Credit Cards

Quick update: Earning 5x points paying a friend with Apple Pay

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Chase Freedom is offering a quarterly 5x bonus with Apple Pay, Chase Pay, Samsung Pay, etc. What’s great is that Apple has made it super simple to pay your friends money that you owe them. I wrote about how this was an easy way to earn 5x points, but you’d have to pay a 3% fee to do so. I got some questions: will I get hit with a cash advance? will the payment actually net 5x points? why would i do this when I could buy gift card? So and so forth.

Here’s a screencap from my Chase statement where I used Apple Pay to send a buck.

a screenshot of a phone number

So to answer those questions:

  • Yes I earned the 5x points
  • No there wasn’t a cash advance fee
  • You could buy gift cards and avoid the fee, but this is a quick and easy way to pay friends, rent, etc without the hassle of having gift cards, liquidating them ,etc.

Hope this helps!

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.

7 Comments

  • […] Since Q4 of 2017 I think Chase has been especially generous with their categories. WalMart was an easy one to max the $1500 bonus ceiling, and then this current quarter – apple pay, samsung pay, chase pay. Don’t forget that you can earn 5x points just paying your friends back with Apple Pay! […]

  • Adonis February 21, 2018

    It sounds crazy!
    It sounds like manufacturing spending. Worry to be closed account by CHASE…

    • Patrick February 21, 2018

      Once you reach the $1,500 threshold and stop getting the 5x points, you end end losing money with the 3% charge.

  • Patrick February 21, 2018

    It was / is a great tip. You can’t buy gift cards with the Freedom and get 5x points.. unless you know of a gas station that sells them.
    I’m getting 5x points on my gas purchases but I’m not spending $3000 on gas in 3 months (2 Freedom cards)
    So this method (which I didn’t know about) is the next best thing.
    Even with the 3% fee it’s still less than a penny a point.

    • Miles February 21, 2018

      Hey Patrick – thanks! You could get gift cards at a grocery store, walmart,etc that accepts apple pay and still earn the 5x points…

      • Patrick February 21, 2018

        Oh yeah.. another good tip. thanks

  • Tom February 21, 2018

    Interesting. Thanks for being the guinea pig for the rest of us. 🙂

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