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Update #2 (8/17/20): I can now confirm that the first year grocery bonus stacks with the quarterly bonus on the Freedom card for 9x at Whole Foods this quarter. See a screen shot after the highlighted update in yellow in the original post below.
Update #1: Some data points indicate that some people who have recently applied for the Chase Freedom and Freedom Unlimited via referral have been able to get matched to this offer including the grocery bonus (Note: The referral offer does not show the 5x grocery bonus). See this report from Doctor of Credit. It’s not immediately clear whether applying now via referral would still get a match – there’s obviously the risk that they will decide to stop matching.
Chase has upped the ante: There are new offers out on the Chase Freedom and Chase Freedom Unlimited cards today and they are without a doubt the best I’ve ever seen on these cards: get the usual $200 back (20,000 Ultimate Rewards points) after $500 in purchases in the first 3 months plus get 5% / 5x back on groceries (excluding Walmart and Target) for the first year on up to $12,000 in spend. That’s up to an 60,000 Ultimate Rewards points at the grocery store in year 1. That’s a great deal on a card with no annual fee and finally makes the Freedom or Freedom Unlimited worth considering for a 5/24 slot.
The Offer & Key Card Details
Click the card details below to go to our dedicated card page for more information and to find a link to apply.
| Card Offer and Details |
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| Card Offer and Details |
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Quick Thoughts
This is a fantastic deal and as good as we’ve ever seen on the Chase Freedom or Freedom Unlimited. Either of these cards are now worth considering despite using up a 5/24 slot.
| Chase's 5/24 Rule: With most Chase credit cards, Chase will not approve your application if you have opened 5 or more cards with any bank in the past 24 months. To determine your 5/24 status, see: 3 Easy Ways to Count Your 5/24 Status. The easiest option is to track all of your cards for free with Travel Freely. |
The kind of “standard” offer on the Freedom cards has been for $150 back (15,000 Ultimate Rewards points), though we’ve had a $200 offer (20,000 Ultimate Rewards points) listed for quite a while. This new offer maintains that previous 20K bonus on either card and adds 5x on up to $12K in grocery store spend in year 1. That’s a very nice bonus indeed.
Given that the Freedom Unlimited card ordinarily offers 1.5x everywhere, the bonus is really an additional 3.5 points per dollar on up to $12K in spend — or an additional 42K in points over what you would otherwise earn for that spend. That’s a really nice additional bonus on a card with no annual fee, especially given the fact that it should be very easy for most people to earn that entire bonus. On the other hand, assuming you would have earned 1x on the Chase Freedom, it’s like an additional 4x on that $12K in spend — 48K points more than you’d ordinarily earn on that spend (assuming that grocery stores are not a quarterly category).
To that last point, I’m not entirely sure how this will work if you elect to apply for the Freedom card and grocery stores are a quarterly category. Will you then receive stacking bonuses of 5% / 5x for the quarterly bonus and an additional 4% / 4x for this grocery bonus? I’m not entirely sure, but I’m sure we’ll find out early since Whole Foods is one of the quarterly bonus categories this quarter. Still, any way you slice it this will be a great bonus.
Update: I can confirm that the bonuses stack. We purchased $1,000 in Amazon gift cards at Whole Foods (and some fruit) and earned 1x base points + 4x points from the third quarter category bonus + 4x first year grocery bonus points as shown below (note that the screen shot also includes 20K points earned from the welcome bonus).
Consider also that since Chase is currently offering the Pay Yourself Back feature on Sapphire Preferred and Sapphire Reserve cards, these bonuses are even more valuable for many cardholders. For example, if you have a Chase Sapphire Reserve in your household and you earn the welcome bonus on this card before the end of September, you could move the 20K bonus points earned here to your Sapphire Reserve account to pay yourself back for $300 in groceries or home improvement purchases (at 1.5c each). A return of 5x at the grocery store is therefore worth at least 7.5% back if used toward groceries as long as the pay yourself back feature lasts — an excellent bonus for grocery store spend.
The additional 40K+ points one stands to earn if you can max out grocery spend combined with the 20K welcome bonus points means that this card comes with a total bonus that beats out most other cards in the Ultimate Rewards lineup if you’re spending $12K per year on groceries.
