Chase Freedom 2nd Q 5% bonus activation now going on

Quote from RedPandas : Will any gift card from Amazon be regarded as an Amazon.com purchase and reap 5% with Chase? For instance, they offer AMC, Home Depot, and Gamestop gift cards. Would this be offered at 5% back? But then again, Amazon also offers their own gift cards. Couldn't one potentially stock up on them in preparation for Amazon purchases throughout the rest of the year, and reap an automatic 5% back? It'd be awesome if Chase offered 5% back on those...

Same question -- can anyone confirm or deny this? Can you go to Amazon .com, purchase an amazon gift card using your chase card, and earn 5% cashback?

I'm not talking about going through ultimate rewards and redeeming your cashback points to buy amazon gift cards.

Quote from ricksteph : Having used this card for years, I'm quite confident that you will NOT get 5% for grocery purchases at your local WalMart Supercenter or SuperTarget. This used to be one of the great loopholes in the program back when the card always paid 5% for groceries -- you could buy anything at one of the above and get 5%. But they specifically targeted that loophole for elimination a few years ago; I even remember getting a letter telling me that those two stores would not be eligible anymore.

I have a Discover Card too. Discover Card offered same 5% Cash Back for Groceries Promo. I DID NOT get 5%, Discover considered Walmart a Discount Store in 2010. I send internal message Discover, Discover just reaffirm it as Discount Store.

Quote from thetodd34 : Same question -- can anyone confirm or deny this? Can you go to Amazon .com, purchase an amazon gift card using your chase card, and earn 5% cashback? I'm not talking about going through ultimate rewards and redeeming your cashback points to buy amazon gift cards.

Someone should be able to confirm it by now. It March, anyone who purchase gift cards in January and/or February would of see it by now on their statement.

Citi Visa card and Discover look much better at this point, but I don't have any of them. I 've had Chase Freedom for a long time and once they discontinued their get 250 check for $200 worth of point, their cash back deals suck all the time. 5% at grocery and movie theaters? What a joke.

movie theaters looooooooooool

Quote from vodreaux : I have a Discover Card too. Discover Card offered same 5% Cash Back for Groceries Promo. I DID NOT get 5%, Discover considered Walmart a Discount Store in 2010. I send internal message Discover, Discover just reaffirm it as Discount Store. Someone should be able to confirm it by now. It March, anyone who purchase gift cards in January and/or February would of see it by now on their statement.

You can buy amazon.com gift cards from Amazon to get the 5%. I read this from the FAQ before they switched it to the next quarter. If someone knows how to get cached copy of the FAQ from February it would probably still have it on there.

I'm planning to get some amazon.com giftcards to max out my 5% for this quarter.

Quote from sleepybubba : Citi Visa card and Discover look much better at this point, but I don't have any of them. I 've had Chase Freedom for a long time and once they discontinued their get 250 check for $200 worth of point, their cash back deals suck all the time. 5% at grocery and movie theaters? What a joke.

...or Amex Blue Cash.

3% gas, 2% groceries/dept stores, 1% everything else.

None of this silly revolving categories or quarterly registration.

This whole having to reactivate every quarter is ridiculously stupid. How about they just do it themselves and save us all the hassle?

So freaking annoying...

Quote from Anonymous99 : This whole having to reactivate every quarter is ridiculously stupid. How about they just do it themselves and save us all the hassle? So freaking annoying...

Kind of like rebates, they hope most people will just forget, saving them a bunch of cash

Quote from vodreaux : I have a Discover Card too. Discover Card offered same 5% Cash Back for Groceries Promo. I DID NOT get 5%, Discover considered Walmart a Discount Store in 2010. I send internal message Discover, Discover just reaffirm it as Discount Store. Someone should be able to confirm it by now. It March, anyone who purchase gift cards in January and/or February would of see it by now on their statement.

How are you determining if the bonus points got calculated into your rewards points? Is there a way that Chase breaks it down by transaction to show you, or are you manually calculating it? I can only see summaries of points on my UR statements, so wasn't sure if there was a better way to look at it rather than manually calculating things.

Quote from thetodd34 : Same question -- can anyone confirm or deny this? Can you go to Amazon .com, purchase an amazon gift card using your chase card, and earn 5% cashback? I'm not talking about going through ultimate rewards and redeeming your cashback points to buy amazon gift cards.

