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The Chase Freedom categories for 2016 have just been announced!

chase-freedom-categories-2016-calendar

The Chase Freedom 2016 categories are fairly simple, though Chase does promise on some of the categories that they will announce “more” later in the year.

1st quarter (activate by March 14, 2016 and good on spending from January 1st to March 31st)

The Chase Freedom 5% category for Q1 is Gas Stations and Local Commuter transportation.  Unfortunately that excludes parking, tolls and Amtrak purchases, but is still a great category, especially for those of us who have found gas stations that sell prepaid gift cards

You can go ahead and activate your 5% cashback for Q1 2016 at Chase’s site, and I recommend taking the time to activate it ASAP so you don’t forget.

2nd quarter (activate starting on March 15, 2016 and good on spending from April 1st to June 30th)

The Chase Freedom 5% category for Q2 is Grocery stores (not including Walmart and Target), plus the promise of “more” this Spring.  Grocery stores are another great category.  In addition to being a great overall spend category (SEE ALSO: How I eat for less than $1 / meal), grocery stores are another possible avenue for manufactured spending. Some of my grocery stores do sell variable load Visa and Mastercard gift cards.

3rd quarter (activate starting on June 15, 2016 and good on spending from July 1st to September 30th)

The Chase Freedom 5% category for Q3 is Restaurants “and more”.  This is not so great of a category for me as we rarely eat out, but I know there are many who do and you can always buy gift cards during 2016 Q3 to use throughout the rest of the year

4th quarter (activate starting on September 15, 2016  and good on spending from October 1st to December 31st)

The Chase Freedom 5% category for Q4 is “Holiday Shopping”.  Hopefully that means Amazon (like it does in Q4 2015!), and even better would be if they announce a bonus 10% cashback period like there currently is

You can also see the Chase Freedom categories at the official Chase site here.


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