Keep in mind that Chase markets the Freedom and Freedom Unlimited cards as cash back cards and thus the bonuses are framed in terms of cash back — $200 cash back after spending $500 in the first 3 months and 5% back on groceries — but those amounts are given in the form of Chase Ultimate Rewards points that can be redeemed for cash. If you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Sapphire Reserve, or Chase Ink Business Preferred in your household, you can move points earned on the Freedom Unlimited to one of those cards and then transfer on to travel partners if you prefer to use the points with airline or hotel partners. Hyatt fans can no doubt see huge value in being able to rack up easy points via this card and then transfer them to Hyatt.
Overall, I’m pretty excited about this. I currently have the Freedom Unlimited, but my wife doesn’t and is under 5/24. I think this card is worth a 5/24 slot, especially considering the fact that she is not yet eligible for a new welcome bonus on a Sapphire card. Getting this card now will position her to eventually consider downgrading her Sapphire Reserve to a Freedom card when she is ready for a new Sapphire bonus. Since I had no intentions of burning a 5/24 slot any time soon, I expected it would be several years before she’d end up with more than one Freedom card. The points here are just easy peasy and hard to ignore.
This card may not make sense for those who can both get approved for and meet the spending requirement of an Ink Business Preferred (given the big bonus there) or those who would rather split their grocery spend over multiple welcome bonuses. On the other hand, with issuers in general tightening up on approvals, I think this represents an opportunity for a card that is generally easier to get than the ultra premium Chase cards and may be more realistic for some in the current environment.
I think Greg and I predicted a few months ago that we may yet see better offers on these lower-end cards if the pandemic wore on — while I’m disappointed that we aren’t on the other side of things yet, I’m glad to see this prediction come true as it will hopefully mean easy points for some enthusiasts hungry for a good offer.
My new freedom flex doesn’t show the 5x groceries anywhere even though it was on the promotion. Does grocery spend 5x stack with the 20k signup bonus? Or take effect after the $500 minimum spend?
They stack. If you want assurance about the 5X part of the offer, send Chase a secure message to verify it.
[…] Awesome: 5x groceries + 20K welcome bonus on Chase Freedom & Freedom Unlimited […]
[…] Awesome: 5x groceries + 20K welcome bonus on Chase Freedom & Freedom Unlimited […]
I already have a CF card – the same account number as my husband’s CF card. I would love to jump on a new CF to stack the new bonus with the Whole Foods bonus. Problem is, we’ve had these CF cards for so long, that I can’t remember if I am an authorized user on my husband’s card (in which case I *think* I am eligible for the SUB?) or if he is an AU on my card (in which case I *think* I would not qualify for the SUB?) Does anyone know how to figure out who is the AU? I’ve poked around on our account online and can’t seem to find it anywhere. Thanks!
When you say “our account online”, whose account is it? I know that’s the question you’re asking me — I mean whose login is it? Do you have other Chase cards in that login and know whose they are? That’s whose account the Freedom is (authorized users don’t get their own login on Chase cards to my knowledge).
I guess another way you could find out is call and ask whether you’re the primary cardholder or AU. I imagine a phone rep can tell you that. If they say they can’t, ask if you can product change the card. If you’re not the primary cardholder, you won’t be able to do that. If they proceed forward with the PC, you can stop them before it’s done and you’ll know it’s your account. Still, I think just calling and asking would do it if you can’t figure it out from the login.
When I login to my account, I see my biz cards, my reserve card, and this CF card. When I login to my husband’s account I see his CFU card and this CF card. Hmmmm… I think I’ll give a ring and see if they can tell me what’s up. Thanks Nick!
[…] especially if paying with a newly-opened Chase Freedom or Freedom Unlimited card which are earning 5x at grocery stores. Even if just going for cashback from a portal, the lower rate might be worth it for the […]
Does Chase consider Walmart Neighborhood Market stores as grocery category?
no
[…] Update 8/17/20: The 5x stacks with the 5x rotating categories for a total of 9x (e.g this quarter is 5x on Whole Foods so these purchases earn 9x). Hat tip to FM […]
Anyone know if instacart would code as groceries for the CFU? TIA!
