Chase Introduces New Rewards Program
According to the Wall Street Journal, Chase will be rolling out a new points-based rewards program called “Ultimate Rewards” today. Here’s a snippet of the article:
Under the points-based program, dubbed Ultimate Rewards, customers will earn points for every dollar spent on certain Chase credit cards, with no earnings caps or expiration dates. Points can be redeemed for travel, cash, statement credits or gift cards, generally on a one-for-one basis with each point worth one penny. Users can also redeem points for merchandise, although the redemption rate is slightly less than one percent.
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Since on a good month, my wife and I spend $450 on groceries (more in a bad month), that would give us $13.50 in rewards. Paying $30 a year means we’d give Chase the first 2 months of rewards and a tiny bit of the third, a small price to pay.
Not as good as 3% back on groceries, drugstores and gas (though our Discover gives us 5% back on the first $100 a month for gas) but still better than rotating the categories!
Anyone know if the Freedom Plus cards will be affected? Maybe we could change to that. Freedom Plus works like Freedom, but instead of the top three categories, it’s the top 6. It also has a $30 annual fee (waived the first year) and rewards never expire (whoopdy-doo, I’ve always redeemed mine after less than a year an never came close to having any expire!)
Comment by Mike — Jun 12th 2009 @ 9:04 amMy one Freedom card turned into an Ultimate Rewards card with 3% back on rotating categories. My other Freedom card turned into an Ultimate Rewards card with 3% back on rotating categories AND 3% back on gas, groceries, and restaurants. Why the difference? It turns out that one was a WORLD Mastercard, the other was just a Regular Mastercard, and the regular has both types of rewards categories (rotating and non). I asked a CSR about an annual fee and was told there was none. No indication yet when the rotating categories will start and what the first group will be….
Comment by Mike — Jul 27th 2009 @ 8:08 amLooking into a Citi Forward card. It’s rewards are really only marginally better, as the point-to-dollar conversion is only about 1-to-0.7, so 5 points is about 3.5%. But I will still sign up for one (and a Sunoco Citi card, 10(!!!) points per dollar at Sunoco after the first two purchases each cycle!) after my mortgage closes this Friday!
Comment by Mike — Jul 27th 2009 @ 8:12 amIt was unclear in the notice they sent out, but the 3% ends after the first $5000 in purchases. Therefore, the card is basically another 1% card. You have to look toward the upper part of the notice to see this additional constraint.
Comment by Scott — Sep 20th 2009 @ 6:53 pm