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Remember to activate your Chase Freedom 5x category bonuses

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A friendly reminder that Chase has released their new category bonuses for the 3rd quarter of 2019.  If you’re unfamiliar with this is benefit, each quarter cardmembers of the Chase Freedom card enjoy 5% back on rotating categories. For the next quarter, you’ll be able to earn the 5x bonus on Gas Stations and select streaming services. Note the 5x bonus is capped at $1500 per category, per quarter, or $75/7500points. The new quarter will start on July 1st, 2019.

Go here to activate

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If you’re like me and carry a Chase Premium credit card like the Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire Reserve, or Ink Business Preferred then you can combine your Freedom points into those accounts in order to transfer them into valuable partners. This is by far the most advantageous usage of Ultimate Rewards, but also increases the value when redeemed in the Chase Travel center. For instance, if you move them into a Chase Sapphire Reserve account, your points will instantly be redeemable for 1.5cents per point, a 50% increase over redeeming them in the Freedom Chase Travel Center.

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Chase Freedom

  • $150/15k Welcome Bonus
  • No annual Fee, 5x rotating quarterly bonusa blue credit card with white text

*feature image is of Lufthansa Business Class, upstairs on the 747-8 – a redemption made by using Chase Ultimate Rewards transferred to United

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.

1 Comment

  • Tom March 13, 2019

    Seems odd that we haven’t heard anything regarding the bonus categories for Q2.

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