The Freedom card from Chase will include Wholesale Clubs in their 5% rotating categories until the end of 2016.
The current quarter (Q2 2016) includes grocery stores and wholesale clubs, the next quarter (Q3 2016) will be restaurants and more, and the last quarter of 2016 will be holiday shopping.
Chase is now saying that they’ll be extending the Wholesale Clubs category for the rest of the year due to the upcoming change that Costco will be accepting Visa cards starting June 20.
With the Costco credit card acceptance changing to Visa on June 20, including those issued by Chase, Chase Freedom is announcing that it will continue to offer the 5% cash back category of Wholesale Clubs through the end of the year. Chase Freedom cardholders earn 5% cash back each quarter on up to $1,500 in combined purchases from Wholesale Clubs, including Costco®, BJ’s® and Sam’s Club®, and other additional rotating quarterly categories.
Wholesale Clubs will just be added to the list of options which get 5x in the last half of 2016. In the third quarter, you’ll get 5x on up to $1500 in restaurants and Wholesale Clubs combined. In the fourth quarter, you’ll get 5x on up to $1500 in holiday shopping and Wholesale Clubs combined. Presumably, the same limitations noted in the current quarter will apply for the rest of the year: “Does not include gas, fuel, wholesale club specialty service purchases such as travel, insurance, cell phone and home improvement.”
We haven’t yet found a direct link for this offer or an official press release from Chase, but the offer should show on the Chase website when they start activation for Q3 2016, which begins tomorrow, June 15.
Final Thoughts
Interesting that Chase mentions Costco in particular, seems they want to get people in the habit of using their Freedom card at Costco, with the hopes that they’ll continue doing so going forward.
Really a nice addition here from Chase. Many people love using up their quarterly categories by purchasing Costco Cash cards, for example, and using those for purchases the rest of the year. Will be interesting to see if they continue it further into 2017, but most like not.
Hat tip to Viewfromthewing and Credit.com and r/churning
Related Post: BofA Cash Rewards Increases Category Limit to $2500 & Adds Wholesale Clubs [Up to 3.5% at Costco, BJ’s, Sam’s]
I used my chase freedom two weeks ago at costco.com to buy their $100 gift card which I use at their gas station which doesn’t accept Visa cc and I got 500 UR points. I used to use my Amex business gold at costco to buy gas. However to my surprise i didn’t get 3x points because costco gas is not categorized as a gas station. So I don’t know if Chase could distinguish a purchase at costco store vs gostco gas. But I will buy their $100 gift card to buy gas.
Third quarter signup for Chase Freedom Ultimate Rewards is not active
Restaurants and Wholesale clubs
https://creditcards.chase.com/freedom/activate
Typo edit requested
NOW ACTIVE
do online purchases count?
Yes. I got 5k ur points for buying a $1k cash card online with chase freedom visa.
Yes
What can be bought at Costco for churning?
I’m curious about this as well, but for BJ’s since I took advantage of their Amex offer recently. There’s not a lot of data points on reselling from wholesale clubs that I can find.
Their cash cards
Does anyone know if Meijers counts as Wholesale store? (Michigan based chain)
I’m guessing it’s specially coded to include only Costco, Sam’s, and BJ’s, but I can’t say anything for sure.
Interestingly, it looks like Meijer coded as a grocery store for recent purchases I made, which I wasn’t expecting since I figured it would get lumped in with Walmart and Target as excluded (even though it was explicitly mentioned as they were).
Thanks for the info. So it will work this quarter due to the grocery category, but it won’t work in Q3 or Q4.
Dang it, missed a typo–that should have read “it WASN’T explicitly mentioned” (sorry).
Meijer definitely codes grocery for both Amex and Visa
Will this extension apply to Costco gas as well?
I assume it will include the same gas exclusion. Let me add that point.
But can’t you just buy Costco Cash cards in-store and use those for gas?
I do this all the time. Yes you can use Costco cash cards for gas
My question is if they’re extended in this category till the end of year would it also count towards the $1500 bonus categories in the next quarter (like restaurants) or is it still the $1500 wholesale category?
My understanding is that the $1500 will include both Wholesale and Restaurants, so it’s $1500 combined from the two, not $1500 of each.
So you’d recommend to buy Costco cash cards still be the end of June so it doesn’t overlap’s with next months bonus catagories?
Yes, you can buy up to $1500 in Costco Cash before the end of June, then another $1500 during Q3, then another $1500 during Q4.
Love how JPM Chase is saying “Thanks and Fuck You Citi”… (Citi Execs crying themselves to sleep…)
That’s great! Any idea how often chase will approve a product change for the same card? My sister PC her sapphire to a FU about a month ago
Hmm, not sure if they make you wait a year or not.
I’ll ask my sister to SM them. I know with capitalone it’s 6 months.