Steve in Olympia

Restaurants, Hotels, Amazon Whole Foods.

Steve in Olympia

A new post on chase.com indicates that amazon.com purchases will qualify for the Q2 2024 5% bonus.

https://www.chase.com/personal/credi...om/freedomfive

With hotels, restaurants, and amazon, this may be the easiest quarter ever. Even the complainers won’t be able to complain!

mia

The link suggests that the bonus is for Amazon.com instead of Whole Foods Markets?

cjw2001

For the Freedom Flex, the restaurant 5% is stackable with the normal restaurant 3% giving a total of 7% back (you only get the base point once).

wripro

Will foreign hotels and restaurants count?

Steve in Olympia

If you are willing to pay the foreign transaction fee….

Steve in Olympia

Activation for Q2 is now live on the Chase website. Whole Foods is not mentioned, but Amazon is.

Upcoming quarter

Earn 5% cash back on up to $1,500 in combined purchases

• Amazon.com
• Hotels
• Restaurants

Apr 01 - Jun 30, 2024
Activate by Jun 14, 2024
Activate Now

cjw2001

Interesting as Whole Foods was shown on the page yesterday but they pulled the reference today.

rny321

From Chase Media Center:

Amazon.com4: Transforming everyday moments into cherished memories just got even more rewarding. Both Chase Freedom and Freedom Flex cardmembers earn 5% cash back when shopping for daily essentials or other hot items, not only at Amazon.com but also for purchases made at Whole Foods Market. With every package that arrives, feel the excitement of transforming that online wish list into a reality – all while enjoying the benefits of “cashbacking”.


4.The Amazon.com category includes purchases made at Amazon.com (including digital downloads, Amazon.com Gift Cards, Amazon Fresh orders, Amazon Prime subscriptions, and items sold by third-party merchants through Amazon.com’s marketplace) and Whole Foods Market (including physical Whole Foods Market and Whole Foods Market 365 stores, and the website accessible at www.wholefoodsmarket.com). The Amazon.com category does not include (i) purchases from merchants using Amazon Pay, (ii) purchases made at international Amazon retail sites (including but not limited to Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, or Amazon.co.jp), or any other website operated by Amazon, (iii) purchases made at international Whole Foods Market sites, (iv) purchases of Whole Foods Market or Whole Foods Market 365 products or services through third-party sites such as Eventbrite, Instacart, Google Express and Shipt, (v) online purchases of Whole Foods Market or Whole Foods Market 365 gift cards (including through buyatab.com), event tickets or classes, (vi) purchases from certain third-party vendors operating at Whole Foods Market sites, (vii) purchases of massage services at any Whole Foods Market site, or (viii) purchases from Spa@Ink, in each case in Amazon’s sole discretion.


Chase Media Center

M60_to_LGA

I just activated today. Tried to do it when I pulled money out of the ATM this morning, but the machine errored out on me (also didn't give me the cash). Got the money from the teller window and called in to activate the promo.

Q2 is really going to be a good quarter for me. Pretty much everything I buy is going to be 5% back. Restaurants and hotels from Chase, plus supermarkets because I just got the Freedom Flex and it gives me that for the entirety of my first year. Citi's giving me 5% on supermarkets and drugstores as well. And 5% back from Discover on public transport and home improvement stores.

About the only things I'm missing are flights and tchotchke shops. Oh well.

econ

They’ll complain that the bonus was diminished this quarter since the baseline for hotel/restaurant earning was already at least 3x with their CSP/CSR/hotel co-brand cards.

rny321

From Chase Media Center:

Freedom Flex® cardmembers get a special opportunity to stack with always-on cash back categories, earning 9%, 7%, and 5% across activated categories

WILMINGTON, Del., March 15, 2024 — Today, Chase Freedom® announced its rotating quarterly categories for Q2, where Freedom and Freedom Flex cardmembers can take advantage of exciting new cash back rewards. This quarter is particularly rich for Freedom Flex cardmembers who can stack quarterly cash back with always-on cash back to earn 9% total cash back on hotel stays booked through Chase Travel and 7% total cash back on restaurants1, plus 5% cash back on Amazon.com purchases. Chase Freedom cardmembers can earn 5% cash back on these three categories this quarter.

Chase Media Center

frappant

Amazon, restaurants and hotels booked directly from April 1 to June 30, 2024.

Just got the email.

OK, so hotels booked directly means hotels.com, booking.com Expedia, etc won't count but if you book through some well-known international chain's site, it counts?

Not booking through the Chase UR portal but directly with the hotels?

What about smaller hotels in other countries, which put up their own websites but seem to outsource their booking to some regional third-party providers, most of which you use once or twice but there seems to be a lot for hotels which aren't chain hotels in Europe.

Will that be considered booking directly or through a third-party?

The other factor is, you're often booking in a foreign currency so the 5X UR points is probably more than offset by the FX fees.

Same with restaurants in other countries, you're better off using no FX cards but some of them still offer 2X or 3X points.

Visconti

Great! Amazon is my favorite 5% category with restaurants/gas probably second.

mia

Correct

Source: https://www.chase.com/personal/credi...five-learnmore

As a practical matter, Chase will only see the credit card transaction. It probably does not matter how you make a reservation, provided that you pay at the hotel, and that the hotel's merchant account is classified as lodging.