Chase Free Cash Rewards Visa Card Review

This card is no longer offed by Chase. Their current cash back credit card is the Chase Freedom® Visa®

Summary - The Chase Free Cash Rewards(SM) Visa® Card is a hybrid cash back credit card that allows you to earn earn cash rebates or exchange your points for gift certificates. Find out more about this card.


Rewards - The Chase Free Cash Rewards(SM) Visa® Card is a cash rebate card. You earn 1 point for every dollar you spend on the card. Once you have accumulated 2,500 points, you can either redeem it for a $25.00 check or for $25.00 worth of gift certificates from partner merchants. The rebate percentage is 1%. You can earn up to 60,000 points in one calendar year ($600 in cash rebates). You get 1,000 bonus points after your first purchase.

Fees - The Chase Free Cash Rewards(SM) Visa® has no annual fee. There are three different aprs, prime rate plus 5.99%, 9.99% or 14.99%. You also get a 0% apr introductory offer on both purchases and balance transfers for up to 6 months. The Free Cash Rewards Visa uses the average daily balance method (including new purchases) of calculating monthly balance.

Chase Free Cash Rewards Peer Comparison

At the end of the day, the Chase Free Cash Rewards is simply a 1% card. And there are many cards that do better than that. Even Chase's own Freedom Card is much better. So let's make some quick comparisons to make my point.

Chase Free Cash Rewards vs Chase Freedom - The Chase Freedom has been through numerous changes in their cash back program. But at present, they offer 5% rebates on various categories that change every quarter (called quarterly rotating categories). Furthermore, the new Ultimate Rewards program (which the Freedom Card has) has got over 400 online merchants where you can earn between 2% and 20% in cash rebates.

Chase Free Cash Rewards vs Discover It - The Discover It Card is pretty similar to the Chase Freedom. It has a quarterly rotating category where you can earn 5% rebates. It also has an online shopping mall called shopdiscover.com with over 150 merchant partners. You can earn between 5% and 20% cash rebates when you shop with them.

Chase Free Cash Rewards vs Blue Cash - The Blue Cash has recently been changed to the Blue Cash Everyday Card. It pays 3% rebates on groceries, 2% on gasoline and department stores. Unlike the Free Cash Rewards, Blue Cash allows you to earn unlimited rebates. And it is clearly better than the Free Cash Rewards.
 

Chase Free Cash Rewards - Is 1% Good Enough?

Pros - To be honest, I cannot think of any. Sure, it is better than plain vanilla cards. But if you want to give cash back, 1% is simply very average.

Cons - 1% cash back just does not cut it in today's world. Furthermore, there is a cap on how much rebates you can earn. All the better cards have no caps.

Verdict - The big problem with the Free Cash Rewards^SM Visa® is that you can only earn 1% cash rebates. Most of the better cash back cards in the market (and there are quite a few of them) all pay more than 1% cash back on certain categories. Furthermore, this card caps your rebates at $600. For someone like me who has earned over $2,000 in annual rebates with my Blue Cash Card, this will be a non-starter to begin with. However, many folks with average credit get approved for this card. If your credit is fair and want a rewards card, a great alternative would be the BarclayCard Rewards MasterCard®

as you can earn 2X on gas, groceries and utilities (much better than this card).