Chase Freedom Flex Earning: Stack Deals For 13X Earning
The Chase Freedom Flex has been one of my favorite cards since it launched last year. It is easily one of the best no fee cards available during normal times. But right now, with a ton of stackable offer the card is in another stratosphere. You know we love the stack around here at MtM and reader Ellen bounced an idea off me that sounds about as good as it gets. It is so good that some cardholders should be able to juice their Chase Freedom Flex earnings to 13X Ultimate Rewards per dollar with the ultimate stack. Remember that the Ultimate Rewards points earned with the Flex are only transferrable with a premium card like the Chase Sapphire Preferred. Otherwise the points are worth 1 cent a piece in cash back.
Some Of These Offers May Have Changed
Stacking Chase Freedom Flex Earnings With Current Promos
We are stacking deals on top of deals on top of deals here at Miles to Memories! Let’s take a look at the details and let me know if you think it will work.
Chase Freedom Flex Welcome Offer
If you signed up for the Chase Freedom Flex in the last year, or sign up now, you can earn 5%, or 5X with a premium card, back on grocery purchases. That is capped at your first $12,000 in spend within the first 12 months of card membership. If you have all of this in place we are already racking up 5X on our grocery purchases. You earn 1X per dollar plus 4X bonus on the grocery spend.
Current Stacked Earning 5X
Chase Freedom Flex Top Spend Category
Chase recently announced an awesome promo for Freedom Flex cardholders for the 4th quarter, the top spend category promo. Here are the details for the offer:
This quarter, cardmembers who activate their Q4 bonus categories will automatically earn 5% total cash back (4% in addition to their unlimited 1% cash back) on up to $1,500 in the eligible rewards category where they spend the most through Dec. 31, 2021. This offer is separate from your quarterly bonus category offer, but automatically added to your account when you activate your Q4 bonus categories.
Eligible rewards categories include:
- travel (including transit)
- dining
- home improvement stores
- select streaming services
- select live entertainment
- gas stations
- drugstores
- fitness clubs
- grocery stores (not including Target and Walmart purchases).
Pretty cool, right? Notice the one I highlighted there. Let’s stack that grocery spend. This will give you an additional 4X earning on the next $1,500 in grocery spend in the 4th quarter. That will stack with the 4X you are already earning on your welcome offer for grocery stores plus the 1X you earn on everything. That puts us at 9X earning already…we rollin’ people. Just make sure grocery finishes with the most spend for the quarter!
Current Stacked Earning 9X
Chase Freedom Flex 4th Quarter Categories
We are already coming out strong at 9X earning on our next $1,500 in grocery spend. If you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred to turn these into transferrable Ultimate Rewards points by combining balances that is like getting 13.5% back on your spend! That is assuming a valuation of 1.5 cents per point.
But it doesn’t stop here, we still have the Freedom Flex’s 4th quarter category to play with. Here are the details of that offer (be sure you have it activated):
Starting October 1 through December 31, cardmembers can earn 5% cash back on up to $1,500 in combined purchases. The bonus categories for Chase Freedom Flex and the discontinued Chase Freedom card are as follows:
- PayPal:
- Cardmembers will automatically earn 5% cashback on eligible purchases made when checking out with PayPal at tens of millions of online businesses.
- Walmart:
- Cardmembers will automatically earn 5% cashback when shopping for gifts, groceries and more when shopping at Walmart or on Walmart.com. Purchases made using PayPal at Walmart will only earn a total of 5% cashback.
You may be thinking, wait a minute there isn’t a grocery option here. That is true, Walmart could work but it is excluded on all of the grocery bonus terms so that option is out. PayPal is what we want to focus on here. It unlocks some options with a little outside the box thinking!
There are two ideas here. You can use PayPal Key with your Chase Freedom Flex and then use that created card number to order groceries online for pick up or delivery. There are also things that code as grocery that really are not groceries out there so you can try that too. Or you could set up your Flex card in your PayPal wallet and use the PayPal “show to pay” feature if your store accepts it. I am not sure how widely available this is so let us know grocery stores where it may work below. By using PayPal Key or the show to pay option you would get an additional 4X earning for that grocery purchase.
