Maximize Q2 2014 Chase Freedom 5% Categories: Restaurants and Gift Cards at Lowe’s
The Chase Freedom® card has quarterly rotating categories that offer a bonus of 5 Chase Ultimate Rewards points per dollar up to $1500. That’s 7500 points if you maximize the promotion quarterly, or 30,000 points a year. This quarter, the categories are:
- Restaurants.
- Lowe’s Home Improvement Stores.
Chase Ultimate Rewards points are redeemable for cash back at 1 cent each (so 5 point per dollar = 5% cash back). Additionally, if you have one the premium Ultimate Reward cards like the Chase Ink Bold® Business Charge Card or Chase Sapphire Preferred®, you can transfer them to airline and hotel partners like United Airlines Mileage Plus, Hyatt Gold Passport, British Airways Executive Club, Southwest Rapid Rewards, among others.
The new quarter started on April 1 and runs until June 30. You do have to activate the bonus categories every quarter. Activation is already available by going here.
While I know many people have no problem spending $1500 at restaurants over the next 3 months (especially those of us living in New York where there is no shortage of fine culinary establishments!), you can actually just buy gift cards to other merchants at Lowe’s.
Lowe’s has a ridiculous number of merchants it covers with gift cards, including Amazon, Sephora, Macy’s, Starbucks, OfficeMax, OfficeDepot, Staples, Sports Authority, to name a few. Unlike with Staples, you cannot order these online, unfortunately. Here is the list of gift cards you can find at Lowe’s. (Dan at DansDeals.com published the following list that I have included here for everyone’s convenience.)
- AMC Theaters
- AT&T GoPhone
- Aeropastle
- Amazon
- Applebees
- Barnes & Noble
- Bass Pro Shop
- Bath & Body Works
- Bed Bath & Beyond/Buy Buy Baby
- Boost Mobile
- Build-A-Bear
- Cabela’s
- Cheesecake Factory
- Chili’s
- Claire’s
- Coldstone Creamery
- Cracker Barrel
- Darden Restaurants
- Fandango
- Finish Line
- Foot Locker
- Game Stop
- Gap Inc (Gap, Banana, Old Navy, Athleta, Piperlime)
- Golfsmith
- Ihop
- iTunes
- JCPenney
- Jiffy Lube
- Jo-Ann Fabric
- Justice
- Kohl’s
- Lane Bryant
- Lowe’s
- MLB.com
- Macy’s
- Marriott
- Marshalls
- Michael’s
- Nascar Superstore
- Nike
- Nordstrom
- OfficeMax
- Olive Garden
- Outback Steakhouse
- PFChang’s
- Panera
- Petco
- Petsmart
- Pizza Hut
- Red Lobster
- Red Robin
- Regal Cinemas
- Ruby Tuesday
- Sephora
- Shell
- Southwest
- SpaFinder
- Sports Authority
- Staples
- Starbucks
- Subway
- TGIFriday
- TJMaxx
- T-Mobile Prepaid
- Tracfone
- Verizon Prepaid
- Virgin Mobile
- Xbox
My Lowe’s has Disney cards, as well, for those looking to find a deal on a Disney vacation.
I just stocked up on Stubhub gift cards from Lowe’s over the weekend for all the events I’m attending this summer. I didn’t even know Stubhub had gift cards. Lowe’s is turning out to be an easy category for the 5x.
Marriott giftcards are no longer available at Lowes. I was told today they’ve been pulled off the shelves in the past couple weeks; perhaps Marriott is no longer offering these outside of their own website/hotels?