*EDITOR’S NOTE: The below offer(s) are expired and/or no longer available.
For those of you with a Chase Freedom Visa card, it’s time to sign up for their winter bonus reward promo. As you may recall from my earlier posts, Chase offers bonus rewards in different spending categories on a quarterly basis – and yes, you have to re-enroll each quarter.
From January 1st through March 1st, you can get 5% cash back (1% base + 4% bonus) on purchases from gas stations and Amazon.com. There’s a $1, 500 spending cap for the bonus rewards, so we’re actually talking about a possible $75 in bonus rewards.
While $75 isn’t a huge sum, it’s certainly worth the minimal effort required to enroll your card in the program. Speaking of which… To enroll, simply visit ChaseBonus.com and follow the instructions, or call the number on the back of your card.
What about the $100 bonus?
If you don’t already have a Chase Freedom Visa card, you can get a $100 bonus by applying for one, getting approved, and spending $500 within the first three months. Technically, you’ll get 10k points, but you can easily redeem these for a $100 check.
For what it’s worth, we’ve had this card for a long time and have never had a problem getting them to hold up their end of the bargain. Once requested, the checks show up within about a week.
I have a Chase Freedom rewards card and like it, but I would caution people to monitor their bonus rewards to make sure they’re getting what they should. The 2nd Quarter 2011 category is Home Improvement, Lawn & Garden and Home Furnishings. I contacted Chase customer support because I didn’t receive the additional 4% on purchases of dirt and mulch from a local nursery. Their verbatim written response was
“The purchase made in April through Williamson’s nursery is categorized by the merchant as ‘Florists Supplies, Nursery Stock, and Flowers’ hence it does not qualify for the 5% cash.” Um, and what exactly are you planting in your garden, Mr. Customer Service Guy?” It is particularly confusing (intentionally?) to keep track of the bonus points, because for some transactions, the bonus points post on the same statement as the purchase, but for others there is a delay of one or two billing statements.
Oh, and I’ve done the same thing with buying the gift cards during the bonus time frame. The extra 4% is worth it – so long as you pay your balance off in full each month. But that is true of all credit card rewards!
Does anybody have experience with reapplying for these offers if you already have one account open? has anybody double dipped?
I keep getting the solicitations even though I already have accounts with these guys. If I open new accounts, are they going to screw me out of my bonus?
When I get 5% on groceries (or any other category) during that one quarter, I buy gift cards from those stores. For example, Chase recognizes Walmart Supercenter as a grocery store. I load a Walmart gift card, get 5% rebate, then use the gift card when I no longer get 5% rebate on the Chase credit card.
Sam’s accepts only Discover and Mastercard. Get around this by using your Chase Freedom Visa to buy a Walmart gift card at Walmart Supercenter. You can use the Walmart gift card at both Walmart and Sam’s. Around here, Sam’s offers both gas and groceries.
I’m probably going to get one of these cards in a few months. I keep getting offers, the one I got today said I would get the $100(10k points) as soon as I made a single purchase, no need to spend $800 in 3 months. I’ve been needing a better rewards card, although I’d like to have one that has good rewards for groceries an gasoline all the time, not just 1 quarter of the year.
Great tips, guys. I don’t have a Chase bank account (or debit card) so I wasn’t aware of those options. Thanks!
If you have a Chase checking account or savings account (I have both), you can redeem your Chase Freedom rewards online and choose the option of having your cashback directly deposited into your Chase bank account. I have done this several times and the cash shows up in my bank account within two business days. It beats waiting a week for mailed checks.
Also, you can get cashback at 2,000 points ($20), so as soon as I get 2,000 points, I redeem it and wait for the $20 credit in my bank account. I use the rebates for gasoline purchases.
Oh snap, thanks for the reminder. I’m excited that one of the categories is grocery stores again.
My wife and I both use the Chase Freedom card and love it. One thing I recently discovered is that if you use a Chase debit card you can roll your debit card rewards points over to your Chase Freedom rewards card. Nice perk!