I’ve written about this several times before, but of all the credit cards in my wallet, the Chase Freedom card offers the most value… some of the time time. See, at face value the Chase Freedom card is simply a 1% Cash Back credit card. Which doesn’t seem that great. However, every quarter, the Chase Freedom card offers a unique 5% Cash Back bonus on rotating qualifying category spend. This benefit is limited to the first $1,500 of quarterly spend, which means you can only earn up to $75 cash back quarterly.
Again, this still might seem like a great deal, but what makes the Chase Freedom card unique is that it earns cash back ‘points’ which can be transferred to an Ultimate Rewards account. So, if you also have any Chase Ultimate Rewards card, you can earn an additional 7,500 UR points each quarter. Since I value UR points at about $0.015/each, that’s an extra $112.5 quarterly, or $450 annually! That’s not a bad return from a card which lacks an annual fee.
Activate The Chase Freedom 5% Cash Back Quarterly Bonus Category
While the Chase Freedom card earns up to 5% Cash Back quarterly, the benefit is not automatic. Instead, card holders have to remember to ‘activate’ the benefit each quarter. Don’t worry, the activation window is quite generous.
Essentially, Chase allows you to activate the 5% cash back quarterly 15 days prior to the start of a new quarter until 15 days prior to the end of that quarter. So, for Q3, you can activate the benefit anytime between approximately June 15 until September 15. Additionally, regardless of when you activate the benefit, Chase retroactively rewards bonus spend. So, if you wait until September, you will still earn points for qualifying July and August purchases.
Chase makes activating this benefit incredibly easy. I usually activate the benefit via email from one of the several reminder emails I receive each quarter.
The emails from Chase typically announce the bonus categories for the quarter. For example, for Q3’2019 the bonus categories include Gas Stations and Streaming Services. Then, a bit lower in the email is typically a “1-click” activation button.
Further down in the email offers a bit more explanation to which purchases qualify. For this quarter gas stations is pretty obvious, but steaming services is a bit more ambiguous. However, again, there is another 1-click activation button.
Once you click on the activation link you should reach the below page confirming activation.
If you don’t have an email or a link, you can activate the bonus directly from your Chase account summary page.
Final Thoughts
The Chase Freedom card is one of those credit cards that I think everyone should carry. I don’t say that in jest either. I really think everyone should have the Chase Freedom card. The reason being is that the card gives you at least 5% back on up to $1,500 of spend quarterly. Also, from my experience, it’s not all that difficult to maximize this benefit.
For example, most of us will spend at least $1,500 of gas this year. So, why not activate this benefit and buy $1,500 of gas cards from your local gas station to max out the quarterly bonus. Likewise, why not start buying certain items from Gas Stations that you’d typically get at the grocery or continence store. No matter how you do it, it’s imperative to max out the $1,500 bonus each quarter. By doing so you’ll earn $300 Cash Back from a credit card that lacks an annual fee. What’s more, if you have an Ultimate Rewards card, you can earn up to 30,000 UR points which are worth at least $300! Just please, if you get the Chase Freedom card, make sure to activate the bonus each quarter!
Lastly, the list of qualifying steaming services for this quarter is as follows:
If you do chance your card on these accounts to earn 5% Cash Back, make sure to change them again once the quarter is over.
