The second quarter 5% cash back categories for the Chase Freedom are now available for sign up. If you don’t activate, you will not earn 5% on purchases. This quarters categories are restaurants and Lowe’s.
You’re limited to earning a maximum of $75 cash back per quarter, meaning you’ll need to spend $1,500 to receive the maximum cash back.
You’d be a fool to use this card at Lowe’s to get 5% cash back and that’s because you can purchase gift cards to Lowe’s at a 9.6% discount by using gift card granny. It can still be a good idea to purchase other gift cards from Lowe’s though, as you cannot use Lowe’s gift cards to purchase other gift cards. Just make sure you can’t get a better deal by buying directly from gift card granny.
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Tactics for increasing your spend at these locations
Below we look at a few different tactics for reaching the $1,500 limit without spending money you wouldn’t normally spend.
Tactic One Offer To Pay For The Bill
I find restaurants one of the easiest ways to increase my spend. For this quarter whenever I go out for a meal, I’ll offer to pay for the bill on my credit card and then get everybody to pay their share in cash. If you go to a lot of restaurants like I do for business, then you might be able to use your personal card to cover the whole meal and then get reimbursed.
Tactic Two Purchase A Gift Card From Your Favorite Restaurant
You’d be surprised by how many restaurants (especially small ones) that sell gift certificates or gift cards. If you know that you go to a particular restaurant monthly and spend $250 a visit, it might be worth picking up a six month supply.
Tactic Three Purchase Gift Cards From Lowe’s
Lowe’s has a pretty big selection of gift cards:
- AMC Theaters
- AT&T GoPhone
- Aeropastle
- Amazon
- Applebees
- Barnes & Noble
- Bass Pro Shop
- Bath & Body Works
- Bed Bath & Beyond/Buy Buy Baby
- Boost Mobile
- BP
- Build-A-Bear
- Cabela’s
- Cheesecake Factory
- Chili’s
- Claire’s
- Coldstone Creamery
- Cracker Barrel
- Darden Restaurants
- Fandango
- Finish Line
- Foot Locker
- Game Stop
- Gap Inc (Gap, Banana, Old Navy, Athleta, Piperlime)
- Golfsmith
- Ihop
- iTunes
- JCPenney
- Jiffy Lube
- Jo-Ann Fabric
- Justice
- Kohl’s
- Lane Bryant
- Lowe’s
- MLB.com
- Macy’s
- Marriott
- Marshalls
- Michael’s
- Nascar Superstore
- Nike
- Nordstrom
- OfficeMax
- Olive Garden
- Outback Steakhouse
- PFChang’s
- Panera
- Petco
- Petsmart
- Pizza Hut
- Red Lobster
- Red Robin
- Regal Cinemas
- Ruby Tuesday
- Sephora
- Shell
- Southwest
- SpaFinder
- Sports Authority
- Staples
- Starbucks
- Subway
- TGIFriday
- TJMaxx
- T-Mobile Prepaid
- Tracfone
- Verizon Prepaid
- Virgin Mobile
- Xbox
Our Verdict
The key to making these cards worth whiled is to hit the limit each quarter to receive a total of $300 per year in cash back. But there is no pointing in making a whole bunch of purchases you normally wouldn’t make. If you usually don’t spend $1,500 a quarter on restaurants, don’t just spend it this quarter to hit the maximum otherwise you’ll actually be worse off. I’ll be using my Chase Freedom for business lunches and then get reimbursed by my work, I do have work cards but we’re allowed to file expense reports if we like. For 1% cash back it’s not usually worth it unless it’s a big meal, but at 5% cash back it’s definitely worth it!
Do you have any other tactics?
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/discover-second-quarter-5-cash-back-categories-available-for-sign-up-how-to-hit/The Discover it is also open to registration for their second quarter 5% categories.
Click here to find out our tactics for the discover it card and their second quarter categories.
