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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82 Comments On "[Update: Only Valid On Freedom Flex] WOW! Chase Adding A Bonus Freedom Flex 5x Category, Stack To Earn 9 Points Per Dollar With Paypal!"

All opinions expressed below are user generated and the opinions aren’t provided, reviewed or endorsed by any advertiser or DansDeals.

LJ

This is very confusing. How do you make 9 points instead of 5?

Chim

Both offers have 1 base point and 4 bonus points which makes it 1 +4 +4 =9

LJ

“Purchases made in your Top spend category through PayPal, a Q4 quarterly bonus category, will earn a total of 9 points per dollar after 1 point for dollar for base spending, 4 bonus points per dollar for the Paypal category and 4 bonus points per dollar for your top spending category.”

This part is very confusing to me. I have a regular freedom card and only see the 4 bonus points for the 4th quarter. What is the extra 4 points?

Is it for Freedom flex only?

Shloto

Confusing post, do I need to do anything to get the bonus points? I already spent the 1500 on PayPal last week. Will I get the bonus?

Allen

How about using PayPal on eBay? Is it a eligible category?

Brian G

We can use PayPal key and will now receive 9x points? This is outstanding news!! I wonder if this is retroactive (ie. If you already used up the $1500 via PayPal key will you still receive 9x even if the statement has closed)?

Jack

My highest category is drug stores. Am I disqualified since it’s impossible for me
To go above that on PayPal for this month?

YR

How is my top category established? Based on previous spend? Do they calculate at the end of the category?

Ari

Where on the chase site do you see this ‘top spend’ bonus? I don’t see it anywhere on the UR site for my Freedom cards.

JR

I still can’t get the 5% to activate on my freedom unlimited… keeps giving me same error.

“ We can’t enroll you with the information you provided.
Please make sure you entered the primary cardmember’s last name exactly as it appears on the credit card.
If your name includes a suffix such as Jr., Ill, Esq., etc., please include it in the last name field.
If you’ve recently changed your address or replaced a lost or stolen card, please enter your previous ZIP Code or your previous card’s last 4 digits.
Please try entering your information again or call the number on the back of your card for assistance.”

Jack

I think I understand now.

Basically freedom flex has multiple categories to earn extra points. If you use any of those categories. I.e drug stores, you’ll an additional 4x points for the first $1,500

PayPal happens to be a 5x quarter, so it would be 9x points

But those other categories like drug stores would essentially give you 7x if you’d like to use that as it’s 3x base and the 4x bonus for the first $1,500

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s my understanding.

nbd

Is the top spending category 5x on the Freedom Flex and the legacy Freedom or just Flex?

shuli

I hope I don’t get a “Read the post? because I did and still don’t get it.

wondering

I’m currently earning 5x points on grocery purchases as I”m still within the first 12 months/12k since being approved. If I spend $1500 in groceries this quarter, think I’ll be eligible for 9 points per dollar on that too? Or is it only purchases made through Paypal?

Yochai

Should work if your highest category is supermarkets

yechiel

is this only for new customers that signup or is it for existing customers too? I believe my highest category is groceries and i have the extra 5% for the first yr. would that mean that now i would get 9% according to this calculation? thanks dan!

exShoYoGuy

Sorry, a bit confused as well. I already spent at Amazon $1,500 using PayPal Key. How many points will I get? 9X or 5X? And if only 5X if I spend another $1,500 at Amazon will I get another 5X on $1,500 (7,500 points) for a total of 15,000 points for the quarter?

Yochai

You won’t get 9 points on that since Amazon is not one of the bonus categories.
You will get X5 if you spend more than you spent on Amazon on one of those categories.

100/24

Sorry, I’m a little slow here. If I use paypal to purchase $1500 in Amazon Gift Cards at Best Buy and that’s all I use the card for this quarter then I will get 5 bonus points for the paypal purchases and then 4 bonus for my top spending category of whatever Best Buy falls into?

Yochai

Not everything falls into one of the categories.
Booking travel with PayPal sounds ideal for this.

Jeremiah

Confusing post. But if I did get it, here is a copy paste from the register linky
Qualifying purchases made using PayPal at Walmart Same page link to Terms and Conditions reference * will only earn a total of 5%.

margie

Top spend category in the bonus categories only? OR like, dining and travel could be top? Don’t understand the post.

