ecs0013

Not the worst, but I really wish they'd have more or broader categories - they're acting as though this is three, but I feel like for most people gas or charging are an either/or, not an and. Select Live Entertainment might also be useful, but there may be restrictions.

(Discover has gas and digital wallets in Q3, so a bit of overlap, although I'd guess most value UR>Discover cash back.)

Super Mario

Definitely not a bad quarter. Between digital wallet on Discover and Gas stations (and all of the gift cards), this will be a solid return quarter. Much better than this current quarter for me.

philemer

What GC would you recommend buying for this promo?
Thanks

notquiteaff

I don’t know - we have an EV and an ICE vehicle, and I know a number of people in the same situation. And when we rent, it’s often still an ICE vehicle. While we drive a lot more EV miles than ICE miles, we still pay more for gas than electricity because most of our EV charging is at home or sometimes at free EV chargers. Still, I wish my credit cards that offer category bonuses for gasoline would also cover EV charging in that category. I think it would make sense to lump these two categories into one (vehicle fuel purchases).

cjw2001

You might recheck your specific cards to see if that has happened - several cards have quietly added that already. (For example Wells Fargo Autograph and Citibank Costco Anywhere Visa)

notquiteaff

Yeah, before a road trip recently I did research on the web which cards offer category bonuses for EV charging. Didn’t see any that I have. I guess I should do the reverse, too - look at the cards that I have an explicitly re-review their category bonuses.

txpenny

Hardly worth the effort to train the missus to use the Chase cards rather than the Costco card. Not much of a quarter for me.

ecs0013

Yeah, that might have been a generalization, but I sort of assumed that most EVs are charged at home on a regular basis, while ICE needs regular visits to a gas station, so even then it might be small "top ups" as opposed to all the charging one would do in a quarter (if that makes sense?) I think the fact that EV charging is a different merchant code and/or not lumped in with gas stations by most cards is really counterintuitive.

(Slight rant - I get my use case isn't nearly the same as everyone else's so take this with a grain of salt.)

Does anyone feel like Chase's categories have gotten narrower and worse since the CFF/CFU refresh a few years ago? When it was just a 5%/1% card (like Discover), they often had multiple broad categories and a single merchant.

Here are the last handful of years for the Freedom/Freedom Flex: Between the narrow categories and things that I can't organically spend the full amount on (I really don't want to get into hundreds of dollars of closed-loop gift cards or MS), the Freedom is starting to turn into "how is Chase going to be disappointing this quarter?" I get some categories have become obsolete (such as department stores) or baked in at a lesser rate to the card (drugstores and restaurants), but as someone who swore off PayPal, doesn't shop at Walmart, and spends little on gas, the last couple of years have been rough. I was really hoping the Freedom Rise rumors was that Chase was working on a Custom Cash competitor because I'd have product changed in an instant.

I have a CSP and it gets a lot of my dining spend (a lot of URs eventually go to Hyatt), but the Freedom Flex isn't exactly the 5x powerhouse for me that some make it out to be. Meanwhile, I'm often maxing out Discover's 5% quarters.

jebr

I don't know of the exact timeline when I started feeling this way, but I do agree that the Freedom 5x categories have gotten a lot worse since 2020. Maybe I've just been paying more attention to them, but they definitely feel less relevant than before. This past quarter was especially bad - I don't shop on Amazon much so 5x there is wasted, and as a renter I don't have a reason to really shop at Lowe's, so the cards literally were sock drawered for the quarter. The Amazon quarter always feels a bit weird, though, as Chase also offers a 5% back credit card for Amazon purchases if someone's an Amazon Prime member - sure, 5x UR is better than 5% back, but most people either don't know or don't care about the distinction, and if someone's a regular Amazon user they likely have Prime already and likely have at least strongly considered getting the Amazon Prime credit card already.

Meanwhile Discover seems to be getting more creative at staying relevant. The 5% mobile wallet category is lovely, and while I won't maximize the 5% restaurants for Q2 due to various SUBs I've been pursuing, it's definitely a more relevant category than Lowe's. Arguably Discover has to be more competitive by nature - they don't have a larger travel ecosystem to sell people on for higher-end cards, and thus need to be more appealing to stay top-of-wallet for people. But at this point I'm tempted to close my Freedom Unlimited and either Freedom Flex or legacy Freedom, at least at the end of the year when there's no more free $10 each month for GoPuff on each card. Chase isn't my primary ecosystem and I don't see that changing anytime soon, and based on the current categories I don't see them getting to a point where having double the cap would be useful.

txpenny

My five quarterly Chase cards will be in the sock drawer until the magical grocery quarter comes around again in 2024. I agree, the discover cards are becoming more valuable to me.

ecs0013

Yep, I've always said that when there are quarters that don't work for me, I can appreciate that maybe they're of value for someone else, but actually looking over the last few years has been kind of disappointing. As someone who has tried to cut back on Amazon some, it always seems weird how much Chase pushes it (maybe it's part of the agreement for their Amazon card?), but if I was buying a lot there, I'd just get that card. Also as a renter, Lowe's has also been a bit more useless, although I did get some little things that I needed anyway, but in the past Home Improvement was often paired with something else (like groceries). Discover doing an Amazon quarter makes a little more sense, and they typically make it also Target and Walmart.

Next quarter is going to be tough to do any damage on because my commute is about six miles and a lot of "entertainment" tickets are already purchased. I think other than a few gas charges (if I decide to split them off from Discover), it'll be sockdrawer city (and same in Q4 if it's PayPal and Walmart). There are moments where the Freedom is starting to feel like a cobranded store card.

I'm sorta in the Chase ecosystem with CFF and CSP, but I'm wondering if I should roll most of the limit from the CFF to the CSP and close it or PC the CFF to something else? CFU isn't really worth it for me and that leaves...OG Freedom or Slate?

notquiteaff

I don’t have any of the rotating category cards, but for the last two years or so I have gotten rotating 5X category bonuses on one or more of my co-branded cards. One quarter it is the Marriott Visa, then the UA or the Hyatt card. Usually on groceries and gas, but sometimes also other categories, if I recall correctly.

If I had a 5X bonus for home improvement and I didn’t need a lot of stuff in that category, I would buy gift cards for various merchants at Lowe’s and category-shift my 5X.

ecs0013

See, and those bonuses that Chase does on cobranded cards feel like a nice surprise like the 5% categories used to be...I know it's silly, but I used to enjoy the reveals and Discover has been more interesting, while Chase has me questioning why I bother (it's a tossup if I want to close it as one less account to manage/monitor and replace with something else, but it's a no-AF card that sometimes is useful so does that justify keeping it? The Amex EveryDay I have is the same way.)

As for category-shifting, I've done a bit of that, but depending on which, it can be a bit of a pain with some places acting like they reallllly don't want to sell you gift cards (some Lowe's locations and a lot of gas stations), turning it into a kind of "coupon book" card (not to mention the increased chance of breakage.)

pkerr

Went to the WEB site and there is no activation link to activate the next 3 months quarterly bonus. Same when I log in to my wife's account.

scubadu

For what its worth, it doesn't seem to be working within the app either. I hadn't activated yet, but upon reading your post decided to try it in the iPhone app and it's not working there either.

Would imagine it will get fixed soon enough.

Regards