Registration is now open to activate your 5x category bonus earning with your Chase Freedom® Card. For the first quarter of 2019, the bonus categories are gas stations, drug stores and tolls.

As usual, the 5x earning rate only applies to the first $1,500 in spending in those categories. If you max out your bonus category spending for the quarter, you’ll get 7,500 Chase Ultimate Rewards® points.

7,500 Chase Ultimate Rewards® points are worth $75 in cash. But you can get much more value by transferring to any of the following credit cards:

• Chase Sapphire Preferred – #1 travel card for beginners
• Chase Sapphire Reserve – great for frequent travelers
• Ink Business Preferred – highest Chase sign-up bonus for business customers

Once your points have been transferred to one of the above cards, you can amplify the value even further! If you transfer the points to Chase’s travel partners like United Airlines, Southwest or Hyatt, you can get way more value than the original $75.

7,500 points could be enough for a one-way flight to lots of great destinations!

For more information on Chase’s flexible points program, check out The Complete Guide to Chase Ultimate Rewards®.

Key Things to Remember

• You need to activate the 5x earning rate by March 14, 2019
• The promotion runs from January 1, 2019 to March 31, 2019
• The promotion is valid at gas stations, drug stores and on tolls

How to Activate

Unfortunately Chase doesn’t automatically enroll you into the bonus category earning promotion each quarter. To activate, you can go to the Chase Activation website and enter your last name, zip code and the last four digits of your Chase Freedom® Card.

Alternatively you can log into your Chase Freedom® Card account and activate from there. You can also sign-up one time to have Chase send you a reminder email each quarter. That email contains a button for easy 1-click activation.

Bottom Line

Whenever I see gas stations on the list of bonus categories I get excited. Everybody buys gas and earning 5x bonus points for every $1 spent is sensational.

This is the first time I’ve seen tolls as a category so remember to update your EZPass, I-PASS or whatever you use to fund your prepaid toll account. Consider front-loading your account to help maximize the 5x earning rate.

Finally drug stores have a lot of obvious uses where you can stock up on personal items, medication, snacks, gifts and more. With these great bonus categories, it should be pretty easy to earn the full 7,500 point bonus this quarter!