Ends Soon: 5% Back (5X Chase Ultimate Rewards Points) at Gas Stations and Streaming Services

INSIDER SECRET: If you pool the Chase Ultimate Rewards points you earn with the Chase Freedom® onto a Chase Sapphire Reserve®, each point is worth 1.5 cents each toward travel booked through the Chase travel portal. So you’re effectively earning 7.5% back in travel rewards for your quarterly bonus category spending.

There’s still time to activate your Chase Freedom card for the Q3 Chase Freedom bonus categories. You’ve got until September 14, 2019, to enroll your card and earn 5% cash back (5 Chase Ultimate Rewards points per dollar) on gas station and streaming service purchases (on up to $1,500 in combined purchases). If you make the most of this deal, you can earn $75 cash back (7,500 Chase Ultimate Rewards points).

These bonus categories are available on qualifying purchases made between July 1 and September 30, 2019. The best part is that you’ll retroactively receive this 5% bonus for purchases made since July 1 — even if you’re just registering today.

Save on streaming services with this quarter’s Chase Freedom bonus categories. (Photo by Proxima Studio/Shutterstock)

Chase Freedom Bonus Categories

Chase Freedom’s quarterly bonus categories are a terrific way to earn valuable Chase Ultimate Rewards points. That’s one of the reasons MMS writers keep the Freedom card in their wallet.

This quarter, one of the bonus categories is gas stations. That’s a fantastic category, but there are some exceptions you should know about. Here’s how to tell if you’ll get that sweet 5X bonus.

1. Check Which Stores Are Eligible

While gas stations might seem like a simple category, Chase has several exclusions.

Even with these exclusions, it’s possible certain merchants will still code as a gas station. I recommend checking the Visa supplier locator website to see which merchants are categorized as gas stations. Even some merchant locations that don’t sell gas are sometimes coded as gas stations.

Just enter your location and select gas stations as the “Industry Segment.”

2. Check If Your Gas Station Earns 5X

To be safe, I recommend sticking to the list of eligible gas stations put together by Chase. You can also check your Chase account to see if it the transaction earned a 5X bonus.

Pro Tip: You can pool the points you earn with a Chase Sapphire Preferred® CardInk Business Preferred℠ Credit Card or Chase Sapphire Reserve® and transfer them to airlines and hotels. If you make the most of your spending every quarter, you can earn $300 per year (30,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points) in bonus category spending alone (four quarters X $75 per quarter).

If you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve you could pool your points on that card which are then worth 1.5 cents each toward travel booked through the Chase Travel Portal. So that extra $300 in cash back each year could be used to pay for $450 in flights, rental cars or hotels.

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