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Earlier this month, Chase announced a major update to their credit card offerings and the Ultimate Rewards ecosystem – a massive expansion of benefits and Ultimate Rewards earning opportunities and a new card, the Freedom Flex (replacing the old Freedom.)
The Freedom Flex is now one of the best no-fee cards available.
Freedom and Freedom Unlimited of Yore
Before the announcement of the “new” Freedom Flex there were two no-fee Freedom cards offered by Chase: the Freedom and the Freedom Unlimited.
Both of these are considered cash back cards, but when paired with the Sapphire Reserve, Sapphire Preferred, or an Ink Business card, you could instead earn Ultimate Rewards points, which are extremely valuable when transferred to travel partners.
The original Freedom card’s earning is rather simple: 5% cash back (or 5x Ultimate Rewards points) on up to $1,500 in purchases made within categories that rotate each quarter of the calendar year. Every other dollar spent earns 1% (or 1 Ultimate Rewards Point.)
The Freedom Unlimited was even simpler: 1.5% cash back (or 1.5 Ultimate Rewards Points) per dollar spent on all purchases with no limits. With these two cards, in combination with another fee-carrying Ultimate-Rewards-earning card like the Sapphire Preferred, you could easily earn at least 1.5 UR points per dollar on all spend, and usually 3-5x UR.
Now, however, Chase has updated the earning structure of both the Freedom (now Freedom Flex) and Freedom Unlimited to broaden the categories of bonused spend. Instead of simply having rotating categories, Chase is incentivizing customers to book travel through their Ultimate Rewards Portal (which is sometimes a good deal, but not always) and also adding additional multipliers for dining and drugstore spend. What’s more, most of the Freedom Flex’s perks are also being added to the Freedom Unlimited.
New Freedom Flex Perks
The new Freedom Flex comes with some new benefits in addition to the name change. These include:
- 5% (or 5x UR) on quarterly rotating categories – similar to the old Freedom
- 5%/5x on travel purchased through the Ultimate Rewards portal
- 5%/5x on grocery store purchases (for 1st year, up to $12,000)
- 3%/3x on drugstore purchases
- 3%/3x on dining
- 5%/5x on Lyft (through March 2022)
- 1%/1x on all other purchases
- Mastercard World Elite benefits such as $800 in cell phone insurance, 5% cash back at Boxed, $10 in Lyft credit with 5 rides per month, and more.
Updated Freedom Unlimited Benefits
The existing Freedom Unlimited is also getting most of the additional new benefits:
- 5%/5x on travel purchased through the Ultimate Rewards portal
- 3%/3x on drugstore purchases
- 3%/3x on dining
- 5%/5x on Lyft (through March 2022)
- 1.5%/1.5x on all other purchases
When is the Freedom Flex Available?
Chase is accepting applications for the Freedom Flex now. They are offering a welcome bonus of $200/20,000 UR after $500 in spend within 3 months, as well as 5%/5x at grocery stores for the first year (up to $12,000, not including Target® or Walmart® purchases)
What Else Should You Know?
Existing Chase Freedom cardholders will be able to product-change their cards to the Freedom Flex.
If you are under their “5/24” rule (fewer than five opened cards within the past 24 months) you can also apply for the card directly – a “new” card for a new welcome bonus. (The original Freedom is no longer be available for new applications.)
Furthermore, Chase allows you to have both a Freedom Flex and a Freedom Unlimited card open simultaneously, as well as an original Freedom, but you will not be able to have multiple Freedom Flex cards open at the same time (in the past it was possible to have multiple Freedom cards – this appears to be a new rule).
Current Freedom Unlimited cardholders will automatically get access to the new bonus spend categories without having to take any action.
Best Use of the Freedom Flex
The best use of the Freedom Flex is when pairing it with the Sapphire Reserve, Sapphire Preferred, or an Ink Business card.
