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Chase Makes Freedom’s New Spending Categories (Mostly) #StayAtHome Friendly

It’s a new quarter, and new spending categories have kicked in on the beloved Chase Freedom credit card.

In Quarter 2, you’ll earn 5% cash back per dollar spent in the following categories:

  • grocery stores
  • fitness club and gym memberships
  • streaming services

The bonus earnings apply to the first $1,500 spent during the months of April, May, and June. Once you reach the limit, you’ll keep earning 1% on all purchases. Make sure to activate the offer to earn the most rewards for every dollar spent.

How to Maximize Chase Freedom Q2 categories

Grocery Stores & meal-kit delivery services

In light of stay-at-home restrictions and restaurant closures related to the novel coronavirus, many have been taking trips to grocery stores to stock up on food, cleaning supplies and medications. This category will likely be most popular among consumers while earning rewards with the Chase Freedom card. Luckily, Kroger stores are taking Visa credit cards again, so you can rest assured you’re earning rewards on every grocery shopping trip.

Related: How the Visa Credit Card Ban Affects My Shopping Habits

It worth noting that Target and Walmart aren’t included on the list of eligible grocery stores.

If you’re reducing trips to the grocery store as much as possible, fret not because meal-kit delivery services, such as HelloFresh, Home Chef and Blue Apron, are classified as groceries by their merchant code. You can earn 5% cash back on weekly deliveries straight to your home.

If all else fails, you can buy merchant gift cards from your local grocery store. Think restaurant gift cards for takeout orders, Amazon gift cards for your online shopping during the time of the pandemic and airline gift cards for when we’re OK to travel again

Fitness Club and Gym Memberships

Of course, none of us could predict the quarantine we’d find ourselves in, so this bonus category comes at an unfortunate time. Gyms and fitness clubs have been deemed non-essential in the era of social distancing, which makes it difficult to maximize this category in Quarter 2.

In the midst of the uncertain times, some gyms have moved their group fitness classes and even one-on-one sessions with a personal trainer online. If you think of freezing your gym membership at this time, seek to maximize this quarter’s bonus categories elsewhere. Still, even if gyms were open and you were paying about $40 per month for membership, this category wouldn’t have been a huge rewards generator anyway.

Streaming Services

Another useful category this quarter, which has been extended from Quarter 1, is select streaming services. Chase Freedom cardholders will earn 5% cash back by paying monthly fees for the following subscriptions:

  • Apple Music
  • Disney+
  • ESPN+
  • Fubo TV
  • Google Play
  • Hulu
  • Netflix
  • Pandora
  • SiriusXM
  • Sling
  • Spotify
  • Vudu
  • YouTube

In times of hunkering down, home entertainment has come to save the world. If you’ve found yourself signing up for multiple streaming platforms at once, remember to list your Chase Freedom card in the payment section and earn elevated rewards. There a lot more than Tiger King episodes to keep you from going outside for months.

In Conclusion

As for me, the biggest chunk of my rewards will come from grocery shopping this quarter. And because I also have the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, I’ll be able to turn 5% cash back into 5X Ultimate Rewards points by combining them via the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal. This will give me the option to transfer these points to Chase airline and hotel partners for maximum value.

 

How are you planning to maximize your Chase Freedom bonus in 2020 Quarter 2?

[Image Source: Mohammed Hassan/pxhere]

5 Comments
A
AndieNarwhal June 1, 2020

If you pay for a meal delivery service through PayPal, does Chase still count it as groceries?

G
GarlicFlyer April 11, 2020

It seems that the Peloton App counts neither as a streaming service not as a fitness membership. Chase is a joke.

R
RandyN April 10, 2020

I'm still paying my gym membership, as are most of the members at my facility, so the employees can stay on the payroll. Unlike a lot of my fellow Americans, I'm also paying my housekeeper to stay home. @jamessteroh - Kroger didn't accept Visa for most of 2019. Horrible stores. Full of junk food, surly, sloth-like employees and no one knows where anything is.

J
jamesteroh April 9, 2020

Kroger has always taken Visa. One nice thing is you can always buy gift cards for other merchants at a lot of Grocery stores. I never knew meal delivery services were coded as grocery. I was thinking of using hello fresh for a while since I'm stuck at home for the foreseeable future. Since I always transer my freedom points to my CSR for travel the 7.5 percent savings will help.

N
naumank April 7, 2020

As the author pointed out, GTM membership doesn’t make sense at all during the lockdown. Streaming charges are very minimal unless someone buys every service out there.