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Chase Freedom Unlimited: How to get an extra $300 back in your first year

chase freedom unlimited card image·Yahoo Personal Finance
Kendall Little
·Senior Writer, Credit Cards
Updated 5 min read

The Chase Freedom Unlimited? card is among the top-earning cash-back credit cards available today. With it, you’ll earn a baseline 1.5% cash back on every purchase you make, plus boosted rewards in bonus categories.

The Freedom Unlimited’s welcome bonus offers even more value for new cardholders throughout the first year. Here’s what to know, and how you can decide if the Chase Freedom Unlimited credit card is right for you.

Annual fee: $0

Welcome offer: Earn an extra 1.5% cash back on every purchase, up to the first $20,000 spent over your first year

Intro APR: 0% introductory APR on new purchases and balance transfers for 15 months after account opening (20.49%-29.24% variable APR after that)

Rewards:

  • 5% cash back on travel purchases through Chase Travel

  • 3% cash back on drugstore purchases

  • 3% cash back on dining (including eligible takeout and delivery)

  • 1.5% cash back on all other purchases

Benefits: Partner benefits from DoorDash, Instacart, and Lyft, plus purchase and travel protections

After opening your Chase Freedom Unlimited card, you’ll earn an extra 1.5% cash back on first-year purchases — on top of the card’s ongoing rewards. That extra 1.5% applies only to the first $20,000 you spend in the first year, and if you can max out the offer, you’ll get a total of $300 in added cash back.

In practice, that increases Freedom Unlimited’s minimum first-year rewards to 3% on every purchase, plus even more in bonus categories.

  • 5% → 6.5% cash back on Chase Travel

  • 3% → 4.5% cash back at drugstores

  • 3% → 4.5% cash back on dining

  • 1.5% → 3% cash back on all other purchases

This takes the place of the standard cash-back bonus you might be used to. Cash-back cards typically offer a one-time cash bonus for new cardholders who meet a spending threshold within a given amount of time. Instead, the Chase Freedom Unlimited welcome offer helps you spread the value throughout your first year.

But making the most of this welcome offer also requires much more spending than a usual welcome bonus. To earn the full $300 benefit, you’ll need to make at least $20,000 in purchases over the first year — about $1,667 monthly.

Before you apply, double-check your budget for the year ahead, and make sure Freedom Unlimited is a good fit for your ongoing spending habits.

The best way to maximize your Chase Freedom Unlimited welcome bonus is by using it for any purchases you make throughout the first year.

Let’s say your regular monthly spending (not including non-credit card purchases like rent/mortgage, utilities, etc.) is around $1,250. This includes $400 on groceries; $250 on dining out and delivery; $150 on gas; $50 on personal care; and another $400 on entertainment, apparel, household supplies, and other personal spending.

Note: These totals are based on the most recent consumer expenditure data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

You also have two trips planned for the next year: visiting family over the holidays and a 10-day summer vacation to Europe. You’ll only need a flight for the family visit, but will book both the flight and hotel for your summer travels. The budget for both is about $3,500 for the travel expenses, which you can book through Chase Travel.

This is what your first-year Chase Freedom Unlimited rewards would look like:

Despite the high-value potential rewards, you should always charge only what you can afford to pay back when your bill is due. If you overspend to reach a bonus and then accrue high interest on your revolving balance, you’ll quickly wipe out any cash-back rewards value.

A solid welcome bonus can help boost your first-year value, but Chase Freedom Unlimited also has a lot to offer in the long term. These are some of the reasons it’s one of our top cash-back credit card picks:

Chase Freedom Unlimited offers 3% to 5% back in bonus categories from drugstore spending and dining at restaurants to travel purchased through Chase Travel.

But you’ll probably get the most value from the flat 1.5% cash back on non-category spending. Plenty of the top flat cash-back credit cards today cap out at 1.5% on every purchase, without any additional categories. And cash-back cards with bonus categories typically offer just 1% back on non-bonus spending. Chase Freedom Unlimited cardholders benefit from both.

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While this is a cash-back credit card, you’ll earn rewards in the form of points. You can redeem these points for cash as statement credits or a direct deposit at a rate of 1 cent per point (the same as the cash-back percentages).

But as an added benefit, you can also use your points to book travel through Chase Travel. This includes booking airfare, hotels, car rentals, cruises, and more with Chase. Just like with cash redemptions, you’ll generally get 1 cent per point this way.

If you’re already a Chase cardholder, you may have some added incentive to consider the Chase Freedom Unlimited. If you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred? Card or Chase Sapphire Reserve?, you can transfer your Chase Freedom Unlimited points to the Chase Sapphire account to get more value when you redeem for travel.

Chase Sapphire Preferred Card points get a 25% boost when redeemed for travel through Chase, while Chase Sapphire Reserve points are boosted by 50%. That means you can redeem the points you earn with these cards for a value of 1.25 cents per point and 1.5 cents per point, respectively.

But that’s not all: You can also transfer Chase Sapphire card points to Chase’s airline and hotel partners. This isn’t an option for Chase Freedom cardholders. If you want to transfer your Chase Freedom Unlimited rewards to JetBlue TrueBlue, for example, or Marriott Bonvoy, you’ll have the option to by pooling them under a Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Sapphire Reserve account first.

Can’t decide on a credit card? Check out Yahoo’s best credit card picks

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