I’m not positive, but it has on our Amex Gold card, even when ordering from a warehouse store (BJ’s Wholesale).
@Nick Reyes, Costco seems to be an exception to the warehouse coding on Instacart via Amex Gold, however.
So if you can max out the 12K grocery spend at Whole Foods by Sept 30 you will net 108K UR?
No. Freedom quarterly bonus categories are capped at $1500 in spend or 7500 points.
Nick would it not have been a better move to just buy $1000 GC from Amazon itself. Earning 5x there and saving the 5x grocery bonus. It seems like you are wasting 1x by only getting 9x when you could get 5×2, or am i missing something?
Also end of article says “ The additional 40K+ points one stands to earn if you can max out grocery spend ..” 12k x 5 =60k
As Matt says, the quarterly categories on the Freedom are capped at $1500 spend, so Whole Foods or Amazon this quarter is only good up to $1500 spend. The grocery bonus that is part of the current sign up bonus is good for a year or $12K spend.
Moving backwards, starting with your second question: You’re counting the base earning in your calculation — it’s not 60K “bonus” points. You get 40K+ bonus points from the $12K spend. I have it non-exact because it depends whether you get the Freedom or Freedom Unlimited. The Freedom ordinarily earns 1x at grocery stores when they aren’t a quarterly category, so you’re earning an extra 4x on $12K grocery spend in the first year (48K “extra” points over the first year + 12K that you’d ordinarily get at 1x for that spend). The Freedom Unlimited ordinarily earns 1.5x, so you’re getting 42K bonus points + 18K points you’d ordinarily earn on $12K spend. The 12K or 18K isn’t a bonus, it’s just the base earning.
As for “wasting” 1x, the answer is no. That’s just the base earnings. So I’m earning the same total bonus points just on less base spend.
In essence, your plan is that if I spent $1500 at Amazon first (for the quarterly bonus) and then $1500 at Whole Foods after that (towards the first year grocery bonus), I’d end up with 15,000 points for $3,000 in total purchases. Instead, if I spend $1500 at Whole Foods (presumably buying Amazon gift cards), I’d end up with 13,500 points — with only $1500 in spend required.
If I spend another $1500 on any 1x category — Amazon, my mechanic, my wife’s hairdresser, etc — I’d end up with the same 15,000 points on $3K spend. I’m not giving anything up — I’m giving myself the opportunity to put that other $1500 spend on a card that earns better than 1x. In essence, I’m earning the “bonus” points more efficiently since I’m knocking out both bonuses with a single purchase.
Does that make sense?
Ah yes. So then the total UR generated by 12K grocery spend could be 86K? SUB 20K + 13500 Q3 WF bonus(1500 x9) + 52500(remaining grocery bonus of 10500 x5).
I wonder if there is any way to get them to match on a ten year old freedom that used to be a fairmont card? :0)
Do you know if you can still refer to an Unlimited if you only have a Freedom?
Yes. Our new Freedom card generates a referral link for the Freedom Unlimited — but note that the current referral offer does not include the grocery bonus.
[…] is the only slot in the wallet where I included a limited-time bonus category, but with 5% back on up to $12K in grocery store purchases in the first year at the moment (excluding Walmart and Target) on top of the regular welcome bonus, either of these annual-fee-free […]
[…] I saw the new offers on the Chase Freedom and Chase Freedom Unlimited cards last week, I was pretty excited. We had the ability to add one of these cards in my household and the offer […]
Did I miss it? Is there a limit on the number of chase cards Chase will allow you to have?
I do not think there is a hard limit on how many chase cards you can have. On the other hand, Amex does have a limit on how many credit cards you can have. max 4 credit cards and 10 charge cards at the moment.
Total earn for the year if you just did 12k grocery spend on the card would be 80k points, no? 5x 12k = 60k and 20k bonus additional, correct?
Just a note on the Ink Buskness card… they are way harder to get now even with a legit business. No Chase relationship bank wise and I might as well forget it.
Hi Nick,
I currently have the Chase Ink Business Preferred card, and am wondering if I should apply for one of these Chase Freedom/Unlimited card deals?
