Credit Cards are both feared and revered. When used shrewdly, though, rewards cards are a powerful piece of the Deal Method puzzle. Today we’ll break down a Chase Freedom Flex review: the best first rewards card for college-age folks and students.
Credit Cards Enhance Deals
At many moments around every transaction, money changes hands – often more exchanges are happening around you than you may recognize.
Once you’re aware of these opportunities to save and capture the value around you, you’ll begin to see hidden potential everywhere. Potential to turn average deals into amazing ones.
Banks recognize that if they incentivize you to use their cards, you’ll charge more and they’ll make more money. You might even consider charges on the card as money borrowed and pay them interest in fees. What they won’t have banked on (oh the PUNs!) is that you’ll use their cards like a ninja.
The Chase Freedom Flex Card
Incentive and Point Games
The internet has revolutionized access to the many incentives one might apply to any purchase. With more opportunities within reach, we can all get our due of the cash changing hands around us. Chase Merchant incentives offer an extra discount on a variety of purchases to sweeten the deal that much more.
Credit cards are a key piece of The Deal Method puzzle. The points they offer are refunded currency: a piece of the fees banks charge vendors to prepay for you. Those who know how to use these tools effectively can amass buckets of points and redeem them for incredible values. Or, you can cash out at 1% if you wish.
However, it’s super important that you use credit cards very carefully. With staggering interest rates, any lingering balance can undermine your progress. You can’t expect you’ll get anywhere earning 10% value if you’re paying down interest rate heaped onto your balance twice as fast.
DEAL TIP
As long as you always pay off the statement balance on each card when it’s due, you’ll get showered with Ultimate Rewards points. A bathtub of these means more travel or free stuff, capturing value all too often left on the table.
Auto debit is the easiest way to do if you have multiple cards and many deadlines to keep up with.
Chase Freedom Flex Credit Card Review
This Freedom Flex credit card is an incredibly useful card to add to your repertoire. Flex categories change quarterly, every 3 months, offering 5x points for charges in very specific, useful categories.
These flex categories are so useful because they’re often excluded from the standard benefits of other cards. If you spend money at Amazon, Warehouse stores like Sam’s or Costco, or Hardware stores like Lowe’s, Menard’s, or Home Depot, this card fills a needed void in your wallet.When you consider its 5x gas coverage during its first year, it becomes supremely useful.
This is a card most can qualify for and sign up bonus milestone anyone can reach. Its many other benefits will help you understand how it provides utility few other cards can match, however variable the flex categories may seem at first.
To use it well though, there are a few things you have to know. We’ll discuss them in depth as we go over its benefits, pros and cons, and the strategies we suggest to use this card to its full potential.
Card Benefits Rolodex
Extra 5X Grocery first year up to $6,000 (has been 5x gas in the past)
5X up to $1500 per quarter in flex categories – currently Walmart and Paypal.
3X at Restaurants and Drug Stores
5X for Chase Portal Travel
1X other
Are Flex Cards Wild Cards?
One might consider the Flex categories a wild card experience. In truth, each category covers a stable subset of offerings. There’s little wild about it.
As the flex categories below are rarely incentivized with 5x points modifiers, taking advantage of each category as they pop up affords huge point earning potential.
First, make sure to activate the quarterly category every 3 months. You can do this as early as two weeks before the quarter begins as its details are announced. If you would like Chase a reminder to activate Chase Freedom Flex categories, you can update your preferences here.
Historical Flex Categories
2023
Quarter 1
Grocery, Target, and Gym Memberships
Quarter 2
TBD
Quarter 3
TBD
Quarter 4
TBD
2022
Grocery and Ebay
Amazon, Select Streaming
Gas, Rental Cars, Entertainment
Walmart, Paypal
2021
Wholesale Clubs, Internet, Cable, Phone, Select Streaming
Gas, Home Improvement Stores
Amazon, Whole Food
Walmart, Paypal
2020
Gas, Utilities, Select Streaming
Grocery, gym memberships, select streaming
Amazon, Whole Food
Walmart, Paypal
As you can see, Q4 is ALWAYS Walmart and Paypal and the other quarters are Amazon and Gas + Select Streaming alternate. Gym Membership, Utility, Grocery, Wholesale Clubs, and Home Improvement stores are more rare offerings but they are thoughtfully chosen based on consumer trends at the time.
In other words, you can expect that the categories that pop up will align with the charges you were likely to make that quarter in some form. You might recognize Q1 2020 with select streaming as during early lockdown and Q2 Grocery with home adaptation to prolonged isolation measures. Gas, rental cars, and live entertainment costs were very useful for folks traveling more and struggling to manage high gas prices.
