Update: This offer ends 3/31, but it’s always a good idea to finish spending before the final day!
Originally posted on 3/1:
- You must login and select your Chase Freedom or Chase Freedom Unlimited® card to view the offer.
- Registration for this offer isn’t required and the offer is not targeted.
- Booking must be made via the Ultimate Rewards site.
- You can earn this bonus on multiple cards.
- This promotion is marketed as 10% cash back, but you’ll actually get 10 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent, which can be worth much more than 10% cash! For example, points can be transferred to a Sapphire Reserve card where they’ll be worth a minimum of 1.5 cents each towards travel or they can be transferred into airline/hotel miles. If you earn 25K points on Freedom/Freedom Unlimited and transfer them to Sapphire Reserve they’ll be worth a minimum of $375 towards travel and your effective rebate will be at least 15%.
- You must use cash and not redeem points for the hotel stay in order to earn 10 points per dollar.
- The 10x promotion is only valid for travel booked in March, though travel can take place at any time. That’s a potential 25K points per card.
Both the Freedom and Freedom Unlimited are excellent no annual fee credit cards.
The Chase Freedom card earns 5 points per dollar on $1,500 in quarterly spending. You can click here to activate this quarter’s Chase Freedom 5% categories. With $1,500 in 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).
Q1 bonus categories:
- 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.
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. On the business site, the Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card Card also offers 1.5 points per dollar, plus a 50K signup bonus!
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!
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36 Comments On "Last Chance For Chase Freedom/Freedom Unlimited 10x Bonus Category On Hotels"
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If you transfer from Chase Freedom to Sapphire Reserve, you still get 1.5 points, so why is it worse in this regard to the other cards?
Why would you get 1.5 points for transferring from Freedom to Sapphire Reserve?
you get the equivalent using it to pay for airline tickets, etc.
When redeeming points on the travel site, you normally get 1c per point. For the Reserve you get 1.5c per point. For the other Sapphire or Ink cards with an annual fee you get 1.25c per point.
What does that have anything to do with Freedom earning 1 point per dollar on general purchases and Freedom Unlimited earning 1.5 points per dollar everywhere?
just meant that it is no worse than sapphire in that respect
Because for Freedom under this promo, each point is worth 1/(1-0.1)= 1.11 cent per point, which is still less than CSR’s 1.5 cent per point value
Do you get hotel benefits and earn hotel points if book through ChaseUltimateRewards.com?
No.
Why is this only offered on the no annual fee cards and not sapphire reserve? I think it’ll be added, as the shoprite deal was.
Probably because those already give you 3 pts / $ spent.
This is the 3rd time this promotion has run and it didn’t extend to those cards back then.
Unlimited Ink included?
If it was I’d have said so.
Dan — I’m surprised that your analysis of this offer isn’t more sophisticated. On first glance, it’s an interesting offer but, of course, the devil is in the details. In this case, the big question is where Chase is pulling its inventory from, and what price are they charging for the hotels. My two minutes of research (you didn’t bother to do this?) suggests the inventory may be coming from Expedia. That’s what the interface looks like. So if you book from this website, you sacrifice cashback and the usage of coupons. My guess is that most sophisticated travellers will come out about even or a little worse with this exchange on most bookings: it kind of depends on how high you value your Chase points and what other discounts you can get using the conventional booking sites (like buying hotels.com gift cards at a big discount) or booking direct.
There’s more to this promo than meets the eye.
Care to explain?
Dan, Can you explain?
why is booking direct better than expedia?
where do you buy hotels.com gift cards at huge discounts?
Would I be right in assuming that there is a difference between the Chase Freedom card and the Chase mileage plus explorer United card? The deal is not available with the Explorer card?
Indeed.
You don’t get Chase UR points with the Explorer card, so obviously this does not apply.
I see no description of this anywhere on their site(s). Yes, I logged in, to Freedom, to UR, looked in travel, deals, etc. Nuthin.
You will qualify anyway. It’s not targeted.
I’ve been on the phone with Chase about this, as I purchased a hotel booking on March 20, and my account says nothing about getting those points. They said it IS targeted, as it took them forever to even find this promo on their end. Super weird. I’m still on the phone trying to see if I even qualify (even though 2 days ago on the phone they said I DO qualify, and to call back if i still don’t see the points by today).
I know you said it has to be booked in March, but unless it’s a prepaid reservation wouldn’t the charges not hit until you actually stay at the hotel?
e.g., if I book in March for a stay in September, would that qualify for this promotion?
Yeah this is my question. I don’t really know if the charges will hit right away and it’s not really clear to me.
No. Even refundable reservations are charged in full immediately.
I don’t understand. It says I need to use cash?
This doesn’t work. I booked a hotel a couple weeks ago and Chase said only my first night is eligible. That is despite the terms and conditions and advertising saying otherwise.
After being on the phone with Chase for a full hour two days ago, and then 45 min just now, I finally got an answer about how the points actually show up. It’s in the “Shop through Chase” category, and it takes these points about 1-2 statements to actually show up in the rewards portal. Why it took 5 rep transfers to get this answer, I don’t really know.
As long as you made a hotel reservation purchase through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal (will show up as “Chase Travel” on the transaction), using your Freedom, the 10 points per dollar spent will come. I did this through my Sapphire Reserve portal, by spending URP on half the reservation, and the other half spent on my Freedom. Hope this helps anyone with questions!
After all my secure msgs to chase has been ignored and my previous phone calls ended without a resolution I called chase again today and they claim that it is for one night only. After I told the rep that the language clearly states “total hotel purchase” she said she will have to transfer me to the “service” dept.
I have been ping ponged between departments back and forth and finally this is promo for one night only.
I feel like chase scammed people big time with this promo.
Any suggestions on how to resolve this since the promo clearly doesnt say one night. thanks.
That is SO FRUSTRATING. I am on the phone now to get this resolved, since obviously I did not get my cash back, and its been 2 months. I don’t understand why they would do this.
UPDATE: I send a “secure message” to Chase about this, and attached the screenshot of the promo. This is what they responded!
Hello Perry,
We understand your concern regarding the non receipt of
bonus points for a hotel purchase.
I apologize for the inconvenience caused due to the delay
in the rewards posting.
Perry, I added the points to your account, and you can
use them immediately. You can see this adjustment at
chase.com or on your next billing statement.
We appreciate your business and thank you for being a
Chase customer.
HOORAY!
Hi Dan
Are they running this promotion again this year?
Hi Dan
Do you know if chase is running this promotion again this year?