New Freedom Unlimited Offer: Keep It Simple With No Annual Fee & 3% Back (3X Chase Ultimate Rewards Points) on Up to $20,000 In Purchases

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Chase has introduced a new offer for the Chase Freedom Unlimited.  And depending on your spending habits, this could be a great way to earn a stack of Chase Ultimate Rewards points!

You’ll get 3% back (3X Chase Ultimate Rewards points per $1 ) on the first $20,000 in purchases during your first cardmember year!  The downside is this offer does NOT come with a sign-up bonus.  But that might not matter!

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If you max out this Chase Freedom Unlimited offer, you’d have enough Chase Ultimate Rewards points for a round-trip flight to Paris!

Earn 3X Chase Ultimate Rewards With This Freedom Unlimited Offer

The old Chase Freedom Unlimited offer came with a $150 (15,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points) sign-up bonus after spending $500 on purchases in the first 3 months of account opening.  Plus, the card earned 1.5% back on every purchase.

This new offer comes with no sign-up bonus but you’ll get 3% back on the first $20,000 in purchases for the first year.  After that, the card drops to the normal 1.5% earning rate.

Chase Ultimate Rewards points are incredibly valuable and useful.  So If you’re new to miles and points, it could be an excellent card to begin with!  It has no annual fee and the earning structure is very straightforward.

Plus, if you have either the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card, Chase Sapphire Reserve, or Ink Business Preferred Credit Card, you can combine your points to one of these cards and use them to buy travel through the Chase Ultimate Rewards Travel Portal.  Depending on which card you have, you’ll get a value of up to 1.5 cents per point towards travel, giving you a return of 4.5% (1.5 cents per point X 3 points per $1).

Or transfer your points to valuable travel partners, like Hyatt, Southwest, and United Airlines.

However, if you’ve opened 5+ cards from any bank (NOT counting Chase business cards and certain other business cards) in the past 24 months, you won’t be approved for this offer.  So this probably isn’t an option for folks who have been collecting miles & points for a while.

Is Earning 3X Chase Ultimate Rewards Points Instead of a Sign-Up Bonus a Good Deal?

If you spend more than $10,000 on your card the first year, this is a better deal for you.

For example, with the old offer, $10,000 in spending X 1.5 points per $1 = 15,000 + 15,000 point sign-up bonus = 30,000 points.  Then you’d continue to earn 1.5 points per $1 on any other purchases.

But with this deal, $10,000 in spending X 3 points per $1 = 30,000 points.  Plus, you’ll continue to earn 3 points per $1 spent for the next $10,000 spent the first year!

So if you’re a big spender, this new offer is a better deal because you’ll be earning 60,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points on your first $20,000 in purchases the first year.  With the old offer, you would have earned only 45,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points on the same amount of spending.

But for most people that is a lot of spending to put on one card.  If you can open 3 to 4 new cards in the same year that same amount of spending would easily be enough to earn multiple bonuses.  So you have to think of the opportunity cost.

Note:   This card does incur foreign transaction fees.  So it’s not a good card for overseas spending.

Other Cards to Consider

The Chase Freedom Unlimited is perhaps the best card to use for spending that you won’t earn a bonus from with other cards.  But depending on your spending habits, you might benefit more from a different Chase card.  For example:

  • Chase Freedom – 5% back (5X Chase Ultimate Rewards points) in quarterly rotating categories (like grocery stores, gas stations, Amazon purchases, etc.), up to $1,500 each quarter you activate
  • Chase Sapphire Preferred – 2X Chase Ultimate Rewards points on travel and dining
  • Chase Sapphire Reserve – 3X Chase Ultimate Rewards points on travel (excluding $300 travel credit) and dining

Some of these cards have annual fees.  But you’ll need a Chase Ultimate Rewards points earning card with an annual fee to unlock the full potential of the rewards you earn with the Chase Freedom Unlimited anyway!

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Jason Stauffer was a writer for Million Mile Secrets where he covered points, miles, credit cards, airlines, hotels and general travel. His work has appeared in The Points Guy and NextAdvisor.

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! :)

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