Chase Freedom Credit Card Review
Cash back is an attractive feature for consumers shopping for a new credit card. With no annual fee and a nice account opening bonus, it becomes evident why the Chase Freedom Card is such a hit among credit card users.
Chase Freedom® Card DetailsCurrently, you can earn $100 bonus cash back when you make qualifying transactions totaling $500 or more during the first 3 months of account opening. Purchases and balance transfers count as qualifying transactions while cash advances do not.
Here are the details of the Chase Freedom® Card:
No annual fee. 0% Intro APR for 12 months on balance transfers made in the first 30 days of account opening. 0% Intro APR for 6 months on purchases. Variable APR of 11.99% to 22.99% after intro periods. Earn 5% cash back on up to $1,500 of purchases in quarterly bonus categories. Earn unlimited 1% cash back on all purchases with no spending tiers. Earn up to 10% cash back when you shop online through Chase.The Chase Freedom Card credits cash back as points under the Ultimate Rewards program. In other words, 1% cash back on every dollar spent will equivalent to 1 point. Points can be used for a wide selection of rewards including travel, gift cards, dining, merchandise, experiences, and cash back. Cash back can be redeemed starting at 2,000 for either a $20 check or a $20 statement credit.
Card AnalysisThe 0% introductory APR lasts 6 months, which comes up short compared to the other competing cash back credit cards. If the plan is to use the Chase Freedom card for a balance transfer, the fee is 3% of the balance transfer amount ($5 minimum).
Cardmembers have to sign up every quarter in order to receive the 5% cash back bonus on rotating categories but Chase will give you the points even if you sign up at the end of the enrollment period (approximately 2 weeks before the start of the next quarter). So, you will be earning more cash back on previous purchases in bonus categories if you forgot to sign up early in the quarter. Points do not expire so don’t be afraid to wait for a larger payout.
The Chase Freedom® Credit Card is a straightforward cash back credit card with no annual fee. Therefore, it is ideal for the consumer who spends regularly with a credit card but always pays off the balance when the credit card bill arrives. Rewards and cash back credit cards are rarely beneficial if you tend to carry a balance, in which case a low-interest credit card would be more appropriate.
What does no annual fee credit card imply? « Credit Card Questions ...
Customers usually look for credit cards with no annual fees. However, such credit cards have been found to charge higher interest rate as the credit company needs to make up the annual fee charge with other sources of income. Therefore, it is obvious that no annual fee does actually render a credit card free of other fees. Besides the interest rates and the annual charges, there are other types of fees that a credit card company charges, and summing up the fees might stand out to be more than the annual fee charged.
So before getting excited with a no annual fee option of a credit card , users have to look in to the other fees that the bank might charge. These fees are:
Reward program fees - Reward credit cards have their own reward program fee. While the users believe that the reward programs are incentives offered by the credit card companies and are charge less, this notion stands out to be false. The no annual fee scheme applies only on the annual account fee and not on the reward programs offered by the credit card company. Moreover, the reward credit cards might have a surplus charge for gaining membership accounts. This stands out to be costlier than the annual charge. When applying for a new credit account for balance transfers there are no annual fees offered as granted by the bank might be appealing. There are but other charges attached to balance transfer and they include, a fee charged for processing the transfer of balance from one account to another. Some banks also grant higher interest rates on the transferred amount if the user opts for no annual fee balance transfer. These additional charges add up to stand the same or sometimes more than the actual annual fees. Cash advance fees - Most of the credit card companies have higher rates for cash advance. About twenty percent interest rates get applied immediately after cash advance is taken. Other than this, a cash advance fee is also involved which a fixed amount or percentage of the cash that is taken in advance. The fees are charged immediately at the time of transaction. There is also the ATM fee charged at the time of the transaction. So summing all this up will produce a higher value than the annual fees charged on the credit card. Late fees - A no annual fee credit card usually charges a huge penalty on late payments or repayment defaults.
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