Current Stacked Earning 13X
What About People Without A Welcome Offer Attached?
What if you product changed to a Chase Freedom Flex or already maxed out the welcome offer? Do not fret my friends, I got you! You can do something similar at CVS. The card earns 3X at pharmacies and if you use the PayPal show to pay option when paying, I know they accept it at CVS, you will earn 11X on that purchase. You get 3X for the normal pharmacy purchase, 4X for the 4th quarter PayPal option and 4X for drugstores being your top spend category.
Chase Freedom Flex Earning Stacked – Final Thoughts
There you have it, you can earn up to 13X Ultimate Rewards per dollar with your Chase Freedom Flex card if you play it right and have all of these offers available. Even if you don’t have the current welcome offer attached to your account you can earn 11X at CVS, which is pretty amazing. If you have a premium card to unlock the points, and value Ultimate Rewards at 1.5 cents each, you are earning 19.5% back at 13X and 16.5% back at 11X. That is as good as it gets folks.
If you don’t already have a Chase Freedom Flex then you are missing out on the fun. I would call up Chase and do a product change from a legacy Freedom or Freedom Unlimited card if you are not eligible for the current welcome offer because of Chase 5/24 etc.
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Just got the Flex card as this offer come out. Wondering if I was getting this bonus or not, I called Chase and found out that, no, I do not get it. A tad confused, and a bit annoyed, I called again. Talked to a second rep who dug deeper and once more, no, I do not get that “top spend category” bonus.
I do get the 5x groceries for 12 months bonus, but not the one you (and others) are writing about. Not sure if I’m just confused or I’m getting screwed over. Happy to have the 12 month grocery bonus for now, but would love to add that other bonus.
Found it very odd that neither reps were clueless to this new bonus announcement.
I wonder if it was targeted only at existing cardmembers but I didn’t see anything like that on the page. It shows it is activated when you activate the Q4 categories so maybe it will just automatically attach for you? Fingers crossed at least.
Follow me here, and see if this makes sense.
If you have a CFF and have the current 5X offer on grocery spend until at least year’s end, then does this math pan out:
* Spend $1,500 in grocery stores from 10/1 – 12/31 using the CFF card directly to get 15,000 UR points (standard 1X on grocery spend plus “regular” bonus of 4X for the new card 12-month offer plus another 5X bonus on the just-announced top category spend offer for Q4)
* Separately, spend another $1,500 in grocery stores using PayPal via the “Show to Pay” or PayPal Key options to max-out the current “regular” Q4 offer to get another 15,000 UR points
Won’t this $3,000 in focused grocery store spend in Q4 net a total of 30,000 UR points?
It would be $1,500 X 9 grocery (1X on everything 4X for Grocery bonus and 4X for for the category bonus) – so 13,500 points.
Same for the second round as well. 27K total.
If you are able to stack them you would get 13 x $1500 for 19,500 on that spend. Then you could still do $1.5K more of grocery at 5X (if you have the spend left on the welcome offer) for 7,500. Still end up at 27K total 😉
Ahhh…think I see the flaw in my original logic.
So basically, since I do still have “cap” on my original 12-month 5X offer and I’m registered for both the standard Q4 and Top Spend Q4 offers…I spend $1,500 at a grocery store using one of the PayPal methods and my stack equals:
* 1X for all spend
* 4X for 12-month grocery offer
* 4X for Q4 bonus (PayPal in my case)
* 4X for Q4 Top Spend bonus (Grocery in my case)
…for a smooth 19,500 total UR points?
Any additional grocery spend would clock it at 5X total (1X regular plus 4X for any remaining 12-month grocery offer) since that expires for me mid-January.
Did I understand the math a bit better this time? Sorry to re-hash, just want to ensure I better understand the logic for future offers and such.
Yup – that looks good to me.
You say “If you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred to turn these into transferrable Ultimate Rewards points by combining balances that is like getting 13.5% back on your spend! That is assuming a valuation of 1.5 cents per point.”
Don’t you mean to say “if you have the Chase Sapphire Reserved?”
Nope – if you use transfer partners for travel bookings you will get 1.5 cents or better on average in my experience. But you can adjust for your own valuations of course.