Don’t be like me and forget to activate your Chase Freedom 5% categories. I have had the Chase Freedom card for quite a while. I like it because it has no annual fees and I can pretty easily max out the 5% categories every quarter. I have it set up to receive texts to remind me to activate my quarterly categories, but when I was logging in today to see how much my payment was, I noticed that it said that my quarter 2 categories hadn’t been activated! Yikes! I could have sworn that I texted back to activate it but, I guess not!

Don’t Forget To Activate Your Chase Freedom 5% Categories

So, this is a reminder to check your online account sometimes to make sure that your quarterly activation actually goes through.

This quarter, the categories for 5% cash back (up to $1,500 in combined purchases) are grocery stores and wholesale clubs. You can max out these categories pretty easily by purchasing gift cards at the grocery stores to use later.

• For more information, please see Chase Freedom Frequently Asked Questions.
• Does not include purchases made at Walmart^®, Target^®, or other discount stores. You will still earn unlimited 1% cash back on these purchases.
• Does not include gas, fuel, wholesale club specialty service purchases such as travel, insurance, cell phone and home improvement. Check with your local wholesale clubs to see if your Chase Freedom card is accepted.
• Cash Back and Points: “Cash Back rewards†are the rewards you earn under the program. Cash Back rewards are tracked as points and each $1 in Cash Back rewards earned is equal to 100 points. A minimum of 2,000 points is needed to redeem for cash back (account statement credit or electronic deposit into an eligible checking or savings account held by a financial institution located in the United States). You can use your points to redeem for any available reward options. Options may include: cash, gift cards, travel, and products or services made available through the program or directly from third party merchants. When you use points to redeem for cash, each point is worth $0.01 (one cent), which means that 100 points equals $1. Redemption values for other reward options may be worth more or less than that.
• See Rewards Program Rules and Regulations for details.

The listed merchant(s) are in no way affiliated with Chase, nor are the listed merchant(s) considered sponsors or co-sponsors of this program. All trademarks are the property of their respective owner(s).

Bottom Line

Today was a little eye opening to me because I had been using my Chase Freedom card since April 1st at grocery stores on purpose to max out the 5x category and I was very surprised to see that when I logged on to my Chase account today, that it was not activated. How do you find is the best way to activate the categories every quarter? Do you have the app or do you get the texts? Post a comment and remember to check to make sure that you actually have activated the categories!