The take home point here is that Chase will throw you bones if you have a Flex Card, making it easier to bank on getting a good amount of the potential points earned and banked for future travel.
Chase Freedom Flex Purchase Protection and Trip Protections
This card offers Free Standard Protections against Fraud, Travel Interruption or Cancellation, Rental Car Protection, Purchase Protection, and Cell Phone Damage or Theft. That last point is truly massive ! Though it’s often touted as a benefit offered by many cards, those other cards have exorbitant annual fees between $95 and $695.
No other card without an annual fee offers this benefit while offering travel rewards! Saving you $5-20/month depending on your phone and carrier, this is the reason we suggest this as the best first card for college students.
But how can I recommend that if the goal is traveling on points while the point delivers cash back until you get a Sapphire card?
Chase Freedom Flex Cash Back
Before you have a Sapphire card, your balance will appear as dollars and cents. You can use that credit to wipe charges off of your card, but this isn’t the best use of that currency. I suggest you treat this cash back as an emergency fund if you don’t already have one and try not to use it!
UR points offer better value in most cases. However, nothing is more important to success in this game if you carry a balance – avoid this at all costs! Otherwise you might find yourself working to earn points you’ll redeem for two cents each only to pay a staggering 21 cents per dollar per year. Ouch.
Ultimate Rewards Earning Strategy
Once you have this card, the operative question becomes “how do I best use it to get the most UR points per dollar spent?”
Here are our suggested uses:
1. This is a great alternative first card, particularly for college-age folks. Particularly if you don’t yet have the credit or income to get approval for a Chase Sapphire Preferred card, you can begin to amass cash back dollars that morph into points when you get a Sapphire card. If you’re able to delay spending them, a world of affordable travel awaits.
In this case, some points are better than nothing. For those folks, though, consider an everyday spend alternative like the Chase Freedom Unlimited instead. The best first option really depends on where you spend.
2. A Dedicated Grocery Card: This is likely in anticipation of a grocery quarter upcoming in Q1 of 2023. 5X grocery everyday with probable 10X grocery in the future, is an amazing offering for families that drop fat stacks on grocery staples like mine.
OR
A Dedicated Gas Card: In the land of outrageous gas prices, this card is a welcome reprieve. 10X points for your first year (Q3 ’22) and 5X after for $6,000. Come on y’all, that’s 2legit2quit. There’s also potential to save as much as 40% off of gas retail by stacking Freedom Flex benefits with Kroger Gas Points if you frequent those for groceries.
3. A shapeshifting flex category card: shift your behavior to redirect the relevant spend to you Chase Freedom Flex category. Your approach would change quarterly. It’s critical that you set a reminder to activate the flex category or you won’t get your 5x!
4. An adjunct pharmacy, restaurant, and Chase portal travel spend card. If you got this card to get cash back you’ll later convert to UR points when you get a Chase Sapphire Preferred card, make sure to make the most of its benefits. There aren’t many deals at pharmacy stores, but if you spend there (gift cards!) and don’t have a better option, this is your Huckleberry.
5. 0% transfer payoff. Everybody’s human; we’ve all been there. If you have a balance on another card and you need the interest pain to stop, you can stash it here. A word of caution, though: don’t dig a hole you can’t escape. It’s not worth it.
Pros
Cons
- No Annual Fee
- Good Learning Card: Modest Credit Score and History requirements
- Earn A TON: high multiplier exposure at restaurants, drug stores, Portal Travel, and Flex Categories
- Cell Phone Damage/Theft Protection Included
- Points on this card never expire while account is open
- Access to Chase Merchant Incentives
- Categories must be activated quarterly
- This Mastercard can’t be used at Costco in store (see below) but does work at Costco.com
- Flex categories max out at $1500/quarter or $500/month
- 5X Gas limited to first year =(
- 3% Foreign transaction fee is charged while abroad
What is the Chase Freedom Card?
This is the predecessor to the, now rebranded, Freedom Flex Card. The benefits are the same but the original Freedom card was a Visa. It’s whimsically often called the “OG Freedom.” It’s been retired since September 2020.
it’s now available as a product change option for those that have other Chase cards with an annual fee they want to avoid going forward. This is the most commonly chosen downgrade option, and for good reason we’ll detail below.
