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1 Minute Gets You 5X Points (or 5% Cash Back) at Restaurants & Lowe’s

  • Million Mile Secrets

    • Signing up for credit cards through partner links earns us a commission. Terms apply to the offers listed on this page. Here’s our full advertising policy: How we make money.

    Update:   One or more card offers in this post are no longer available.  Check our Hot Deals for the latest offers. 

    It’s time to activate your 5X Ultimate Rewards points (5% cash back) Chase Freedom category bonus for April to June 2014.

    Activating takes less than a minute.

    You can activate any time between March 15, 2014 and June 14, 2014 and still get the 5X bonus points.  

    Between April 1, 2014 and June 30, 2014, the bonus categories are restaurants and Lowe’s home improvement stores.  You’ll earn the bonus for up to $1,500 in purchases, for a maximum of 7,500 Chase Ultimate Rewards points or $75 cash back.

    What’s the Chase Freedom Card?

    Link:   Chase Freedom

    Link:   Activate the Chase Freedom 5X Categories

    Emily and I love the Chase Freedom card because it’s really easy to earn 5 times the number of Ultimate Rewards points (up to $1,500 or 7,500 points a quarter) for purchases we would make anyway.

    The 5X bonus categories change every quarter, but if you spend $6,000 a year ($1,500 X 4 quarters) you’ll get 30,000 Ultimate Rewards points.

    The Chase Freedom is a fee-free card, so it’s a good card to keep for a long time.  This can increase the average age of your credit card accounts and improve your credit score.

    Keeping Fee-Free Cards Long Term Can Improve Your Credit Score

    You can redeem the points earned for cash back, or transfer points to the Chase Sapphire Preferred, (no longer offered) Chase Ink Bold, or Chase Ink Plus.  From there, you can transfer points to airlines and hotels like United, Southwest, Hyatt, and IHG.

    You Can Transfer Ultimate Rewards Points to Fly United Airlines

    How to Make the Most of the Bonus

    Link:   My Chase Freedom 2014 Category Bonus Review

    We enjoy going out for dinner, so we’ll put all our restaurant spending this quarter on the Chase Freedom card.

    We’ll Use Our Chase Freedom Card When We Go Out to Eat

    Double Dip!

    Don’t forget to register your Chase Freedom card with your favorite Rewards Network dining program to earn even more miles and points when you eat at participating restaurants!

    Combine the Chase Freedom Restaurant Bonus With Rewards Network Dining for More Points

    And some folks have reported using the Chase Ultimate Rewards shopping portal to earn extra points at Lowe’s for online purchases.

    Bottom Line

    You can earn 30,000 Ultimate Rewards points a year when you max out the Chase Freedom bonus categories each quarter.  But don’t forget to active your bonus categories!

    Editorial Note: We're the Million Mile Secrets team. And we're proud of our content, opinions and analysis, and of our reader's comments. These haven’t been reviewed, approved or endorsed by any of the airlines, hotels, or credit card issuers which we often write about. And that’s just how we like it! :)