An r/churning user took part in a survey about the Freedom card as part of the Chase Insight Community. The survey indicated Chase is looking at adding a 5% category for recurring payments (phone bill, Netflix, etc.) or for digital wallet payments (Android Pay, Samsung Pay, etc).
And @vinhtantran got another category consideration in the survey: digital payments; apparently, any online or app purchase (similar to Citi ATT).
Most likely, these categories would also be capped, perhaps at $1,500 per quarter, but clearly it would be an additional benefit beyond the current rotating 5% categories.
The idea here makes sense since rotating categories are too confusing to track for most ‘normal’ people, and 1x UR everywhere is subpar in the current world where there are 1.5x or 2%+ cards everywhere. With the additional of a consistent 5x category on recurring payments or mobile wallet payments, the card is more likely to be the go-to card for a lot of people. And hobbyists will, of course, rotate out the cards to get the best deal on these categories.
This is just a survey, but that’s always the first step. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s an intentional leak to see people’s responses.
Also interesting is that the 5% mobile wallet category comes on the heels of the impending US Bank Altitude card which offers 3x on mobile wallet payments. Chase might be feeling the heat on that front. Or it could be that some mobile wallets are offering favorable rates to increase usage.
I really hope this comes true. Right now I have my FU setup for recurring purchases, so I’m get only getting 1.5 UR points on those. The 5X points on Apple Pay would make me use that way more as well. So these changes would be useful to me, even with a cap.
Hopefully this becomes true, now that I’m getting a second Freedom ( downgraded my CFU to CF, as it makes more sense to me to max the 5X categories ).
If I not mistake, the US Bank Cash+ had recurring charges in the past, but, they remove it. Anyway, it’s an interesting option. I just think they should raise the cap as this US$ 1500.00 it’s never enough and of course, recurring and rotation don’t match so well.
It’s a smart move on the banks part. Most folks will make the change, and once enrolled in autopay, will forget about it. So they lose money for a quarter or two, and then make easy transaction fees for the life of the card.
Depends if the new items replace or are an alternative to existing calendar quarterly rewards. IF additional, I could consider it for the utility, services (Netflix, Hulu) recurring payments. Otherwise, it would depend on the featured category.
As listed in the survey, recurring payments would be only slightly advantage over another card that now gets that business from me.
Payment wallets are gaining payment traction, but are not something that I am comfortable doing.
Perhaps a new feature of Freedom Unlimited could be the next step.
Freedom unlimited for me would be more interesting at 1.75x or 2x, 1.5x is just a little bit too low. I still use it from time to time if I have no alternate card. But that’s only when I’ve run my Discover Miles card up too high (I put small business purchases on it). Or when my personal expenses don’t match a category on my other cards, but they almost always do (gas, groceries, travel, etc).
You gotta remember that the CSR changes the Freedom Unlimited from 1.5% cashback into 2.25% travel credit. Upping the Unlimited to 1.75% would cause it to match the BankAmericard Travel Rewards’ maximum cashback of 2.625%, except instead of needing to hold $100,000 in assets with the bank, you just have to have a CSR. And a jump to 2% means it could be used as 3% travel rewards card. A market leader doesn’t have any reason to undercut their competition, especially by that much.
I think with the recent prime rate increases, it wouldn’t be a big blow to their bookkeeping to see the Unlimited jacked up to 1.67%, which could be turned into 2.5% with the CSR. But there isn’t really a good way to advertise a 5/3rds % cashback card, so I don’t expect that to happen any time soon.
Yikes! I really hope my rent payment could be recurring.
like someone said, this doesnt matter when you have a 1500 cap. i guess u have more options which is nice and u could have many freedoms…
For me the issue is the cap. These categories bonuses are great ideas, but if the cap is $1,500 a quarter it isn’t going to change my behavior. If it were an annual 50k limit or something like they do on the ink cards, then I could see just putting everything on this card and not thinking about it beyond that.
Doesn’t look promising though
Why not?
This could be YUGE!
Five percent is the best percent. We looked at all the numbers, all the best numbers, and find out that there are a lot of numbers. America has the best numbers, even if Russia and China are trying to cyber-count our numbers. The people who count our numbers are the best, they are tremendous number counters. They count new numbers all the time. Hillary Clinton wouldn’t even know that some of these numbers are as yuuge as they are. Five is the best of all these great numbers.
Oh man 5% back on all my thrift store shopping would be insane.