Registration is now open to activate your 5x category bonus earning with your Chase Freedom Flex℠ and Chase Freedom® cards. For the first quarter of 2023, the bonus categories are grocery stores (excluding Walmart), Target, and Fitness Clubs & Gym Memberships.

Note: Non-Target merchants operating within or on Target premises, such as fast food restaurants, beauty services, and gas stations are not included. It’s always a good idea to review the list of participating merchants to confirm any exclusions.

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 earn 7,500 Chase Ultimate Rewards® points.

While 7,500 points are worth $75 in cash, you can get way more value by transferring them to one of three Chase credit cards that allow for point transfers to travel partners. Those cards are:

• 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 open up the ability to transfer them to Chase’s travel partners like United Airlines, Southwest or Hyatt, where you can get much more in value than the original $75. For example, 7,500 points could be enough for a one-way flight to many terrific 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, 2023
• The promotion runs from January 1, 2023 to March 31, 2023
• The promotion is valid at grocery stores (excluding Walmart), Target and Fitness Clubs & Gym Memberships

How to Activate

Unfortunately Chase doesn’t automatically enroll you into the promotion each quarter. There are several ways to activate the promotion, however. One way is going to the Chase Activation website and entering your last name, zip code and the last four digits of your credit card.

Alternatively you can log into your Chase Freedom or Freedom Flex account and activate from there. Chase sprinkles links in lots of different places on their website, making it very easy to activate. In just a few minutes, I found two different places to activate my card for this upcoming quarter.

Option 1

Option 2

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

All of the above applies to both the old Freedom and new Freedom Flex cards. Remember that the Freedom Flex also offers 5% cash back on travel booked through the Chase travel portal, 3% on dining and drugstore purchases and 1% on everything else.

This year’s first quarter categories are similar to last year’s, but with a big enhancement. Grocery stores makes it’s appearance as a bonus category once again, which is great because everyone spends money on groceries. Plus, with inflation sending grocery prices higher and higher, earning 5% back provides a little silver lining. The big improvement from last year is that Target is also a category. Last year both Walmart and Target were excluded, but this year only Walmart is.

Between grocery stores and spending at Target, I’m sure many of you will be able to hit the $1,500 max. Even if you find that difficult, remember that you can buy gift cards to hundreds of other merchants at both grocery stores and Target. Those gift card purchases will count toward the 5% bonus and you can use them at any time in the future.

Happy spending!