Chase Freedom Rewards Card Review

You’ve probably seen numerous promotions about the latest card from Chase, the Chase Freedom Rewards card, and the recently expired $250 promotional bonus for signing up for the card; but if you are like me, you never really took a look at the merits of the card to see if it was worth applying for. From a superficial glance, I would say it looks like a solid grocery and gas station card as it offers 3% cash back from those purchases and 1% from everything else. In addition to those mainstay options, you can also get 3% back from quick-service restaurants (I think that’s lingo for fast food).

3% on grocery store purchases is only a single percent better than my current Citi Platinum Dividend card (currently shelved as I’m taking advantage of a 12 month 0% balance transfer option) and still 2% less than my Citi mtvU card (Citi mtvU review) for all restaurants (not just quick service), so this card doesn’t look like a winner for me.

Now, the main gimmick of his card is that you can convert dollars to points to whatever else but that’s not something that appeals me. I only want cash back, you can keep the rewards and the airline tickets, I want greenbacks. In fact, the only reason why I’m using the Citi mtvU card and the Thank You Network is because I can use it to pay off student loans.

The one good thing I do see is that if you save up $200 in cashback, you can get $250 back, making it slightly better if you’re willing to hold off on cutting the checks. One almost cool thing is that they’re offering a 6 month 0% balance transfer but it comes with a 3% fee which makes it bad for arbitrage and not great for actually transferring balances (if you need one, go with a longer period or at least a fee cap card otherwise that 3% can be brutal). As with any card I’d ever consider (except a business card), this one has no annual fee.