The Chase Freedom is a great card to have, and one of the reasons is that it’s a no-fee card that still earns valuable Ultimate Rewards. Also, if you have a premium Chase card (such as the Sapphire or the Chase Ink card) that you want to cancel, you can transfer it down into a Freedom (and keep your Ultimate Rewards points). Just make sure that you transfer your points to a card you’re going to keep BEFORE you cancel!
(SEE ALSO: Transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards between accounts before closing an account)
If you just have say, a Sapphire card, and you cancel it, then your Ultimate Rewards points are just gone! Obviously that’s not what we want to happen, so downgrading to a Freedom is an option. Now one disadvantage of not having a premium Chase card is that you can’t transfer your points to Chase’s partners (like United, Southwest and others).
(SEE ALSO: Chase Ultimate Rewards: 5 reasons I think they’re the best miles out there)
Another downside is if you already HAVE a Freedom card (because you downgraded from an Ink or Sapphire) is that you’re not eligible for a signup bonus.
Quarterly Chase Freedom categories – 2015
The other nice part of the Freedom card is that they have quarterly bonuses, where each quarter, you earn 5% back in a select number of categories. This quarter is 5% on Grocery stores (not including Walmart or Target), Movie Theaters and Starbucks stores.
As you can see, the Chase Freedom categories bonus for 2015 Q1 is at Grocery Stores, Movie Theaters and Starbucks. Remember that the bonus is good on the first $1500 of spending, so up to 7500 Ultimate Rewards. Any spending you do over and above $1500 will just earn the regular 1%.
The link to activate your Chase Freedom 5% is right here!
As you’ll see from the graphic above, the last day to activate the Q1 bonus is March 14th which is…. today! If you haven’t already activated your Chase Freedom, today is the day to do it. You still have till the end of March to actually SPEND up to $1500, but you’ll need to activate it today, or miss out on your (up to) 7500 Ultimate Rewards points.
This site is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as thepointsguy.com. This may impact how and where links appear on this site. Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers and that compensation may impact on how and where card products appear on the site. Any opinions expressed in this post are my own, and have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by my advertising partners and I do not include all card companies, or all available card offers. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers and other offers and benefits listed on this page. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more. Other links on this page may also pay me a commission - as always, thanks for your support if you use them
User Generated Content Disclosure: Points With a Crew encourages constructive discussions, comments, and questions. Responses are not provided by or commissioned by any bank advertisers. These responses have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the responsibility of the bank advertiser to respond to comments.
Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Recent Comments