Earn 5x at Restaurants with Chase Freedom

I've written about the Chase Freedom card a number of times but you can read the most recent posts here and here.  Freedom is one of the best "fee free" cards on the market.  While the card is marketed as a cash back card, if you have another Ultimate Rewards earning card (such as an Ink business card or a Chase Sapphire Preferred card) you can transfer the cash back points earned to your Ultimate Rewards earning card.  You can then use those points to transfer to a variety of travel partners (British Airways, United Airlines, Hyatt, etc..) which provide far more value then simply redeeming for cash back.

Chase Freedom provides a quarterly bonus where you can earn 5x cash back (and ultimately 5x Ultimate Rewards) on up to $1,500 in spend per quarter.  During Q2, the bonus categories were warehouse clubs (i.e. Costco) and grocery stores.  While the quarter isn't over, it's looking like we'll max at least one of our Freedom cards to earn the full 7,500 Ultimate Rewards points.

Registration/activation is open for Q3 which offers 5x at restaurants.  We had the same category in Q2 of 2015 and had no trouble maxing one of our cards during the quarter.  Chase has also kept warehouse clubs on for Q3 likely due to the Costco migration away from American Express.

Chase has announced that the Q4 category will be "holiday shopping" which likely means Amazon.  Last year, Chase offered 10x at Amazon instead of the normal 5x throughout the holidays.  I'm hoping they do the same this year as that is a phenomenal opportunity to earn 10x while shopping for holiday gifts!