Registration is now open to activate your 5x category bonus earning with your Chase Freedom Flex℠ and Chase Freedom® cards. For the third quarter of 2022, the bonus categories are purchases made at gas stations, car rental agencies, movie theaters and select live entertainment.

Note: Merchants in the “Select Live Entertainment” category sell tickets for in-person entertainment such as major sporting events, zoos and aquariums, concerts, theatrical productions, museums, tourist attractions and exhibits, amusement parks, circuses, carnivals, bands, and entertainers. Notable exclusions include bowling alleys, horse racing tracks, casinos, and dance hall/clubs.

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 September 14, 2022
• The promotion runs from July 1, 2022 to September 30, 2022
• The promotion is valid at gas stations, car rental agencies, movie theaters and select live entertainment

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 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 three different places to activate my card for this upcoming quarter.

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 brand new Freedom Flex card. 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.

In my opinion, this quarter’s bonus categories make it hard to get too excited. On the one hand, it’ll be nice to earn bonus points while filling up my car, especially with gas prices as high as they are. On the other hand, I work from home so I have no commute and don’t really drive all that often. That’ll make it difficult to fully maximize points for the quarter. The entertainment category could be interesting, especially for people planning to go out and enjoy summer entertainment activities.

All in all, I’d rate this quarter’s categories as just average. The real winners are those who drive quite a bit, as they’ll have the biggest opportunity to earn bonus points.