A Pretty Quick $57

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Freedom!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was my William Wallace impression.  Your thoughts?

The Freedom card from Chase can get you a pretty quick $57 in tax free cash.  As you may know from reading this post, this quarter’s 5% category for Chase Freedom includes grocery stores.  If that card is not your #1 go-to card, get the card out of your sock drawer and pop over to your grocery store’s gift card kiosk.  Grab three Visa or MasterCard gift cards and head to the check out.  Tell the cashier you want to put $500 on each gift card.  She may think she misheard you or that you are a crazy person.  Yeah, crazy like a fox who is about to have enough extra cash to graze on some organic, free-range chickens!  Pay for the gift cards with your Chase Freedom card.

Just like that, you have maxed out the 5% quarterly spending on your Freedom card.  The $1,500 grocery store purchase will result in 7,500 Chase Ultimate Rewards points hitting your account when your statement drops.  Those points can be redeemed for $75 cash, a statement credit on your Chase Freedom bill,  or merged into another Ultimate Rewards card tally that you may have on another card (like Sapphire or Ink cards).

See my statement below.  $75 minus the $5.95 purchase fee per gift card means I cleared $57.15 tax free.  If you want in on this hot bonus action, but don’t have a card, you still have time to get one.  Chase Freedom will also give you an additional $100 if you spend $500 in the first three months your card account is open. But how can that spend be met so quickly?!! Oh yeah, I just told you.

Click on “Chip’s Favorite Credit Card Offers” at the top right side of this website for up-to-date deals, terms, and conditions on this card. Email me if you have any questions.

Instead of walking around with a few $500 gift cards, I jumped online, registered the gift cards in my name, and used them to pay my insurance bill and pre-pay (over-pay) a utility bill.  If you do this, make sure you have enough extra cash to pay off your Chase Freedom balances in full. Otherwise, you will most likely pay more in interest than the 5% cash back, tax-free rebate.

Another Scheme…

Check out CMT reader Bob L‘s plan of attack:

The Chase Freedom card is giving 5% back at movie theaters (including Fandango) this quarter, and it’s a Visa Signature, which means you can buy “Fandango Bucks”  for 20% off.  Just click the link at the top-right (at Fandango.com) that says “Visa Signature”.   A $25 gift card will only cost $20 – more than making up for the Fandango service fee you’ll pay later when buying the ticket.

Now, one last thing:  if you click through TopCashback on your way to Fandango – you get $2.00 per “Fandango Buck Purchase” – but only $0.10 for buying movie tickets through Fandango.

You can buy $100 of Fandango gift cards per month, per Visa Signature card.  If you buy $100 worth all at once (for $80) – you get $2.00 from Topcashback.  If you buy $25 (for $20) – you get $2.00.  So: make 4 purchases each of one $25 card, get $4.00 from Freedom, get $8.00 from TopCashback.  Then, when you use those gift cards to buy movie tickets, click through TopCashback for another dime per transaction.  That’s $100 of Fandango credit for $(68-X*0.01) – more than 30% off!

Since this year is LOADED with movies everyone wants to see, buy the full $300 worth of Fandango on your Freedom over the next 3 months.  They don’t expire!

 

Here is my statement showing the activity I described:

Chase5percentStatement2015Q1

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