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Fantastic categories: Chase Freedom 4th quarter bonus categories revealed

a plane with seats and people in the back

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We are bigtime Chase Freedom fans, and by the book, the Chase Freedom is a cash back card, but we know there’s something better… This card is a point making machine when combined with another Chase card that earns premium Ultimate Rewards. How? You can earn 5x points/cash back on up to $1500 worth of spend each quarter on bonus categories. This next quarter presents a great opportunity to earn the full bonus, especially during the upcoming holiday season. So what are these new bonus categories? According to DOC, they will be….

Chase Freedom 4th Quarter 2018 categories

  • Wholesale Clubs
  • Department Stores
  • Chase Pay

One thing I often forget, or at least don’t prioritize is using Chase Pay. I’ll certainly pay far closer attention to this starting in October, and also look to buy my year’s worth of contacts at Costco to earn 5x points on them. Who knows… maybe I need a new tv as well. OLED anyone? This should be a great quarter to easily max out the bonus categories and earn 7500 Ultimate Rewards. BYAH!

Don’t have a Freedom?



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The Feature Pic is from EVA’s Royal Laurel Business Class. One of the best in the sky.

I used Ultimate Rewards to transfer into Singapore Airlines to access this award. Cost just 27,500 miles and was an incredible way to fly intra-asia. If you were to maximize each quarter’s $1500 bonus category you’d end the year with 30k miles, more than enough to experience the same route as I did.

I guess this will do 😉

a stuffed animal on a seat

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

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Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card


4.8
4.8/5
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 including Hyatt, Southwest, United, IHG, and Marriott.

Welcome Offer

60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months

Annual Fee

$95

Points Earned

Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards

  • 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 Travel Portal
  • 2x on all other travel
  • $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via 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. 

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.

The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

4 Comments

  • […] benefits, earn rates, and actually improves the value of the points I earn on other cards like my Chase Freedom and Ink Business Cash by allowing them to convert into fully transferrable Ultimate Rewards.  […]

  • JJ September 13, 2018

    The monkey in the lie-flat bed is sooooo cute. I love it!

  • Ed. C September 13, 2018

    Chase Pay isn’t that great unless shopping online, for me anyway. Only merchants around here that take it are Starbucks (never go there) and a couple of gas station chains that up charge for credit card purchases. Samsung Pay, however I’ve been able to use just about everywhere.

    Unless I’m missing something.

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