Chase Freedom published their 2019 Q2 Bonus Categories today. Starting from April through June 2019, Chase Freedom Customers will earn 5% cash back on up to $1500 in combined purchases in these categories:

  • Grocery stores: From graduation parties to Memorial Day weekend, cardmembers get rewarded with cash back when they’re shopping at grocery stores for their families this quarter.
  • Home Improvement: Whether it’s spring cleaning, organizing or remodeling, Chase Freedom cardmembers can earn cash back when they spend at home improvement stores through June.

Interesting to see Chase didn’t include any Mobile Payments or PayPal like they did last year.

Download the PDF or the JPG for easy tracking of bonus categories for each Chase Ultimate Rewards card.

How to Maximize Chase Freedom 5%

  • First Activate your card before June 14th. If you make a purchase before activating, not to worry, as far as you activate before June 14th, you will still earn 5% on those categories for that quarter.
  • Watch out for some special Chase Pay special offers
  • Earn bonus Rewards by shopping through Chase Ultimates Rewards portal
  • If you have multiple Chase Freedom, make sure you activate every individual card.

Maximize my Rewards Redemption instead of Cashback

“Cash Back rewards” are the rewards you earn under the program. You may simply see “Cash Back” in Chase marketing materials when referring to the rewards you earn. Here is the best part. These points are still Ultimate Rewards thought it can be redeemed as Cash Back. They give a higher value when you redeem these points with Chase Sapphire or Chase Sapphire Reserve.

Using the Ultimate Rewards ports, you can transfer to Chase Sapphire Preferred and Sapphire Reserve. Later when redeemed for travel, Sapphire Preferred offers 25% more in value and Sapphire Reserve offers 50% more in value.  For example, 50,000 points in Reserve is worth $750 in travel when redeemed using Chase Travel portal. These can be redeemed using their partners for better redemption, such as 5000 points for a night at Category 1 Hyatt or a 7500 British Avios gives a one way domestic short travel using American or fly Singapore Suites for 90,000 points. See some of the Best Chase Ultimate Rewards Guide for Redemption on Travel

Let’s take a look at the below Chart on how these can be valued more when redeemed using Sapphire Cards.