Chase Freedom is marketed as a cash-back card, but the rewards are Ultimate Rewards points (worth a penny each to most people). If you have a Sapphire Preferred, Ink Bold, or Ink Plus, you can transfer all your Freedom points to those, which make them eligible for transfers to United.

Freedom has quarterly bonuses of 5x on certain categories. In Q2 (April -June) it was 5x at grocery stores. In Q3, it was restaurants and gas. In Q4, it is airlines, hotel rooms, Kohls and Best Buy. There is a $1500 cap per quarter on 5X. All the categories are announced shortly before the calendar year begins (so we will know in December what the 2013 categories are).

If you have Chase Checking on the same account, you get the "10+10" program, where you get an additional 10 points per transaction + 10% bonus on base points.

So last month, when I bought a $5 footlong at Subway, I got 25 points + 10 points + 0.5 points = 35.5 UR points, or 7.1 UA miles/$. I routinely average over 5 miles/$ on that card because of these bonuses, especially when the 5X is on smaller dollar items like restaurants. With airlines/hotels, it's a bit tougher (10 extra points on a $400 airfare is a tiny bonus compared to 10 extra points on a $5 sandwich).

The current signup bonus is not that great -- last year it was 30K UR for $500 spend, which I thought was fantastic.