I recall being unable to transfer my Ultimate Rewards from business card to my husband’s Sapphire Reserve account (wanted to do so just so to pool our Rewards.) Thought they’d said I could transfer them from my business to my own personal, but not remembering for certain.
Wondering if you have insights on this, and any recommendations?
Thank you! Greta
I am guessing you may have other personal Chase cards linked with your husband’s CSR. You can try to remove your husband’s CSR from your personal Chase card account. Wait 24 hours then add your husband’s CSR from your CIP. You can find out more from “Chase Ultimate Rewards Complete Guide 2020,” section “Share Points Across Cardholders” and “Transfer difficulties? Create a loop.”
What do you think the chances are for getting approved for both simultaneously? I am 3/24 with a high 700s FICO score.
I really don’t know for sure, but given the current environment my best guess is low.
Got it, thanks, Nick.
Sorry if you already mentioned this in your very informative post. If I use the link you provide do you get a referral bonus? I noticed some people’s referral links lead to only the $200 bonus offer (referring person gets a referral bonus, but the offer to the person using the link doesn’t get this better offer). Anyone able to use soneone’s referral link and get this special bonus offer of $200 + 5% grocery up to $12,000? Or, is your link just for the normal $200 signup bonus? Of course, sone blog sites may have their own unique referral deal with the bank.
Hi Ed.
There’s some confusion in terms of terminology here. A referral link is when (for example) you or I personally have the card and we create a link through Chase to send to friends and family and in return we get some bonus points from Chase. Right now, a referral link for these cards does not include the 5x grocery deal. It’s possible that you could try applying through someone’s personal referral link and then asking Chase if they would match the 5x grocery deal. They might or they might not. Chase is usually pretty good about matching offers, but I’m not sure how that would work in this case.
An affiliate link is when there is some relationship between the bank and the blog where the blog earns a commission of some sort when you apply and are approved.
Our Best Offers page and any post about a card offer like this always lists the best publicly-available offer. If the best publicly-available offer is a referral link, we’ll use one of our personal referral links. If the best publicly available offer is an affiliate link that we have, we list the affiliate link. If the best publicly-available offer is just some other link, we list that other link whatever it may be.
Our Best Offers page has a key down at the very bottom (under the header that says “Advertiser and Refer-A-Friend Disclosure”) so you know what links are affiliate links, what links are non-affiliate links, and what links are referral links so it’s always clear. Also notable: Banks on the Best Offers page are listed alphabetically, but cards within those bank lists are listed based on first-year value, which is automatically calculated based on a spreadsheet using our Reasonable Redemption Values for the points and taking into account the opportunity cost of spending on the given card versus spending on a card that earns 2.5% cash back. We don’t manually sort any of that.
So all that is to say that whether or not the blog earns a commission depends on which card you’re applying for, but we always list the best offer for the reader regardless of whether or not there is a direct benefit for us. Because the best deal for these cards is with the 5x grocery bonus, that’s the deal we list through Frequent Miler.
Hopefully that helps.
Thanks for the explanation. If I have a chance (must look into further), I’ll use your link since it’s an affiliate link. And, now I know where to look to see if this helpful blog gets any benefit by using their link, referral or so forth if applying for any future card. I’d rather use a link of a blog I read than just random if it matters to the writer.
Nick — Isn’t one important consideration for this card whether or not you (or your player 2) already has an amex gold card? For many, the opportunity cost of shifting grocery spend to take advantage of these new offers will swallow up the value of the offer for those sensitive to 5/24. I think the people this is ideal for are those who do not have (or whose family member does not have) an Amex gold or who can put $12,000 fairly easily on things in grocery stores that they value almost like cash and are afraid to do so with Amex or who use up their $25k with Amex.
I think Unlimited 3x first year, 2 years ago, was the best-ever CFU offer. Was so hoping they would bring that one back (for another family member)!
Grocery bonus cat is already 5x at least 3 months out of the year among CF, Discover, & Dividend – personally not that revved about this offer though a step up from normal for sure.
That offer wasn’t nearly as good.
