There’s Only One Month Left To Earn 7% Cash Back at Restaurants With the Chase Freedom Flex

Until at least June 30, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more valuable travel card than the Chase Freedom Flex℠*. For the next month, the Chase Freedom Flex will offer better rates than ever before at restaurants and hotels when you book through Chase Travel℠.

This card has perhaps the highest cash back rewards when you activate on two of the best aspects of travel: food and dining. It also has no annual fee, helping you maximize your savings.

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What makes the card’s current offer so appealing is its unbeatable cash back rates at restaurants and hotels — as long as you can book the latter through Chase Travel℠.

Freedom Flex normally offers 3% cash back at restaurants, but combined with its rotating 5% cash back (on the first $1,500 in combined purchases each quarter, then 1%) bonus categories, Freedom Flex bumps that number up to 7% cash back.

And since the card earns 5% cash back on travel already booked through Chase Travel, combined with its current 5% cash back offer for hotels, you can get 9% cash back if you’re able to book hotels through Chase.

That number doesn’t make sense — if you’re getting 3% cash back on restaurant purchases, and rewards categories typically earn 5% cash back, shouldn’t the cash back on dining be 8%?

Here’s how Chase explains its rewards rates:

• Hotels booked through Chase Travel: Earn 4% cash back on rotating rewards and 5% cash back on standard rewards categories — for a total of 9% cash back .
• Hotels booked directly: Earn 4% cash back on rotating rewards plus 1% of the card’s base rate — a total of 5% cash back .
• Restaurants: Earn 4% cash back from rotating rewards and 3% cash back from standard categories — for a total of 7% cash back .
• Amazon.com: Get 5% cash back with rotating rewards.
• Drugstores: Earn 3% cash back on standard rewards categories.
• All other purchases: Get 1% cash back.

There are some caveats, though. First, these rates won’t last long — Freedom Flex only offers 5% cash back on Amazon.com, hotels, and restaurants when activated between April and June 2024.

Second, there is a $1,500 total quarterly spending limit on rotating bonus categories. Once you reach that limit, your restaurant rewards rate drops to 3%, your Amazon.com purchases to 1%, and your hotel rewards rate drops to 5% for bookings made through Chase Travel and 1% for bookings made directly with hotel brands.

How Freedom Flex works

Chase Freedom Flex offers rotating rewards that change quarterly, or approximately every three months. The current rotating reward categories cover purchases on Amazon.com, hotels, and restaurants. Keep in mind that you must manually activate these rewards each time they change.

Luckily, you can set a reminder to let you know when to activate. If you forget, you can still activate until June 14, 2024. You can even earn retroactive rewards on any purchases you made in featured categories before activation — which gives this card an edge over the Discover it® Cash Back*.

In addition to rotating rewards, the Freedom Flex also offers some static reward categories. These categories include restaurants, drugstores, and travel booked through Chase.

How much money can you make?

Since its combined purchase limit is $1,500, you can earn a total of $75 in cash back at 5% during the quarter after activation, which drops to 1% thereafter.

But even after you’ve reached that limit, you’ll still get 5% cash back on hotels and 3% cash back at restaurants when you book through Chase, which is one of the best rates among no-annual-fee cash-back credit cards.

For example, if you spend $750 at hotels and restaurants for a total of $1,500, your Freedom Flex spending limit would be:

You can earn over $120. Remember, these are just estimates. Your spending patterns may not be equal, so your rewards may look different.

What happens after the rewards rotate?

Once the Freedom Flex’s bonus categories change on July 1, you’ll still have a strong rewards credit card for whatever purchases Chase decides to roll out next. Past categories have included things like Target, gym memberships, groceries and gas.

Boost your rewards even further with Chase Sapphire Preferred or Reserve

Chase can increase the value of your rewards by combining them with other credit cards in the Chase Ultimate Rewards lineup.

For example, you can get a higher cash back rate on the Chase Freedom Flex and then combine your rewards with the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card or the Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card.

Note that both credit cards charge an annual fee, $95 for the Preferred and $550 for the Reserve. However, both offer annual travel credits that can help ease the burden of the fee. They also have two other great benefits — a 1:1 points redemption rate for Chase’s hotel and airline partners, and a 25% and 50% points redemption bonus, respectively, on travel booked through Chase Travel.

It takes a little more work and requires an additional credit card, but if you can use the Chase Trifect strategy, you can exponentially increase the rewards you earn on your travel spending.

*All information about Chase Freedom Flex and Discover it Cash Back was collected independently by CNET and has not been verified by the issuer.

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