As I’ve written about several times before, the Chase Freedom card is one of my favorite cards in my wallet. I love the card because it offers one of the more unique benefits out there today. Namely, the card offers a unique 5% Cash Back (5X Points) on rotating bonus categories every quarter. This benefit is capped to the first $1,500 of quarterly spend, but that still allows card holders to earn up to $75 in cash back or up to 7,500 Ultimate Rewards points.
I’ll admit, as competition in the US credit card market has improved over the past few years 5% back isn’t as impressive as it once was. However, it’s worth keeping it mind that this is all from a no annual fee credit card. The only issue from this particular benefit is that Chase doesn’t automatically enroll card holders in the benefit. Instead, card holders must activate the benefit manually each quarter to earn 5% back.
The activation period begins about 15 days prior to the beginning of the new quarter and ends about 15 prior to the end of the quarter. Chase allows you to activate the benefit anytime within that activation window. So, if you activate the benefit prior to the beginning of the quarter you’ll start earning 5% back immediately. If you wait a few weeks, Chase will retroactively give you credit for any qualified purchases you made in the quarter prior to activating.
Activate Your Chase Freedom Q4’18 5% Rotating Bonus Category Now
We’re already about halfway through Q4’18, but there is still plenty of time to activate this benefit. Thankfully Chase makes activating for the 5% quarterly bonus benefit incredibly easy. The easiest way to activate is by clicking on a link within one of the several reminder emails send from Chase. In fact, I received the below email earlier today once again reminding me to register.
At the bottom of the email was a listing of the Q4’18 rotating 5% cash back categories.
When I clicked on the link in the email I reached the below landing page.
The landing page again featured a few more images of the 5% cash back categories for Q4’18.
This page also contained another link to click-through to activate for the quarterly cash back benefit. After completing the steps I reached a final landing page which showed me that I have officially activated my Chase Freedom Q4’18 5% cash back quarterly benefit.
I now have until the end of the year to put $1,500 of department store, wholesale club, and Chase Pay purchases on my Chase Freedom card.
Final Thoughts
This should simply serve as a friendly reminder to activate your Chase Freedom Q4’18 5% Cash Back bonus categories now. The activation window closes on December 14, 2018. If you want to earn 5% cash back on all of your holiday shopping make sure to activate your quarterly bonus before then.
Also, keep in mind that Starbucks is currently offering up to 475 Bonus Stars from reloading your Starbucks Rewards Card with Chase Pay. There is a nice double dip opportunity there to earn free Starbucks drinks and 5X Chase Points when you reload your card 3 times before December 12, 2018.
Finally, as I’ve alluded to before in this post. If you maintain both the Chase Freedom and a Chase Ultimate Rewards card you can transfer the Cash Back earned from the Chase Freedom card into Ultimate Rewards points. By making this transfer you can turn this quarterly bonus into a maximum of 7,500 Chase Ultimate Rewards points which are worth at least $112 when used on travel through Ultimate Rewards travel.
