Chase Freedom Flex Review

Chase Freedom Flex Review Summary

The Chase Freedom Flex℠ credit card is a good source of bonus rewards for people with good or excellent credit who want a cash back credit card with a $0 annual fee. Chase Freedom Flex offers an initial bonus of $200, for spending $500 in the first 3 months, along with ongoing rewards of 1 - 5% cash back.

That includes 5% cash back on travel booked through Chase, as well as 5% back on up to $1,500 spent per quarter in rotating bonus categories that require activation. Cardholders also earn 3% back at restaurants and drugstores, and 1% back on everything else.

Chase Freedom Flex isn’t completely rewards-focused, either. The card also offers an introductory APRs of 0% for 15 months on purchases and balance transfers. Its regular interest rate can be pretty high, though, so plan to pay your monthly bills in full once that takes effect.

Below, you can find more information to help you decide whether or not it’s worth applying for Chase Freedom Flex.

Chase Freedom Flex Review Highlights

$200 Initial Bonus

At $500 over the first 3 months, the amount one needs to spend to qualify for the Freedom Flex sign-up bonus makes it far more accessible than many of the market's best credit card deals. As a result, this is a steal for light-spenders.

Couple of 5% Cash Back Offers

Freedom Flex currently offers 5% cash back on travel booked through Chase Ultimate Rewards. Up to $1,500 spent per quarter in rotating bonus categories from the Chase Freedom Flex bonus calendar also earn 5% cash back, when activated.

3% Back at Restaurants and Drugstores

Chase Freedom Flex bonus rewards extend beyond limited-time offers with this 3% earning rate, which also applies to pickup and delivery orders.

No Annual Fee

The absence of an annual fee is perhaps the Freedom Flex card’s biggest draw, enabling it to serve as an affordable alternative to the highest yielding offers on the market. The absence of fixed costs also helps the offer’s rewards structure avoid too much scrutiny. Expectations tend to be a lot lower and people more forgiving when perks aren’t being paid for directly.

Booking Flexibility

The fact that Freedom Flex is ostensibly a cash back credit card would seem to indicate that you should redeem for a simple statement credit or check. And while you can certainly do so, the fact that you won’t sacrifice value when redeeming for things like Amazon.com purchases and gift cards differentiates the offer from many other rewards cards. Points tend to be slightly less valuable when redeemed for travel, however, according to WalletHub’s Chase Ultimate Rewards Program Review.

0% APRs for a Long Intro Period

Freedom Flex offers an introductory purchase APR of 0% for the first 15 months. Combined with the ability to earn rewards on purchases, this interest-free term provides powerful money-saving potential to new applicants with big-ticket expenses in their future.

The one thing you have to be careful about in this regard is to not spend more than you can afford to repay by the conclusion of the intro term. Revolving a balance beyond this point would trigger finance charges that would quickly negate your savings.

Plus, the card also offers an intro APR of 0% for 15 months on balance transfers. That gives you some time to pay off credit card debt without it getting more and more expensive along the way.

Chase Freedom Flex Review Lowlights

Rotating Bonus Categories

Each quarter, you need to sign up for new bonus categories in order to earn one of Freedom Flex’s 5% cash back rates. You could possibly make this pay off if you’re diligent and strategic, but few people want that kind of burden from their rewards credit card. Besides, you only even have the potential to rake in $25 per month and $300 per year via the Flex card’s quarterly 5% earning rate.

Balance Transfer Fee

Currently, Freedom Flex comes with an introductory balance transfer fee of 3% (min $5) for transfers completed in the first 60 days after opening an account (5% after that). So if you want to reduce the cost of an existing balance and get out of debt faster, make sure to crunch the numbers before pulling the trigger.

3% Foreign Transaction Fee

It’s kind of ironic. The card is called Freedom Flex, but users are far less free to travel internationally than people packing no foreign transaction fee credit cards, which are rapidly growing in number.

While consumers are incentivized to use credit cards instead of cash when traveling abroad by much lower currency-conversion costs and better theft protection, the roughly 90% of cards that charge a 2% to 4% international surcharge complicate the decision. If you regularly travel internationally or pay international merchants, you may want to consider a more fee-friendly offer.

Other Things To Consider About Chase Freedom Flex

Cardholders Earn Reward Points, Not Direct Cash Back

Freedom Flex is fully marketed as a “cash back” credit card. The problem with that is it’s not. Freedom cardholders actually earn points that can be redeemed for cash at a rate of 1 cent per 1 point. So, at the end of the day, you will get cash back. But Chase could always move the goalposts and effectively devalue the points you hold in your account. An issuer can’t do that when earnings are expressed in terms of dollars and cents from the start.

Helpful Secondary Benefits

Chase Freedom Flex benefits include rental car insurance, trip cancellation/interruption insurance, extended warranty protection and more.

Chase Freedom Flex vs. The Competition

Chase Freedom Flex℠ Review Methodology

This Chase Freedom Flex℠ review is based on WalletHub’s proprietary 100-point credit card rating system. By using a consistent methodology to evaluate the Chase Freedom Flex℠ and all other cards, WalletHub’s credit card experts make it easy for people to compare their options and find the best credit cards for their needs.

The WalletHub rating system uses 16 key metrics grouped into seven categories: Fees, Rewards, Two-year Cost, Interest Rates, Approval Requirements, Special Features, and Reviews. Each metric has a maximum number of points allocated to it, based on the metric’s importance as determined by our editors. The points are added up to create an overall rating for the Chase Freedom Flex℠ out of a maximum of 100 points, which is then converted to a 5-point scale.

Ratings for each category reflect how close Chase Freedom Flex is to WalletHub’s definition of a 5-star credit card, which is based on market conditions and what we believe are reasonable terms. We compare Chase Freedom Flex to that standard to give a numerical approximation of how reasonable and competitive its terms are compared to other cards.

To learn more about how WalletHub rates credit card offers, check out our full credit card review methodology.

Expert Thoughts on The Chase Freedom Flex

To help people learn more about The Chase Freedom Flex, WalletHub's editors posed the following questions to a panel of experts. You can meet our panelists and read their responses below.

1.What type of person should consider a credit card with rotating quarterly categories?

2.Is it generally better to have one credit card with rewards and 0% introductory APRs, or a rewards card and a 0% card?

3.Why aren’t there as many advertisements for the Chase Freedom Flex as there are for many other popular credit card offers?