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I recently wrote a couple articles detailing the Chase Freedom card: Wholesale Clubs and How to check your 5x category spend.
- I used points earned from such bonus categories to fly on United Global First on a Wedding trip in 2015.
In case you’re unfamiliar with Chase Freedom 5x Category bonus:
Every quarter the Chase Freedom Card gives a quarterly bonus on specific categories. The bonus applies to the first $1500 that you spend on those categories, each quarter, earning you $75 cash back or 7500 Ultimate reward points. It’s an absolutely fantastic way to earn bonus points on money that you would ordinarily spend. If you were to max out the categories each quarter you’d earn a total of 30,000 points on $6000 spend. A great way to earn more points and get you closer to some aspirational travel!
Technically the Chase Freedom card is a cash back card, so if getting a statement credit is your top priority you can use the credit you earn to get cash back on your statement. But, if you hold a premium, Ultimate Rewards earning credit card ( Sapphire Preferred, Ink Plus or the retired Ink Bold ) and you’re more interested in using the points on travel, then you can transfer your accrued ‘cash back’ to one of those other cards and redeem Chase Ultimate Reward points.
$100 of cash back = 10,000 Ultimate Rewards
You can then use those Ultimate Rewards to transfer 1:1 to their Air and Hotel partners
- Air
- United Mileage Plus
- British Airways Avios
- Korean Air Skypass
- Singapore Krisflyer
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
- Air France Flying Blue
- Southwest Rapid Rewards
- Hotel
- Hyatt
- Marriott
- Ritz Carlton
- IHG
Here’s the current 2016 calendar:
You must activate those Chase Freedom 5x categories and today you can activate those categories for spend July – September. Click here or the images
You’ll see this after you’re activated and then you’re good to go! Start earning those 5x points
You could also Use your Ultimate Rewards to fly on Virgin Atlantic Upper Class like Miles did – everyone on the plane LOOOOOVED HIM!!!!
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
The Chase Sapphire Preferred is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based.
Welcome Offer
60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash , Ink Business Unlimited you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
- 3x on dining
- including eligible delivery services for takeout
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards – Chase Travel Portal
- $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Ultimate Rewards/Chase Travel
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred® continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel Portal and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including primary rental car insurance, purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 13 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in the Chase Travel center for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Primary rental car coverage is my favorite
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.