Freedom Categories 2020?

[ScoreSizzle]

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@SoCalifornia wrote:

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@Remedios wrote:
Seeing how unimaginative Chase has been lately

Magazine subscriptions
Sugar free protein bars
Local AM radio
Diesel and coal
Spaceships

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😂🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😓...

spaceships... 🤔🤔🤔 

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LOL!

[Anonymous]

I'm thinking they look at spend in aggregate for the current quarter and past quarters and then make a decision based on what might be most profitable for the next quarter, unlike DISCOVER which announces it for a full year.

[Anonymous]

Not sure about how they did it, but they ended up with pretty much same thing year after year.

Grocery, gas, drugstore, home improvement, PayPal, Amazon.

[longtimelurker]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Not sure about how they did it, but they ended up with pretty much same thing year after year.

Grocery, gas, drugstore, home improvement, PayPal, Amazon.

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Yes, not sure what the selection process would be.  I assume that any 5% category that is actually used is unprofitable on those transactions, so presumably the idea is to make the selections appear useful enough to get people to use the card, and to continue to use it outside those categories as time goes on.

And if they find that people forget to sign up and shop in those categories anyway, all to the good.

[Anonymous]

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@longtimelurker wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:
Not sure about how they did it, but they ended up with pretty much same thing year after year.

Grocery, gas, drugstore, home improvement, PayPal, Amazon.

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Yes, not sure what the selection process would be.  I assume that any 5% category that is actually used is unprofitable on those transactions, so presumably the idea is to make the selections appear useful enough to get people to use the card, and to continue to use it outside those categories as time goes on.

And if they find that people forget to sign up and shop in those categories anyway, all to the good.

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Streaming and drugstore might minimize their loss. For a lot of people, it's harder to get to $1500 on those items. Grocery and dining are easier to achieve for most people.

My favorites are dining and gas.

[Anonymous]

Chase and Discover are in interesting situations when it comes to these 5% categories. They lose money on them. There's no other way around it. I think that they purposely have one or two good categories per year and then one or two bad categories. If everyone maxed out each category, it wouldn't look too good for the banks. 

[Anonymous]

Streaming is the most useless category to get cash back. I mean honestly who is really getting the full value of streaming when at most even if you subscribe to every channel coming out (Apple +, Disney etc.) plus the old standbys like Netflix, at most it’s what $100 a mth? $200 a mth? I wish they included internet/WiFi, cable and amazon prime membership and cell phone bills in that category then it would be somewhat more useful. Or even better, 5% off your credit card bill every mth! They wouldn’t make any money off of us if they did that. I have my CF card and it’s so useless to me half of the yr. I wish more banks had a card like US Bank+ where I think you can just pick your 5% CB category every mth. That might be my next app..after a yr of gardening since anything more than 1 new app is “credit seeking” for them it seems.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Streaming is the most useless category to get cash back. I mean honestly who is really getting the full value of streaming when at most even if you subscribe to every channel coming out (Apple +, Disney etc.) plus the old standbys like Netflix, at most it’s what $100 a mth? $200 a mth? I wish they included internet/WiFi, cable and amazon prime membership and cell phone bills in that category then it would be somewhat more useful. Or even better, 5% off your credit card bill every mth! They wouldn’t make any money off of us if they did that. I have my CF card and it’s so useless to me half of the yr. I wish more banks had a card like US Bank+ where I think you can just pick your 5% CB category every mth. That might be my next app..after a yr of gardening since anything more than 1 new app is “credit seeking” for them it seems.

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US Bank+ is one I looked at. I decided against it because its 5% categories are in too many of those low spend categories. 

[Anonymous]

I just looked up the Us Bank categories and I see 2 of them are electronics stores and furniture stores...I could max out the $2K easily with 1 trip to IKea or Best Buy. And $2k quarterly limit is higher than CFs.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I just looked up the Us Bank categories and I see 2 of them are electronics stores and furniture stores...I could max out the $2K easily with 1 trip to IKea or Best Buy. And $2k quarterly limit is higher than CFs.

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Yeah, but to have those recurring every year may not be optimal. In any given quarter,  it can be great.