That offer was 3x everywhere on up to $20K in spend and it was only on the Freedom Unlimited. Since the Freedom Unlimited ordinarily earns 1.5x, that welcome offer was only an additional 1.5x on $20K in spend — in other words, the entire offer was worth 30K bonus points if you spent the full $20K.
This offer is much better:
1) On the CFU, it amounts to an additional 3.5x on $12K spend. That yields a bonus 42,000 points and only requires $12K spend.
2) On the Chase Freedom, it amounts to an additional 4x on $12K spend. That yields a bonus of 48K points and only requires $12K spend.
As to your point on groceries, this may stack on top of the Chase Freedom quarterly bonus (we don’t yet know). Since you can buy gift cards at the grocery store for most merchants at which you may shop (and VGCs for those places that aren’t covered with other GCs at the grocery store), it should be relatively easy to max this out towards purchases you already planned to make.
I can concede that some people may not spend much on groceries and perhaps in your case you spend money at places that you couldn’t pick up gift cards for at the grocery store, but you only have to do $8,572 in grocery spend on the CFU (or less on the Freedom) for this offer to yield more bonus points than the 3x everywhere offer. That’s $164 a week on groceries for this offer to be superior. Obviously some families don’t spend that much every week on groceries, but I’d bet that many do.
Actually, let me add to that. I forgot to include the 20K bonus points for spending $500 here!
On the 3x everywhere offer, if you had spent $20K you would have ended up with a grand total of 60K Ultimate Rewards points.
With this offer, if you spend $8K at the grocery store, you’ll end up with the same 60K UR points:
-20K from the initial welcome bonus
-40K from $8K grocery spend
——
60K total.
If you can spend more than $153 a week on groceries, this offer comes out better.
And again, consider that this is also available on the Freedom.
I think Pam is referencing the 2018 CFU 3x everywhere (no cap) deal, not the 2019 deal. If so, I have to agree with her Nick, that deal was significantly better if one could maximize the spend on that old offer.
Aloha808 – yes, correct, Chase offered for about 2 weeks late April 2018
(& CIC already earns 5x on gift cards)
Right. This is more. Who doesn’t want more? lol :-D.
That 3x offer was pretty low return on high spend. Don’t wish that back on the rest of us 🙂
The CFU offer I am referencing did not have a cap you used in your math. My entire life went on that card for a year & am STILL spending those URs
Sorry, Unltd/Uncapped 3x mo betta than 5x capped in 1 category!
Sorry — you are correct. That did happen for a very brief window a few years ago (3x everywhere with no cap). The most recent several times they ran that deal, it was capped at $20K in purchases.
https://frequentmiler.com/holy-smokes-chase-freedom-unlimited-3x-everywhere-first-year/
https://frequentmiler.com/freedom-unlimited-3x-first-year-available-by-referral/
I also explored whether the offer was worth considering here:
https://frequentmiler.com/is-the-freedom-unlimited-3x-everywhere-offer-worth-a-5-24-slot/
All that is to say that you are correct — they did very briefly run an offer for 3x everywhere without a cap. My bet is that it was a mistake. Given that they’ve since run it with the $20K cap (online, then in-branch only, then via referral), I’d bet that they’d likely cap that bonus if it ever came back.
Thanks, Nick!
I did the math wrong on that. Sorry. Let’s try this again.
On the 3x everywhere offer, the max was $20K spend.
$20K spend ordinarily gets 30K points on the CFU (1.5x everywhere). The welcome offer gave you an additional 30K points (an additional 1.5x everywhere).
This new offer gives you 20K bonus points for the first $500 spend (plus the 750 points for that spend). At that point, with only $500 spend, you have more than 2/3 of the 3x everywhere bonus.
Another 10K bonus points and you’ve got the full 30K bonus of that previous 3x offer. That’s $2857.14 in 5x spend on the CFU ($2,857.14 x 3.5 = 10K points).
So if you spend $500 initially and then another $2,857.14 at the grocery store in the first year, you’ve got the same number of bonus points (30K) as the 3x everywhere offer
At that point, you’ll have spent $3,357.14 and earned 30K bonus points.
This sentence confuses me: Getting this card now will position her to eventually consider downgrading her Sapphire Reserve to a Freedom card when she is ready for a new Sapphire bonus.
