Chase has announced the 5% categories on the Freedom card for the third quarter of 2020, July through September:
- Amazon.com
- Whole Foods Market
It’s not yet showing on the online version of the 5% calendar, but you can find it in your Chase login.
A lot of people get 5% back on all Amazon and Whole Foods purchases with one of the Amazon credit cards (if you are also a Prime member). These 5x Ultimate Rewards will be more valuable for most people. For example, if you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve card too, you can cash these out at a 7.5% value, which is a nice little bump. Even more useful for those without the Amazon credit card.
Hat tip to XManElite
Since Amazon owns Woot.com, would that be considered being under the Amazon category?
Does pay with amazon code at 5% like discover did?
Does the Amazon 5% back work for Chase Freedom Unlimited? When I logged into my chase account, I couldn’t find anything about rewards for Amazon purchases.
No, only Freedom
If I reload my gift card balance using my Chase Freedom, would that qualify for the 5%?
Yes, reloads should work
“For example, if you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve card too, you can cash these out at a 7.5% value”
Can someone explain this one a bit to me?
lets say you spend 100 dollars on grocery, you gonna get 500 UR points, using CSR’s new “Pay Yourself Back” in a rate of 1.5 cpp, you going to get 750 UR = 7.50 dollars back to your statement.
Kinda make sense now? spend 100, get 7.5 back.
What I’m having trouble understanding is if you spend $100 at Whole Foods, you have to use your chase Freedom Card to get the 500 UR points. You then can’t use your CSR to cash out those points for 1.5. You can only cash out from purchases made on your CSR. I understand you can transfer points to CSR, but you won’t be able to cash out unless you have the applicable charge on your CSR. Please correct me if I’m wrong! Thanks.
You can use the points to cash out other purchases on the CSR. it’s still 7.5% back.
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/chase-announces-major-temporary-benefits-on-sapphire-reserve-preferred-1-5-cents-cashout-easy-travel-credit-450-renewal/
never go to whole foods…. what kind of GCs do they sell? VGC or MGC? thx
Highest value open loop gift card at nearest WF has been $200 for at least a couple of years. Used to be $500.
Going to change back to Amex gold I guess.
Almost wonder if amazon is giving chase a kickback for making amazon the category.
Of course they’re funding this. Most promotional deals like this with card providers work like this. I’m surprised the posters here don’t realize that.
And all of the recent grocery bonuses?
Are you not aware that Amazon now owns Whole Foods? So, no Amazon did not fund the recent grocery bonuses (which were mostly issued for shopping at grocery stores other than / competing with Whole Foods), but is probably funding the just-at-Whole-Foods bonuses that are coming up.
They’re not. I work in the industry and the banks fund this. They come up ahead with the people that pay interest.
The thing I shop for most at Whole Foods is take-home stuff from their self-serve salad & hot food bars. Except of course for now all of that self-serve stuff is shut down due to Covid-19, so I hardly go to Whole Foods during this Covid-19 time. What wonderful (not) timing.
Wow…. you are really limiting yourself. Whole Foods has plenty of great food apart from the self-serve salad bar and hot foods bar. Why limit yourself? Don’t you like to cook?
Whole foods is expensive.
It all depends on what you buy at Whole Foods.
I have yet found an item at whole foods that I cannot find elsewhere but at 20 to 30% CHEAPER. Granted I only look for items that I use / consume, but not the whole WF inventory. In any case, I have a couple WF GCs bought from AMEX during the AMEX MR promo and still not able to spend them unless I totally ignore the price differentials.
