Final Hours To Register For Q2 Bonus Spending; Q3 Categories Announced!
Chase Freedom Flex and Freedom are excellent no annual fee cards thanks to their quarterly 5% categories. While the rewards are marketed as 5% cash back, you’ll actually get 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent which can be worth much more than 5% cash.
If you max out the $1,500 in bonus spending per quarter you will earn at least 30,000 Ultimate Rewards points over the course of a year (7,500 points per quarter at 5 points per dollar spent) per Freedom card.
Today is the final day to activate Chase Freedom Q2 5% categories. If you activate today you will retroactively receive 5 points per dollar for all bonus spending since the beginning of this quarter!
You can register by today for 2026 Q2 spending which is valid 4/1-6/30 at:
- Chase Travel
- Includes airline tickets, hotels, car rentals, activities, tours, and cruises. You will actually earn 9 points per dollar with this category as Chase Travel always earns 4 bonus points per dollar with Freedom Flex!
- Amazon.com
- Includes purchases made at Amazon.com (including digital downloads, Amazon.com Gift Cards, Amazon Fresh orders, Amazon Prime subscriptions, and items sold by third-party merchants through Amazon.com’s marketplace) and Whole Foods Market (including physical Whole Foods Market and Whole Foods Market 365 stores, and the website accessible at www.wholefoodsmarket.com
- Feeding America
Starting tomorrow, you can register for Q3 spending, which will be valid on $1,500 of spending from 7/1-9/30 for:
- EV Charging
- Gas stations
- This includes gas and anything sold inside gas stations as well!
- Public transit
- This includes trains, subways, city buses, taxis, limousines, rideshares, ferries, tolls, bridges, and parking.
- Select Live Entertainment and movie theaters
- Includes in-person entertainment such as major sporting events, zoos and aquariums, concerts, theatrical productions, museums, tourist attractions and exhibits, amusement parks, circuses, carnivals, bands, and entertainers. Ticket agencies selling on behalf of the entertainment venue are included.
- United Way
You can track your Freedom bonus spending here.
You can currently earn a $200 signup bonus in the form of 20,000 Ultimate Rewards points for spending $500 on the Freedom Flex Mastercard. Plus you’ll earn 3 points per dollar on drugstore and dining purchases and 5 points per dollar on all Travel purchased through Chase Travel.
While Chase Freedom Flex is a great card for the bonus categories, it’s not a great card for everyday spending. However, the Chase Freedom Unlimited® card also has no annual fee and earns 1.5 points per dollar everywhere, though it doesn’t have rotating 5x categories.
The no annual fee business version of Freedom Unlimited is the Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card.
Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, and Ink Unlimited alone can’t transfer points into much more lucrative airline or hotel miles, but if you or your spouse has a Chase Sapphire Reserve®, Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business℠, Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card, or Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, then you can transfer points from Freedom to one of those cards and from there to your favorite travel currency. The Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, or Ink Unlimited card can also keep your points alive for free if you do close one of those premium cards.
The value of the points will be based on where you use them, but if you use those points for a trip worth where they are worth 2 cents each then you’ll have effectively earned 10% back on those “5 point categories.” The sky is the limit of the value of airline miles as they aren’t tied to the cost of a ticket. That’s good for people in the know and bad for those who are not. 1 mile can be worth 0.25 cents or it can be worth 25 cents, it all just depends on how you use them!
Where will you make your Q2 and Q3 purchases?
HT: Eluzer K and DoC