AE

Not Freedom related, but I just got an offer that for every $50K spent on an Ink card between 9/1/21 and 2/28/22 you get 50K bonus points, up to 250K points. Has anyone else seen that?

srap

So l’maisa you would be getting 6 pts/$ after spending a whopping $50k. CMIIW, but there probably are a lot better points/rewards programs out there if you are going to spend $50k!

Zal

Why can’t someone give examples of how to earn the 9 points,
Like use your PayPal key at this kind of store.
Or use PayPal to checkout at this website etc.
Cause most people are not figuring out how to use this.
How do you establish your top category.
Etc.

Yochai

Book $1500 on travel using PayPal.

C2CMom

Do you know if the gas stations category includes gas purchased at Sam’s Club? I was thinking of adding my PayPal Key to Scan and Go and having my husband pay for gas with that.

Pete

You only earn 9x if you spend $1,500 per card using Paypal on these categories as Dan noted: “Eligible rewards categories include travel (including transit), dining, home improvement stores, select streaming services, select live entertainment, gas stations, drugstores, fitness clubs, grocery stores (not including Target and Walmart purchases).”

If you use Paypal to say buy $1,500 in Amazon purchases you won’t get the 9x as it’s not an eligible category.

exShoYoGuy

If I understand correctly now. If I spent $1,600 on Amazon using PayPal Key I will get 7,600 points (1500*5+100). And then if I got to the grocery store and spent $1,500 I will only get 1,500 points, but if I spend $1601 at the grocery store I will get 7,601 points (1500*5+101)?

CtownBin

Does this mean we can also earn 5x on $3,000 spend? For example- if I spend $1,500 at WalMart and $1,500 at gas stations, I’ll earn 5x on ALL the spend? (Sure, getting the offers to stack for 9x is better, but I don’t know anywhere to buy VCG online that takes PayPal and is on the new list of eligible categories… I’d be happy to learn of one 🙂 )

Mike B

Will you need to register for this promotion? If it’s based on the top category via PayPal, will the points only be reflected on the account after Q4?

Joe

Dan I always get what your saying this time you must be on vaca

Joey

In the same boat

Ralph

I think what it means is if you use PayPal when checking out at stores like drug stores or Home Depot then u would get the 9%
Meaning u need to use PayPal key at those top categories then u can double dip

chaim

Paypal is still not allowing me to add Paypal Key to my card. Any advice?

yy

How can I use PayPal at a brick-and-mortar store? Can I use Apple Pay with PPK? If so, are there any supermarkets or drugstores that take Apple Pay?

yy

Replying to my own question: it seems you can’t use PPK with Apple Pay, and Google Pay doesn’t work with NFC on iPhones. There are many stores that accept both Apple Pay and Google Pay, but iPhone users are out of luck.

AG

“Coming soon
You discovered the PayPal Key, a new way to use PayPal anywhere online. It’ll be available soon. Check back later in the app and on our website.”

Marianne

For my CVS B&M purchases, I got 7x (5x Q4 category plus 2x Drugstore bonus) using Paypal Key linked to Flex for payment via QR PayPal Payment. Does this new top category bonus mean I’m gonna get an extra 4x on top of the 7x points I had already gotten?

turgutbey

Interesting. I’m curious about your thoughts on maximizing. I’m thinking I’ll try to make groceries my top spend, to get 5x on what is otherwise unbonused spend. I can then get 5x on online purchases via paypal key, + 3x on travel via Chase Ink Unlimited. Seems like it doesn’t make sense to make my top spend travel or paypal key b/c then i bonus on less spend. Am I thinking about that right?

Avi

Is paying my ezpass account considered travel? Can I pay 1500 on my account using PPK for 9 points per $?

yy

It’s considered travel for CSR, so I’m guessing it will work here.

Asking

I tried 2 accounts and I’m not eligible yet for PPK. Anyone else? Any way to get targeted?

Chaya

I’ve been using my PayPal key card. My transactions are coming up saying PayPal and name of the vendor and only getting 1pt/$ but no bonus. Any idea why?

Anonymous

Did you activate the 5%?

Chaya

Yes I activated and shows PayPal on transaction but not bonus. Is it worth to call ? Or can I have done anything else wrong. Most of my transactions don’t show up

Trying to understand

“If your top spend category is groceries and you have a new customer offer that already earns 5x points on those purchases, you will earn a total of 9x points.”
“If your top spend category is on the list above and you paid for it via Paypal, you will earn a total of 9x points.”
What if I have a new customer offer and I pay the grocery via PayPal Key, will I get 13x points?

