The Chase Freedom credit card offers a flat 1% cash back on all spending, plus additional cash back on up to $1,500 spent in a few spending categories, which change every quarter.
The categories for January-March are:
- Gas Stations
- Movie Theaters
- Starbucks
The catch is that you must “activate” your bonus categories before each quarter starts. Look out for an email from Chase, or better yet, go to https://www.chasebonus.com/ and complete the registration yourself.
To maximize the cash back, it might be worth it to purchase gift cards to your most-often visited gas stations in order to stretch out your 5% cash back earnings longer.
And if you don’t want to be sitting on a plie of gas station gift cards, the Sallie Mae MasterCard gives you 5% back on gas stations and grocery stores (up to $250/month/category) all year long!