Chase Freedom Category question

[Anonymous]

For those who have the chase freedom, how do you maximize the category spending?

I'm tried to search the forum but did not find anything specific. Wondering if anyone in here prepays for gift cards (that you will use later in the year) that are related to the current category to maximize the 5x pts. (Ex:  purchasing 3 GC at $300 during that quarter and using those cards to buy gas throughout the year) or GC from drug stores/ whole sale stores?

I dont know any one way to maximize these because who the heck would spend $1500 in 3 months in any of these categories? (besides grocers)

[Adkins]

Some people do buy store specific gift cards, like the grocery store itself or Kohl's, Gap, etc. Our local grocery store seems to have gift cards for most major retailers in town. I would avoid buying any Visa/MC gift cards. 

[mongstradamus]

You can do that if you want to or need to max out the freedom. Sometimes you just can't max out freedom depending on the categories you get for 5x. Its not the easiest to find gas stations that sell GC

[Anonymous]

Oh crap I thought i can just buy a shell gas station gift card on their website and it would code as gas LOL. This might be a dumb question but aren't most gift cards visa/MC?

[Adkins]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Oh crap I thought i can just buy a shell gas station gift card on their website and it would code as gas LOL. This might be a dumb question but aren't most gift cards visa/MC?

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Not necessarily. Some of the gas stations will carry specific store gift cards, like to Kohl's for example, that you only use at that store. You have to buy it onsite, usually, for it to code as a gas station to get your 5% back. 

[Anonymous]

Wondering if this’ll work for grocery cashback on other cards? Almost every card with a grocery cashback excludes Walmart and Target, which sucks because those are the GROCERY STORES that I frequent most. Anyone know of a grocery store from which I can buy gift cards?

[Anonymous]

So getting buying multiple store specific gift cards won’t be seen as a neg for any AA from card issuers?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Wondering if this’ll work for grocery cashback on other cards? Almost every card with a grocery cashback excludes Walmart and Target, which sucks because those are the GROCERY STORES that I frequent most. Anyone know of a grocery store from which I can buy gift cards?

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If you have a Meijer near you, that had worked for me in the past as long as I'm buying groceries too, if not it codes as a dept store.  And yeah, Walmart won't work 😐😐😐

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
So getting buying multiple store specific gift cards won’t be seen as a neg for any AA from card issuers?

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Almost certainly not, as the amount is small.   Even if you buy $1500 at 5%, the reward is only $60 more than if you got that at 1%.

What issuers don't like about MS is the unlimited reward exposure (as you are not really using your money).   Here, it's $1500 spend, which some can spend organically in any particular category, so they are not going to spend a lot of effort policing it.

Basically, low cap means low risk for the issuer which means low chance of AA!

[Remedios]

I am curious about why chase does not announce categories for the entire year 

The suspense is killing me 😒