How to Product Change
- Call Chase at 1-800-493-3319
- Tell the phone agent you want to “product change from your other Chase card to a Freedom Visa (Southwest cards only excluded option – though anecdotal reports of switch to Unlimited Freedom are out there)
- Wait for your new, functionally identical, but technically different Freedom Visa to arrive
- After waiting a month, you can now get another Freedom Flex Card, taking advantage of the first year 5X on gas and another signup bonus if it has been 24 months since you got your last sign up bonus on a freedom flex
Some accumulate multiple Freedom Flex cards over their lifetime to offset the quarterly limit they’re allowed to spend. Earning 5x points is even sweeter if you double the limit per quarter (or better). This allows them to prepay on gift cards for the entire years worth of charges and earn buckets of points.
DEAL TIP
Gift card purchases often qualify for 5x but tread lightly. You’re more likely to get the extra points when you get gift cards in store. Be also wary of activation fees on the gift cards. Paying 6% to get the card erodes the value you can get from Gift Card Ropadope.
Gift Cards are a great option to ensure you get every 5x dollar possible by prepaying for future purchases. As long as you know you’ll eventually spend the money can can cover the prepayment bill, maximum possible points and bank credit for the future.
To do this, call the Chase number on the back of your card and ask to product change to “the original Chase Freedom Visa Card”
The Hypothetical Potential
Let’s explore a couple hypotheticals to see how many points we stand to accrue from this card, when combined with a Chase Sapphire Preferred, and what they’re worth.
Let’s say you spend $6,000 on gas, $1500 of which falls within this, the 3rd quarter of 2022. With a sign-on bonus of 20,000 points, you stand to accrue 57,500 UR points worth an estimated $1150 of travel in the first year from gas alone.
Take advantage of another flex category, like Amazon, for example, and you would rack up another 7,500 points. One might rack up 30,000 points per year, per card from the flex categories alone.
I bet you get the idea here: coordinate the purchases that will lead to high point returns and you will put your rewards accrual into hyperdrive.
The Bottom Line
This card is a must-have to save on gas and ever essential flex categories. Be sure to activate the chase freedom flex bonus categories as they’re released and mind the limits to take advantage of the Chase Freedom Flex benefits!
Now that gas prices have eased somewhat, the Freedom Unlimited It’s a great second card to build UR points synergistically with a sapphire preferred card or honorable mention for a first rewards travel card if you don’t qualify for a Sapphire.
It’s astonishing to think that spending $6,000 on gas is realistic in our current climate but there are many folks facing that reality, unfortunately. If the pump price tag grinds your gears, you might as well bank points towards your next vacation while you’re paying for the gas you need, right?
Frequently Asked Questions
Not if you have high fair to good credit.
If you have a credit score of 670 or better, with more than 6 months of credit history, don’t carry a balance, and have opened less than 5 Chase cards in the last 24 months, you are likely to qualify.
No, none
Yes! This is a top three card to aim for depending on whether you qualify for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, it’s an ideal companion.
They are two iterations of the same product. The original Chase Freedom Visa offers the same benefits at the Freedom Flex, a mastercard. The legacy freedom visa is now only available by product changing another Chase card that you have.
Typically 670 or better is required. However, there are reports of fair credit scores of around 640 and length of credit history as short as 6 months approved. If your credit is new or recovering, this is a great card to get.
A sapphire card, the freedom unlimited or Ink (business unlimited or business cash) cards all work synergistically to bring home the UR point bacon. None of these cards require an annual balance other than the sapphire. Some call this the Chase Trifecta and regard it as a crucial first 3 cards to get.
There are also many other complimentary options. The Citi Custom Cash and legacy Citi Dividend cards pair well to fill out the flexible spending category. There’s little overlap between the categories.
Click the “Apply Now” button above and enter your information. You’re notified of their decision instantly.
If you’re on a swift timeline, you can call to ask that they overnight the card to you for free if you’re eager to use it.
Cards aren’t instantly issued like AMEX cards.
They’re very similar.
Both offer 5X gas for the first year and $200 or 20,000 UR points with no annual fee.
The unlimited offers a similar reward multiplier structure (5X portal travel, 3x dining, 3x pharmacy) as the flex with 1.5X for the “everything else” category. No 5X flex categories are offered, no activation is required. No Cell phone protection is offered with the unlimited.
Yes. This makes it an inconvenient card to use while abroad. You’ll pay an extra 3% premium.
This is a hard question to answer as it depends on how you spend.
Without asking you for your financial statements, I would choose the flex over the unlimited as there are better 2X everything cards out there. The Citi Double Cash, Capital One Venture, and Blue Business Plus Amex card that give double that of the freedom flex.
I opt for those instead of the unlimited. I prefer the Chase Ink Unlimited for a no annual fee option as 75,000 points are nothing to scoff over.