Although the new category bonuses and benefit provided by the Freedom Flex are useful and welcomed, the real power of this card is through its synergy with other Chase products.
The Freedom Flex travel bonus only works when going through the Ultimate Rewards Portal – so other regular travel expenses do not count. What’s more, this card incurs Foreign Transaction Fees on all charges made outside the United States so if you were to use it at a restaurant in Italy it would tack on a 3% fee.
Therefore these cards are most powerful when partnered with a premium Chase product in order to transfer your earnings to Ultimate Rewards points and, ultimately, to travel partners.
One last point to mention here is that when you have the Sapphire Reserve, Ultimate Rewards points are redeemable for 1.5 cents per point. This means that if you earn 5x with the Freedom Flex on their rotating categories, those points are actually worth 7.5 UR points per dollar – a fantastic and unmatched return. Similarly, the 3x categories of dining and drugstore purchases would have value of 4.5 UR/$.
Final Thoughts
The fact that the Freedom Flex and Freedom Unlimited cards are offering 5x on travel (when booked through Chase) and 3x on dining and drugstores is a huge addition. The Freedom Flex has become an extremely useful card. However it is not without its limitations in terms of earnings (5x on travel only through Chase’s portal which is not always the best deal) and limited use outside of the U.S.
All told, the Freedom Flex is a fantastic addition to the Chase credit card ecosystem and offers a lot of value for a no-fee card. I will certainly be picking up this card very soon and am looking forward to earning some points this fall as travel starts to slowly become viable once again!
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Great info! Going to space these a year apart for my wife and I to get the grocery bonus for 2 years.
Great idea – 2 player mode is the best!
We were thinking it was time to switch away from our Chase Sapphire Preferred, but simply adding this would do the trick nicely. Thanks for the tip! It sounds like an excellent fit.
…assuming a US passport is ever again worth more than the paper on which it’s printed, at least. :P
For sure. Then you could get the Sapphire Reserve (product change your CSP or sign up directly if under 5/24) for more points, travel benefits, and the ability to redeem for 1.5x points/dollar through the portal. That’s assuming, as you say, that the U.S. passport becomes useful again :).
You forgot to mention that Sapphire Preferred has just increased their bonus to 80k UR. https://creditcards.chase.com/rewards-credit-cards/sapphire/preferred
I wouldn’t be surprised if Chase is planning to revamp it later, along with the CSR.
You’re right – and that’s an excellent offer for the CSP! I agree that change is likely coming (for the better) on both the Preferred and Reserve. Now if I could only get under 5/24 long enough to apply…
Brandon,
Hi from an FSO turned full-time investor. I have a bunch of friends at Embassy Islamabad right now.
Is there any reason ever to NOT upgrade from Chase Freedom to this card? Can we already call Chase to do the upgrade the Freedom Flex right now?
Hello MI! I’m sure we have lots of friends in common :). Today is actually my last day as an FSO and I am departing Embassy Islamabad in 2 hours – ready to join the RE ranks!
As for product changing to the Flex, the only advantage I am aware of for keeping the original Freedom is that you can have multiple open at the same time, whereas Chase seems to have instituted a new rule that only allows you to have one Flex. This puts a limit on your ability to maximize the quarterly 5x rotating categories. For example, my wife and I have 3 regular Freedom cards between us (2 from signups and one from a downgrade/product change) so we could earn 22,500 UR points per quarter if we max out the 5x spend – but once you have a Flex you can’t get another and the regular Freedom is no longer available for new applications (although you can still product change to it). Not a big deal if you don’t plan to maximize the 5x categories, though.
If you already have a regular Freedom card, I would recommend applying for the Flex separately if you’re under 5/24 so you get the benefit of the Welcome Bonus as well as a second card you can use for the 5x categories.
And yes, I believe you can now call to product change your regular Freedom to the Flex. We plan to do this for one of ours.
Hope that helps!
