Comments on: Chase Introduces New Rewards Program

By: Thomas

Thomas — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 11:27:08 +0000

I’ll be canceling my account with Chase after my first attempt to navigate the new Ultimate Rewards web site. It’s no longer possible to simply trade your points for statement credit, now you must redeem them for individual purchases made in the last few days. The site dose not streamline the process, it doesn’t give you a list of eligible purchases. You need to click back and forth between the rewards page and your statement, and enter the date, and amount of the purchase one by one.

When I called Chase, to ask if there was some way around the poorly implemented new system, it took 20 minutes to navigate though their phone tree. When I finally spoke to a live person it was someone who spoke English poorly, and told me that generic statement credits had never been possible. An obvious lie, I’ve been using my credits for statement credit for years.

Chase, you used to be the best credit card in the business, now you are just a sad mockery of your former self.

By: Scott

Scott — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:53:09 +0000

It 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.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:12:02 +0000

Looking 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!

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:08:00 +0000

My 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….

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:04:39 +0000

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!)