No, I don’t particularly like to cook, or know how to cook well (especially to get the variety I get from dining at a different type of restaurant every night; I don’t know how to cook Indian food, I don’t know how to cook Thai food, I don’t know to cook Lebanese food, , I don’t know how to cook Peruvian food, etc). For two decades, I’ve been traveling for work at least 4 days/3 nights a week, and home only 4 nights/3 days a week at most, and I like to eat at Rewards Network restaurants (earning 5 miles/$ at AS, AA, DL, or UA, on top of whatever I earn with the credit card I use), of which there are plenty near where I live and near where I travel for work. I live by myself, so cooking is less efficient because many recipes are for multiple people, but if I cooked those amounts in ,y case I’d have endless leftovers (which because I like variety I wouldn’t want to eat until at least a week later, if not longer). I had to work from home for over two months (ending recently) and it was challenge all of a sudden to try to learn how to “cook” (which was mostly using pre-made mixes, etc, which not everyone would call really “cooking”).
Also, Whole Foods here keeps discontinuing carrying items I like, while other local health food grocery stores keep carrying them. So the stuff i did use buy at Whole Foods a couple years ago (such as Follow Your Heart Lemon Herb salad dressing, such as Nature’s Path Purple Acai cereal, etc, I have to buy at other stores now. Finally, more and more of the stuff I used to have to buy at Whole Foods is showing up in mainstream grocery stores where it’s on sale more often (plus I can earn Shell fuel points if it shows up at Ralphs).
And perishable staples like milk and fresh-squeezed juice, I get those at a better price at Trader Joe’s, of which there are plenty around here.
Wow! You definitely need to learn how to cook!
I’ll probably take some lessons once I retire, but I figure I’ll need a LOT of lessons to learn how to cook single portions of food from multiple cuisines. Cooks in restaurants can do it, since in restaurants people often order single portions, but restaurant cooks go through lots of training, and typically for one cuisine. Most traditional cookbooks are pretty useless for me, since they assume you’re cooking for a group, not just for yourself, and most cookbooks don’t have the kinds of meals that I actually want.
Meanwhile, eating out but almost only at Rewards Network restaurants earns me more miles for flying “for free” overseas in business class, while cooking at home wouldn’t save me enough money to be able to afford those int’l business class tickets with cash. The only reason all of my international flights are free yet in business class is because everywhere I can spend money, I focus on how can get the most miles out of it.
Single portion is difficult to cook – you would need to cook for 2, then freeze the extra portion for a meal down the road. If you dont like to do that and always prefer freshly cook, then dont even bother to cook for single portion unless you throw away the overage, i.e. a lot of waste – both foods and money.
Why? If sdsearch likes to eat different cuisines often, why should he need to cook, when he could just rotate the restaurants every night?
For those who dont enjoy cooking, it is no point to learn how to cook when the alternative options are plentiful.
I never tell others “you need to learn how to cook” – it is a life style each person chooses. What suits you does not necessarily suits others.
Just like many vouch on WF but I am struggling to find anything reasonably priced to buy that I cannot get elsewhere, and at better quality, much fresher fishes from the Caribbeans than those sad looking ones at WF selling at 50% higher prices.
I worked at the Whole Foods Market locations across Connecticut. Although I sure drank their kool-aid and believed a lot of their message even after thinking myself a tool for doing so, I can say the Prep Foods dept (inclusive of hot and salad bars) didn’t strike me as being within their health message: Even the dept managers mused “come by our burger bar” when the in-store radio adverts said the “America’s healthiest grocery store” and just about all hot bar items using oil are of course cooked in canola oil. (Which a lot of their customer base insists is very bad.. though oils in general are.) I’d say health is indeed a major component of wealth. That being said, the vegan buffalo tofu is pretty amazing at the stores that do have them and even though mine did it as a chef’s case (as we called the cold case) item, sometimes before it cooled customers wanted it so much we’d give it to them while still hot. Which frankly I thought tasted better.
Full disclosure: Ditched that job for the brokerage side of JPMorgan Chase, mentioned in this article. 🙂
I also worked WF in CT for a few years a little while back. yes, the buffalo tofu was incredible, albeit pricey
I usually would get Amazon gift cards from Staples via my Ink Bold card and get 5% that way. Staples hasn’t been open here though for quite some time and not sure when they will reopen. My only wish had been that this had been the category last quarter instead of the upcoming one when presumably they’ll reopen. It’s something I guess.