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Update 15 September: The new Chase Freedom Flex Credit Card has now launched (details here)
As we move into the final few months of 2020 (this year really can’t end soon enough!), Chase has revealed the 4Q 2020 category spending bonuses for the legacy Chase Freedom credit card and the credit card that’s taking its place – the fantastic Chase Freedom Flex credit card.
Chase Freedom/Freedom Flex 4Q 2020 Bonus Categories
The registration website for the quarterly bonus categories has now been updated and in the last quarter of 2020 the Chase Freedom and Freedom Flex Cards will offer 5% cashback (or 5 points/dollar) on spending in the following categories:
- PayPal
- Walmart
These bonus categories are in addition to the permanent bonus categories that the new Freedom Flex credit card offers (Travel booked through Chase, Drugstores & Dining).
Interestingly, we usually see department stores appear as a bonus category in the final quarter of the year but that category is noticeably absent this time around. Still, more and more online retailers (especially the smaller ones) appear to be offering the option for consumers to pay via PayPal so with shopping from home expected to be bigger than ever this year, perhaps the loss of the department store category won’t be too big.
It’s also worth noting that Paypal also often offers free returns when the retailer itself may not and that’s a service that’s well worth having at a time of year when a lot of the online purchases are being made for people other than the purchaser.
Bottom Line
I can’t say that I’m overly excited about the Chase Freedom & Chase Freedom Flex bonus categories for 4Q 2020 but they’re not terrible categories either. The inclusion of PayPal should mean that maximizing the points on offer won’t be too hard and it’s always great to get bonus points for shopping at Walmart.
Still, I can’t help but feel that with Chase having just released the Chase Freedom Flex card (review) and so presumably hoping for a rush of interest in its new offering, it could have been a bit more generous (or interesting) with the bonus categories it plans to offer for the last quarter of this year.
What do you think of the 4Q 2020 bonus categories for the Freedom Cards?
[…] 5% cash back (or 5 points/dollar) on up to $1,500 of spending in quarterly revolving categories. […]
I love having PayPal as a category. It converts a huge array of merchants into a 7.5% cashback scenario (using the 50% CSR bonus). So much better than just having one category, where it’s often difficult to hit the $1500 quarterly cap.
– Google Play subscriptions (e.g. can be used to pay HBO Max)
– Ebay
– Grubhub
– Starbucks app reload
– Steam
– Uber
And any other PayPal accepting online merchant