Deal has expired, view more Chase deals by clicking here.
The Offer
Direct Link to offer (Chase login required)
Chase is offering the following special on the Freedom and Freedom Unlimited cards:
- Earn 10% cash back on up to $2,500 in total hotel purchases made through Chase Ultimate Rewards using your Chase Freedom/Freedom Unlimited card during March.
This is for 10% total, so it’s 8.5% + 1.5% on the Freedom Unlimited, and 9% + 1% on the Freedom.
The Fine Print
- Earn a total of 10% cash back on up to $2,500 in total hotel purchases made through Chase Ultimate Rewards®.
- Offer valid on purchases made March 1 – March 31, 2019.
- Bonus cash back will post to your account within a week of the transaction posting, and will appear on your monthly credit card billing statement and be available for use within 1-2 billing cycles.
- To qualify for this promotional offer, account must be open and not in default at the time of fulfillment.
- This promotional offer is non-transferable.
Our Verdict
I only have the Freedom card, and it’s showing me terms for the Freedom Unlimited which is odd. (Update: Sapphire Preferred and Reserve cardholders are seeing this offer too. Again, for some reason it’s always showing Freedom Unlimited in the terms.) They’ve run this offer twice before, though previously car rentals were included as well.
- You need to book the travel now in March in order to take advantage of this offer, but you can book out for hotel stays at later dates.
- You need to pay cash, it won’t work if you pay with your Ultimate Rewards points.
- No registration required.
- If you have Freedom and Freedom Unlimited, you should probably be able to book $2,500 with each card separately and get the bonus twice.
The fact that you need to use the Chase Ultimate Rewards booking portal is obviously a downside, but some people may find it worthwhile for 10x Ultimate Rewards points.
Hat tip to DansDeals
Beware – Chase will only offer 10x rewards for the first night of a multi-night reservation. I booked a 3 night stay for $602 and only received 10x points for $200 of “allowable” spend. You will need to book nights separately to get the offer (not mentioned anywhere in the fine print!)
+1, sounds like a scam as the critical information was not disclosed
thanks for this! I’ve been trying to figure out why I only got a bonus of 2.25x on my 4 night stay!
Yeah, I actually opened up a ticket with Chase to see what is going on. None of there disclaimers state that it is only for the first night.
Did you get this resolved successfully? Thanks.
I am also missing rewards points (only received the 10x bonus on the first night of a multi-night reservation). Did you get this resolved?
Be careful because even though the Chase portal is powered by Expedia it will not have member only deals that you can sometimes get with Expedia. These deals can often be 20% off or more. Also, Hotels.com, which I believe is owned by Expedia, will give you a free room for every 10 stays at the average price you’ve paid. And both Expedia and hotels.com have mobile only coupon codes for 5% off. Combine all this with a travel card that offers more than the Freedom, and it’s unlikely you will be saving much.
do you get multiple offers of the 10x $2500 hotel stay, if you have multiple Chase Freedom cards?
or is it just one per person
Should be $2500 per card, I’d think
thank you chuck
Is this targeted or available to all? And is registration needed?
Seems to be available to all on those cards with no registration needed. Check the link and see what happens for you.
So I presume no elite benefits from Hilton when booking through Chase portal, correct?
Correct, although sometimes hotels will still honor your elite status but that is YMMV
Might be hard to make this math work since you’re forced to book via the UR portal. Make sure to look at any hotel directly, look for things like AAA discounts or weekend deals or whatever and then compare your price- and remember to account for things like you would book the hotel on a card that earned higher rewards on travel. If you have a CSR that would get 3% back this offer is really only 7% off.
See my post on dandeals about this deal. I’m critical of Dan for not explaining where Chase’s prices are coming from (I think it’s Expedia), and not noting that you’ll give up other discounts (coupons, cashback, hotels.com gift cards, etc) by booking this way. My conclusion is that, with these trade offs, it’s not much of a deal. Dan responds by saying “[t]here’s more to this promo than meets the eye.” Does anyone know what that “more” is? Obviously, with “more” (aka some hidden trick) this could be more interesting than it initially appears to be.
You don’t really expect him to spell it out for the masses and then have this killed do you? If you used the freedom 5x categories for a while and actually looked at the earnings you’d probably figure it out.
Personally, I don’t actively do these kinds of “tricks” as I have an ethical problem with it. Between player 1 and 2 I’d net 100,000 points.
Can you give a little more hint? I’m still not quite seeing the upside here. Thanks
Something apparently isn’t coding right, but those “in the know” don’t want to kill the deal by describing it. In Jay’s case, that seems odd because he describes it as “unethical,” but whatever.
I’ve only been playing the Freedom quarterly bonus game for a year, but I haven’t noticed any unusual bonus points in my account. Chase has occasionally screwed up other bonus promotions — like one at Shoprite — but they’ve then fixed it. I’m at a loss how I can earn extra Chase points booking a hotel when the current quarterly promo is for drugstores and gas stations, but maybe there’s something in Chase’s hotel booking system that spits out extra points irrespective of that.
Another poster there suggests maybe they only claw back 1xUR for cancelled bookings, perhaps that?
Probably. Not something I recommend
Most prepaid bookings aren’t cancellable. Most cancellable bookings don’t involve any prepaying, so the cancellation isn’t visible to Chase. It would only be at hotels which somehow take a deposit and yet allow a refund on cancellation that this would be even possible.
Well, this is quite interesting… already booked a hotel with 10% CB…but getting 10% in UR is not bad… though paying with CSR and 10% CB is almost a wash
When you have both the CFU and CSR, that could be 15% UR back (for travel).
Can you take advantage of this offer by putting incidentals (hotel resort fees & taxes) on the card during the month of March or does the hotel have to be booked on this portal?
It appears to only work on what you book and pay for through the UR travel portal so that would probably be a no. I assume it means you have to choose the prepay option to book past March.
Neither of these statements make a lot of sense to me, Can you clarify?
> You need to book the travel now in March in order to take advantage of this offer, but you can book out for hotel stays at later dates.
Hunh? Do you mean, you can “book” (make a reservation) for a hotel now, and the stay in the hotel be months later? That doesn’t make much sense, as a booking typically just puts a $1 temporary authorization on a credit card (to validate it), that disappears, then you stay – and actually pay – at the hotel in July? Really?
> You need to pay cash, it won’t work if you pay with your Ultimate Rewards points.
I think you mean the stay must be booked and paid for using your credit card (as opposed to booking through the UR portal). If you “pay cash” (you know, those pieces of paper with pictures old white men on them your father stuffed in his wallet) you’re not going to get bupkiss…
“…book in March… can stay at later dates…”
“….won’t work if you pay with your Ultimate Rewards points.”
“…you’re going to get bupkis…”
Fixed it for you, Dick.;-)
Yeah, pay cash – I meant as opposed to points, but you need to put it on your credit card.