From a thread from another site that I can't disclose here... apparently this is the FAQ from chase: "You'll earn 5% Cash Back on up to $1,500 spent From January 1 to March 31, 2012 on all purchases you make through the checkout at Amazon.com, including digital downloads, Amazon.com Gift Cards, Amazon Fresh orders and Amazon Prime subscriptions. Purchases made at Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.co.jp, Amazon.ca, or any other website operated by Amazon.com, its affiliates and subsidiaries are not eligible for 5% Cash Back"

so I think only amazon.com gift cards...

Quote from theholyangel : no...i think it is more like which register you buy at. If you buy anything at the main checkout register..you will get the 5%...but not if you buy at the register at electronics Dept. or clothing dept. It is kind of same like paying the gas at fuel pump outside vs. paying inside. One chase CSR told me that paying for gas or any purchase inside the gas station is coded as grocery and outside pump is coded as gas purchase. so i will only get 5% if i pay at pump. Do not know if this info is correct or not.

Seems to be a valid logic. Problem is, at least for the Walmarts/Targets in CA, the grocery sections do not have their own checkouts, the checkouts are all the same with everything else.

Quote from stasis : i already have $2k+ in amazon GCs LOL i wanna buy additional $1,500 just for this cashback but i dunno if I'm gonna be able to spend them on Amazon in the future...any good ideas on how to cash them out?

I'm in the same boat, just not as much money! haha, I'd like a way to cash out too, but don't think there's an easy way, short of selling them. Anyways, just an FYI, if you're in CA, amazon will start voluntarily collecting taxes come September, so not sure if that'll change you're perception of stocking on so much amazon credits.

Quote from henny : ...or Amex Blue Cash. 3% gas, 2% groceries/dept stores, 1% everything else. None of this silly revolving categories or quarterly registration.

Not sure if this applies now, but the problem with the Amex Blue Cash before was that users had to reach a predetermined spending amount before the 3/2/1% cashback kicked in, this may have changed, but that was the obstacle for the low spenders.

Quote from henny : ...or Amex Blue Cash. 3% gas, 2% groceries/dept stores, 1% everything else. None of this silly revolving categories or quarterly registration.

Bank of America's Cash Rewards card is very similar and is the best IMO... 3% gas, 2% groceries, and 1% everything else.

Quote from Hiiimgravy : hmm.. you're right... but that brings up the question as you stated, how do they differentiate? From what I was told from past experiences, it's how the merchant ID is coded, so that means they don't usually differentiate...this must be new? But then again how do they do that? When you look at a statement, it's just one lumped sum total... Very interesting..

Credit card transaction fees are negotiable, especially for behemoths like Wal-Mart and Target. And since they'll go to any lengths to save even a tenth of a cent per transaction (because that could add up to millions for them), they may have two separate "accounts" with the credit card processors.

It would be very easy for Wal-Mart to do, just send in the processing request using two different accounts. A local mom & pop ice cream shop can be using two accounts on one $300 credit card machine (although they won't be able to differentiate what "type" or merchant they are, usually determined by business tax license/resale certificate).

Wal-Mart might have just set this up recently so that it doesn't lose out on perhaps millions of dollars of purchases from users such as us who would maximize purchases given a discount. And since everybody is getting on this quarterly-changing cashback bandwagon (Discover, Amex, Chase, Citi, everyone now it seems), it makes sense for them to want to be able to qualify...at least their grocery purchases.

They probably didn't qualify in the first place because as a "discount dept store" they probably pay lower rates than traditional dept stores such as Macy's & JCP. That would make it difficult for credit card companies to pay cashback on top of.

Quote : Kind of like rebates, they hope most people will just forget, saving them a bunch of cash

Yes, but I'm "forgetting" Chase. The Freedom card is no longer competitive. Large recurring expenses like gas and groceries is where rewards really adds up all the time. Not movie theaters or excercise clubs

Quote : Not sure if this applies now, but the problem with the Amex Blue Cash before was that users had to reach a predetermined spending amount before the 3/2/1% cashback kicked in, this may have changed, but that was the obstacle for the low spenders.

There are no thresholds to cross or other hoops to jump thru. The only gotcha is that gas stations need to be "standalone" gas stations. That probably precludes Costco gas.

If there's a better card then Amex Blue Cash for regular spending habits then I haven't found it..