Eitan

I have the same question. Although it seems like the answer is no because on the Chase website it says a few times that the most one can earn is 9%. Along the same lines, if I my top category is groceries and I earn 9% on $1,500 in spending, do I still earn the 5% on another $1,500 in spending at Walmart or Paypal?

AAA

+1

Trying to understand

Sure, it’s two separate offers (1. Top spending category. 2. Walmart/PayPal)

AAA

Will this stack with the 5 points grocery from the first year?

Eitan

“If your top spend category is groceries and you have a new customer offer that already earns 5x points on those purchases, you will earn a total of 9x points”

Issac

Anyway to get paypal key not giving me the option

AAA

I’m confused like many readers. (Looks like Dan is not in service :))
I spent already $1500 on groceries from 10/1 until now, am i done with this card for this quarter, or i can still do PPK?

Anonymous

You can still do PPK. It’s two different offers.

AAA

Dan,
Can you confirm that?
That means that you can earn 5% (or more) on $3,000 this quarter?

Lynn

Yes, you can.

SixteenCows

Can I get 13x points, if I use paypal key to pay for groceries, and it being my top spend?
By combing 4q paypal + top spend + new cardmember grocery bonus.

Eitan

This has been asked by a lot of readers including myself. A representative told me today that in a case like that one will not get 13x points – the maximum is 9x. That’s assuming she knew what she was talking about.

Moishe weiss

I have already the freedom card and also the freedom unlimited card. Could I get the sign up points if I open the freedom flex?

Chaim F

I applied for Freedom Flex and got a message that their decision needs to be reviewed.

Is this normal?

Dave

PayPal Key only works online, correct??

M M

It also works in a store it they are willing to take a CC number

sam

Bit confused here. The category spending for 5% is walmart and paypal but Chase will 5% also on travel (including transit), dining, home improvement stores, select streaming services, select live entertainment, gas stations, drugstores, fitness clubs, grocery stores form Oct-Dec? It is combined max of $1500 spend on all those above? I will earn 5% cashback at grocery stores now? All these spends must be on freedom flex card only right? also if I pay with paypal key with my linked Flex card on costco.com, I will earn 9% cash back? Thanks

yy

If my top spend category is drugstores and I use PayPal, will I get 9x or 11x? Drugstores are normally 3x.

DanFan

Any1 know what happens if I use “Pay Yourself Back” towards a purchase and charge ends up refunding (return etc.) Do the points redemption get retracted?

DoB

I have an old Freedom card that I want to change to Freedom Flex to take advantage of this.

I’ve already spent a full $1500 through PayPal on that card. Would product changing to Freedom Flex reset that, too?

Are there any downsides to converting from Freedom to Freedom Flex? (I don’t shop at any merchants that take Visa but not Mastercard.) Would I be able to convert back if there were ever a reason to do so?

Nate

After perusing this for some time I am pretty sure it’s possible to get a maximum of 11 points per dollar. This would be, for example, using Pay Pal Key to pay for dining, assuming dining will be your top spending category in the quarter among eligible categories.

1 point base spend
+ 2 for dining spend (baseline Flex benefit)
+ 4 for Paypal purchase (Q4 category)
+ 4 for top spend category (special Q4 bonus point category)
total of 11 points per dollar.

The way “top category” works, is that only among purchases at Travel (including Transit), Dining, Home Improvement Stores, Grocery Stores (not including Target and Walmart purchases), Drugstores, Gas Stations, Select Live Entertainment, Select Streaming Services, Fitness Clubs, are included.

Therefore someone who spent $1500 at Amazon need not worry about this counting against him, since it’s only the categories themselves which will be counted, so you definitely will be eligible for some top category spend as long as you spend even a dollar in a top category, no matter how much you spend outside those categories.

Steven Kastner

If I spent the $1500 on my Freedom Visa at HD paid by Paypal, and I call Chase to switch it to the Flex, will it retroactively give me the 9x?

M

Is the top spend category determined by the top overall spend on your card or is it the top spend WITHIN the eligible reward categories?

For example what if i spend 1800$ at Walmart and then $1500 on gas stations and no other spend
Will the gas quality because its the top spend of those categories or not because i spent more at walmart?

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