Got approved for the Chase Freedom card...I have questions

kelley198721

My fiancé and I applied for the card in his name and we will add me as an authorized user when the card arrives in the mail. We are supposed to get a $200 cash bonus if we put $500 on the card in the first three months. We can easily do that. And we will also get a $25 cash bonus for adding an authorized user. 

And I see that starting on Monday, the bonus category for 5% cash back is gas stations. My questions are, when will we actually have access to the cash? At the end of the three months and when the bonus category ends? 

And what about the unlimited 1% cash back on everything else? When will that be available to us? 

My fiancé and I chose to apply for this card to build up his credit. Right now, we only have one credit card between us: the Capital One Platinum card. It's just a basic card, no rewards. We applied for that one last year when FI had limited credit history. And we have paid off the card every month since. 

So I am thrilled that he got instantly approved for the Chase Freedom card which will get us cash back. We want to use that cash back to go towards paying for our wedding in October, if we need it to. 

I am very happy right now. I feel like we are on the right track of learning how to use credit cards in a responsible way and being able to reap the benefits of it. 

CuriousKiddosMama

We have a discover that had cash back rewards like that. They are generally available at the end of the billing cycle. So on out statement it says your rewards are now X. We tend to save them up and buy gift cards (which you get at a discount) so the money seems to go a bit further. We also will use those for Christmas which can make for a cheap Christmas when we need it to be.

hoffse

The Chase cards are pretty good about awarding the cash back/bonus cash back quickly.  Together, H and I have like 5 or 6 Chase cards (including the Freedom card), and they all issue awards quickly.  The bonus category is currently restaurants, Overstock.com, Bed Bath & Beyond, and H&M until the end of June.  Gas stations (plus a couple other stores that haven't been announced yet) will start July 1.  The categories rotate quarterly.

Awards will be deposited into your account the day after your CC statement closes each month.  There's also a ticker where you can see how many points/cash back you should be getting for that billing cycle.  Once the billing cycle closes, the points move from pending to active (even if you haven't paid your bill yet, the awards become active the day after your billing cycle closes).  For bonus points, I think the sign up bonuses for all of these cards appeared in the second billing cycle, after we hit the spending minimums during the first billing cycle.  Like regular points, they showed up as pending until that second billing cycle closed and then they moved to active.

I've never redeemed the Freedom points for cash or gift cards, so I don't know how long that takes or how the cash is given to you (check, credit card statement, etc.).   I usually transfer the points to another account for travel rewards.  But we do love the Freedom card, and my guess is that redeeming the rewards for cash back is probably a fairly quick process.  The rotating categories can be pretty good, and the website is very user friendly.

FYI the only thing about the Chase cards I don't like is how slow they are to mail you the cards after you apply.  I've never gotten a card from them faster than a week after application.  I think it took a full 2 weeks to get the Freedom card - I actually called Chase about that one because I thought it might have gotten lost in the mail.  Nope - they just took their sweet time with it.

hoffse

EDIT: I just clicked around on my Freedom account, and it looks like redeeming for cash back is pretty fast.

You need 2,000 points (or $20.00) to redeem for cash back.  You can request a statement credit, which will lower the balance on your statement or you can have the cash direct deposited into another bank account.  It says the direct deposit may take up to 3 business days to appear.

So that's very fast/easy.

kelley198721

Sounds great! But I thought you had to have a Chase checking account in order to get the cash direct deposited? FI and I are with Suntrust and we are pretty happy with them. Not sure I want to open a Chase checking account just to get the actual cash. 

HoneyBee973

You can get statement credit or direct deposit to your bank account.  You don't need to have a Chase bank account in order to get the direct deposit. 

It says the direct deposit may take up to 3 days, but I never had to wait that long.  Usually its in the account the next day.

csuave

We usually do direct deposit to our non-Chase bank account.  If you get a statement credit I think it reduces your cashback on that statement since rewards are calculated on the statement balance. 

 I haven't found Chase to offer many discounts on gift cards.  Discover seems to be the best in that area.

If you are going to do online shopping remember to log into the Chase website first and then connect to online shopping through their site.  You will then earn extra rewards at places like Groupon, Bedbathandbeyond.com, etc.

bcarb

We usually redeem our Freedom points for gift cards for weddings, birthday etc. They come to you pretty quick, maybe about a week once you redeem them. You can also use your points through Amazon(if that is the card you have set up as payment).