Why does getting one of the Freedom cards now affect the decision later to product-change to the other Freedom card?
You’re right — that’s not clear at all. What I meant was that it’ll position her to have the full suite. She could absolutely downgrade the CSR regardless — but now she’ll have both types of Freedom and the CSR. I was expecting it to take longer to get to that point since I figured we’d never want to burn a slot on a Freedom card, so she’d probably product change the CSR and open a new one and then have to wait a few years to downgrade that and open again before she’d have two Freedoms or a CFU and a Freedom.
That makes sense now 🙂
Just used your CFU link and my husband got approved! Will be buying grocery GCs, only so many groceries we can stash.
Nick or anyone, does chase have terms that gc may not or won’t be eligible for bonus like amex’s? lol, if so hope that they won’t pull a trick like amex with claw backs or such
I’ve never heard of Chase clawing back a bonus for GC spend. You never know when the winds could change, but up to this point we haven’t seen that happen.
I have had the Chase Freedom card for several years. Can I still get the welcome bonus on the CFU, assuming I’m under 5/24?
Yes, absolutely. They are separate products.
Is there a way we can use referral to get more 🙂
The referral offer doesn’t show the 5x grocery deal yet. Not sure whether or not it will.
I recently used the Miler link to get CFU, then immediately sent refer-a-friend to wife who was also approved for CFU. I then sent secure message from each account to confirm each card was eligible for the 5X grocery deal and it was confirmed by Chase. Thus, you can get extra points with this deal.
Is it correct that you can get a new CFU w SUB even if you currently have a CFU and it’s been >24mo since the SUB?
No. You’ll need to product change your CFU to something else and wait at least a few days (conventional wisdom says to wait 1-3 weeks for your CFU to get out of the system).
To get the SUB you cannot currently have a CFU and it has to at least have been 24 months since you received your last CFU SUB.
I have a related question. If you product changed a CSP to a CFU last October and consequently never earned an SUB on that CFU, could I close the CFU and later apply for this CFU w current SUB offer?
Bump
Yes. As noted above, the Chase rule is you can’t have received the new cardmember bonus on the card you’re applying for within the past 24 months and you can’t have that card open currently. I wouldn’t close your CFU. I’d product change that CFU to a Freedom or no-fee Sapphire card and then apply new for the CFU.
It doesn’t matter when you opened or closed a Freedom or Freedom Unlimited; it only matters whether you have the exact card you’re applying for open right now and whether or not you’ve received a welcome bonus on that card in the past 24 months. In your case, you have not earned a welcome bonus on the CFU in the past 24 months and once you product change (as I said above, I’d wait at least a week after product changing), you’ll be good to go.
I know that Chase makes this confusing because of their rules on Sapphire cards. Freedom cards are totally separate products.
Thanks, Nick!
Does the 5X groceries apply to current Freedom cardholders?
No, this is a new welcome offer for new accounts.
Nick –
I got the CFU just two months ago. Is there any legitimate chance Chase would match the new 5x offer retroactively? If so, what would be the best method for asking for it?
Thanks.
-Samuel
Yes, I’d say there’s a legitimate chance if you applied two months ago. Your best bet is to send a secure message. Response time might be slow, but I just added a data point at the top of this post from someone in a similar situation who did get matched.
Chase CS just told me (via a supervisor) that any account opened from July 23 until the promotion ends will automatically be eligible for the 5% grocery bonus.
That would be awesome. However, I would not recommend taking a customer service representative’s word for it. I’d always get that in writing via secure message. Customer service reps / supervisors / executive vice presidents of customer placation from the corporate satisfaction office are just often incorrect. While that certainly may be true, I wouldn’t count on what someone told you on the phone. If you get it in writing via secure message, you should be good to go.
Just a few weeks ago, when the Citi Premier debuted 3x groceries early in June, someone reported to us (a couple of weeks after it had begun) that they called and the customer service rep told them it wouldn’t start until August 23rd and they checked with a supervisor and blah blah blah…and yet people were already getting 3x at that point. Reps just often aren’t well-informed. Again, what you were told may be correct — but if you applied via a means other than a link that shows the bonus, I would recommend sending a secure message to get it in writing in case.