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Chase Freedom Flex®
The Chase Freedom Flex® is an all out beast of card. Hands down, it’s one of the best on the market and offers category earn rates that beat out many cards that come with a big annual fee. If you don’t have a Chase Freedom Flex®, get it. I challenge you to find another card on the market that offers up to 3x to 5x rates earn rates on various categories, includes World Elite Mastercard benefits, Mobile phone insurance, and comes without an annual fee.
Chase Freedom Flex®
Chase Freedom Flex® is an all out beast of card. Hands down, it’s one of the best on the market and offers a rotating 5x category bonus that allows helps you earn a ton of points.
Make sure you pair this card with a Chase Sapphire Preferred®, Chase Sapphire Reserve® or Chase Ink Business Preferred® for max value
Welcome Offer
$200 or 20k Ultimate Rewards after $500 spend in 3 months see card benefits for terms
Annual Fee
$0
Points Earned
Cash Back or non-transferrable Ultimate Rewards unless paired with a premium Chase card
- Earn a $200 Bonus after you spend $500 on purchases in your first 3 months from account opening
- 5% cash back on up to $1,500 in combined purchases in bonus categories each quarter you activate.
- Enjoy new 5% categories each quarter!
- 5% cash back
- on travel purchased through Chase Travel℠, our premier rewards program that lets you redeem rewards for cash back, travel, gift cards and more
- 3% cash back
- on drugstore purchases
- dining at restaurants, including takeout and eligible delivery service,
- Unlimited 1% cash back on all other purchases.
- No minimum to redeem for cash back.
- You can choose to receive a statement credit or direct deposit into most U.S. checking and savings accounts. Cash Back rewards do not expire as long as your account is open!
- No annual fee
- Member FDIC
The best offer we’ve consistently seen is via reader referral= $200 after $500 spend in 3 months + an additional 5x category for 12 months
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists what the highest offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
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.
When you carry a Chase Sapphire Preferred® or Chase Sapphire Reserve®, the The Chase Freedom Flex® works exceptionally well in tandem.
It gives you the ability to earn 5x on rotating category bonuses each quarter which really expands your ability to earn points faster.
The base rate on the card is 1x though, so I’d recommend using this for the rotating category bonuses, but using a card that earns 1.5x or 2x for all your non-bonus spend. Like a Capital One Venture X, Venture Rewards, or Chase Freedom Unlimited
Pairing Chase Freedom Flex® with these cards make your points transferrable
The Chase Freedom Flex® credit card is a cash back card when held on its own. This means you’ll earn your points or rewards in the form of Ultimate Rewards which can be used as cashback/statement credit or within Chase Travel℠ at a penny a point.
However, since it’s in the family of Ultimate Reward cards, if you hold any of these Ultimate Reward cards concurrently
- Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
- Chase Sapphire Reserve®
- Chase Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card
- Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business℠
you can transfer your points from the Chase Freedom Flex® to one of the premium cards 1:1. You can go here to learn more about combining Chase points. It’s super simple. This would give you access to Chase’s great list of transfer partners so you could potentially get even more value.
Overall:
This is a no brainer card. There is no annual fee and you get an overwhelming amount of benefits and ability to earn a ton of points.
Personally, I’d recommend pairing this with either a Chase Sapphire Preferred or Ink Business Preferred. The would mean your annual fee would be under $100 and your earn rates would be fantastic with the ability to transfer to partners. If you’re looking oustide airlines, one of my favorite redemptions has been the Alila Uluwatu in Bali, booked with Hyatt points – transferred from Chase.
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 75,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Points Boost
- each account anniversary you’ll earn bonus points equal to 10% of your total purchases made the previous year
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Complimentary DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees & lower service fees for a min. of one year when you activate by 12/31/27. Plus, a $10 promo each month on non-restaurant orders
- $95 Annual Fee
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.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
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.
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