Why My Freedom & Its 5X Grocery Bonus Is In The Sock Drawer
Huh? Did he just say he is putting a card in the sock drawer that earns 5X on grocery? Why would he do that? I get it, it sounds crazy to push a card with 5X earning to the side. But sometimes, when time dictates it, you need to take a less rewarding offers in order to get the best overall return. Currently there are a ton of grocery offers available and the Freedom card’s 5X earning has the longest shelf life so it gets pushed to the bottom of the pile. I think that is something we lose sight of at times, always taking the best earning rate isn’t always the best decision.
The 5X offer on my Freedom card is from their new welcome offer that gives you 5X back on groceries on your first $12,000 in spend for the first 12 months.
Current Grocery Offers I Am Focusing On
There are so many offers that I will be swimming in points when it is all said and done. I touched on some of them in my article about burning my Chase empire to the ground.
Sapphire Reserve & Sapphire Preferred
Chase launched grocery offers on their Sapphire cards that started November 1st. Each month you can earn 3X on your Sapphire Reserve and 2X on your Sapphire Preferred on up to $1,000 in grocery spend. This runs until April of 2021. That is 30,000 points up for grabs when it is all said and done since my wife has both cards currently. Yes, it is possible to carry both at one time!
Even though these are much less rewarding than 5X I will be sure to max both out each and every month.
Amex Gold Card
The Amex Gold card earns 4X on US grocery spend up $25,000 each calendar year. It also currently has an increased offer right now.
I want to focus on people that already have the card though. Even though 4X is less than 5X I am going to slide this card ahead of the Freedom card for the time being. That is because I haven’t hit my $25K cap for the year after upgrading this past summer. This is a resource that will be depleted on December 31st,, whether I max it out or not. Because of that I put its urgency ahead of a card that earns more but goes until September of 2021.
If you have 4X space left on your Gold card and have a Freedom card be sure to focus on your Gold card until the end of the year.
Chase Co-brand Cards
Chase also launched grocery offers on pretty much all of their co-brand cards. I don’t care about less rewarding cards like the IHG Premier, since their points are not worth much. But, I will focus on my wife’s World of Hyatt card. The card will earn 3 points per dollar on grocery charges, plus it counts towards her $15,000 in spend needed for the $15K free night certificate. You get this each cardmember year when you spend at least $15,000.
When combining both things it is like earning 4X per dollar. I will use this until I hit her $15K cap, she is a few thousand dollars short, and then I will put it off to the side. While it is still valuable at 3X I would rather max out the Sapphire Reserve and Gold card once we hit the $15K mark.
Final Thoughts
We usually like to go with the card that brings us the best return. More points per dollar means more free travel after all. But, sometimes we need to consider other factors besides just earning rate. Limited time offers should be maxed out first. That is of course assuming you can cover all of the spend.
That is the other key point I want to make. If you were already going to struggle to hit the $12,000 in spend required for the Freedom, or any other, card(s) then stick with that. Only jump on limited time offers if you know your spend will exceed that amount in the allotted time frame. I know that I can easily hit that $12K cap, I have already spent a big chunk of it, so I will focus on more pressing things first. Following this game plan will allow me to get more points overall. Nothing is worse than running out of bonus spend options knowing that you could still have some to work with had you played the timeline right.
Are you putting away some more valuable cards in the short term to take advantage of some of these time sensitive deals? Is that something you normally do or do you try to max out the most valuable offers first and work your way down? Let me know in the comments.
 Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is the old king of travel rewards cards. Right now
bonus_miles_full
Learn more about this card and its features!
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Not to mention that AMEX is also giving offers of extra Membership Reward Points for spend.
I got Spend $6,500+, get 2,000 Membership Rewards® points, up to 3 times on the Blue Business Plus
Those are some to think about for sure as well as the referral bonuses with 3X earning if you got them.
Oh….didn’t know there was a maximum spend for groceries. Now makes complete sense.
Yup – I wish it was uncapped though 🙂
I assume you will max out these other bonus spend opportunities (at grocery stores) via MS-ing gift cards? I have several of the other cards you mentioned in the article (Sapphire Preferred, WOH Visa, Freedom Unlimited) and given our normal spending pattern I am struggling to see how I even meet the 5X / $12k offer on my Freedom Unlimited. FYI…I’ve only had my FU for a few months now.
Can you please clue me in a bit?
Yeah mostly buying and selling Best Buy gift cards. If you focus on picking up gift cards for other stores from the grocery store even it should help out a ton. All of your Home Depot, Amazon, Target, Gas, McDonald’s etc. purchases could be run through your grocery bonus by buying gift cards first. And if you have a store with a fuel program it is icing on the cake.
Are you then spending the BB GCs or I assume you have a method of either selling or liquidating them?
Some are used for merchandise purchases and others are resold directly.
Great info Mark! I’ve been curious since seeing another one of your FB posts: where/how does one resell BB gift cards without losing money on the transaction (like via Raise, for instance)? This is new territory for me. Thanks!
A lot of people work with The Card Bay. I have never personally used them but I know others that have without an issue. They will often have Best Buy for high 90’s pay out. When you pair that with promos, fuel points etc. and credit card rewards you come out ahead.
Do you max it out with gift cards at the supermarket?
Yes – mostly 3rd party gift cards.
How does your Chase Freedom card earn 5X on groceries in Q4? Just curious, since Q4 bonus categories are Walmart and Paypal. Thx.
It is from the welcome offer on new accounts. 5X for 12 month on up to $12K in spend
I am baffled about why you use sapphire cards 2-3x for up to $1000 over freedom which would give you 5x for that identical spend. You’re getting 5000 points with your sapphire cards each month. But for same spend, you’d get 10,000 points. So I might be missing something…I see zero benefit to maxing out your sapphire benefits. Please explain. Thx!!!
It says in the article, because of the time frame. I have 12 months to hit the Freedom bonus. If I focused solely on that I would miss out on the 3X and 2X bonus opportunities. I will have no issue hitting the Freedom bonus but if I focus on that in a few months I will have less bonus options available to me.
Now if you will struggle to hit all of those goals then focus on the most beneficial option. But if you can hit the spend it is better to max out options that have shorter time frames first.