Update: $200 offer is down.

The old $200 cash back Chase Freedom offer went away at 10 AM this morning. It is reasonable to suspect the new offer will go down to $100 for two reasons. First, Chase has recently lowered other credit card offers like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card. Second, their own website shows a $100 cash back offer.

I am often asked what is the best credit card for every day spending. My answer is always the same, it depends. It depends on your daily spending pattern. For my everyday spend, I use a combination of cards and the Chase Freedom plays a big part. The Chase Freedom card is in my wallet because of the 5% cash back earning and transferability to Ultimate Rewards.

Current Offer Potentially Moving To Lower Signup Bonus After 10 AM

The current offer is $100 cash back after only $500 in spending during the first three months. In addition, the card offers 5% cash back on select categories during each quarter of the year.

There are different promotion bonuses for each quarter in 2012.

• January – March: Gas Stations and Amazon.com
• April – June: Grocery Stores and Movie Theaters
• July – September: Gas Stations and Restaurants
• October – December: Hotels, Airlines, Best Buy, Kohls

Earlier this year I demonstrated how the Chase Freedom cash back points can be converted to Chase Ultimate Rewards points. So if you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred card for example, you can convert the $200 cash back sign up bonus into 20,000 Ultimate Rewards points.

Bottom Line

As you can see the Chase Freedom card has some pretty good benefits. But for those who have everyday spend in the categories above, the Chase Freedom can be a perfect card to add to your point earning portfolio. For us, we are killing the Chase Freedom second quarter 5% cash back promotion since we are grounded taking care of a new family member.

If the new Chase Freedom card offer goes down to a $100 cash back offer (which is pure speculation at this point), that will only mean a loss of 10,000 Ultimate Rewards points if you wait to sign up with the new offer. While 10,000 is not an insignificant amount, since the sign up cash back bonus can get you a number of flights on the Ultimate Rewards transfer partner British Airways, I would only recommend jumping on this bonus if you were considering a Chase Freedom card already.

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