Great comment about the original freedom not being limited to 1 copy. That’s actually a pretty big advantage when combined with not being able to downgrade other cards to the original freedom anymore. I was going to ask the same question.
I think we’ll keep our regular freedoms for now and downgrade to flexes when product changing future cards.
Also that 5x on Grocery spend seems like the biggest selling point to me!
That grocery bonus is clutch!
Thanks for answering, thanks for your service, and best of luck!
Thanks very much! Happy to help.
Thanks for the great info! I haven’t opened one of these travel related cards because I’ve got a citi card that offers 2% back. That way I just get the money. Am I missing out on something here of why there’s so much excitement on the travel cards?
Cash back is great, but by not collecting miles and points and transferring them to award partners you’re leaving a lot of opportunity on the table! Check out this post for a more thorough explanation.
Have the Sapphire Reserve and Freedom Unlimited combo. Looks like I’ll be buying flights through the portal w/ the Freedom instead of Google Flights w/ Reserve. I assume the 5x points from the Freedom will still be able to transfer to Sapphire to get 1.5x as well?
Also wonder if this is to push more buyers due to low demand from covid and if it’ll remain in the future.
Yes, the 5x points from the Flex/Unlimited can transfer to the Reserve.
My assumption is the push to use their own travel portal is to drive increased commission revenue. If successful then it would most likely remain in the future.
Just realized that I wouldn’t get any of the travel insurance benefits (trip cancellation/delay, baggage, accident, etc.) from the Reserve, since it wouldn’t be purchased on that card. So to get more points would have to give up those benefits unfortunately.
Although trips bought with points are covered. So one strategy is to buy shorter trips with Flex/Unlimited card and build up points. Then use those points for longer/more extreme trips, where insurance is more likely to be used.
Since most of my spending is in the grocery store for groceries and gift cards that I use everywhere else, I will apply for a Flex card.
About the 5x grocery bonus for 1 year. I’m sure new cards get it. Do product-changed cards get it as well? That is not clear.
Can you hold multiple Flex cards if one is a new account and others are from product-changed cards? Or is it one Flex card, period.
How many cards is “too many”? I have 2 Citi Thank You cards which rebated 5% many years ago, but now only give back 1%. They have to be used once a year or Citi closes them. I have 3 Chase cards, a Freedom, a Freedom Unlimited, and the AARP card. And one from WFC which had a nice welcome bonus and rebates 1.5%. It is a juggling act to use all these cards often enough to prevent the accounts from being closed (and dinging my credit score).
One Flex, period. As I read it.
I’m not sure how many cards is too many – I currently have at least 3x as many as you do. Maybe we will have too many one day.
If a card is no longer useful, I close it or product change to something better suited to our needs. Current credit score is over 800, but the score is basically meaningless beyond getting approved for new cards. ymmv
Capital One Creditwise says the impact of closing my oldest account (a tiny revolving line at my credit union which I’ve never used and is over 30 years old) is 4 points. The cards are all newer but the lines are also larger, I’d like to know the impact of closing those but Creditwise doesn’t do that. My score is over 830 so I doubt closing any cards would hurt my ability to get others, unless my total available credit gets too high (it is just over 100K now).
I’ll max out the Freedom card during 5% grocery quarters but not during others. Chase AARP is 3% on dining and gas. Freedom Unlimited is 1.5% on everything else. The others get no usage but the Citi cards (2% on dining, else 1%) are about 40% of my available credit so I use them once a year to keep them open.
According to the Doctor of Credit there are data points which say you can have more than on Freedom Flex by product changing to the card. I would include a link to his article but I’m not sure if it would hang up this comment.
I had a reminder on my calendar to product change my Freedom to Freedom flex this week. Off to do that now. I and P2 try to stay around 5/24 at all times. Not worth a Chase slot to get the bonus for us.
Links are fine
Here’s the DoC article.
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/chase-freedom-flex-possible-to-get-more-than-one-card-via-product-change/