quarterly bonus categories for the Chase Freedom, Discover It, and Citi Dividend

card.

(light chiming music)

It's hard to believe that we're at the end of the third quarter

for 2017. A new quarter means that we have new bonus categories for our

rotating bonus credit cards, specifically the Chase Freedom, Discover It, and Citi

Dividend card. I'll go through each one and share the new bonus categories.

Before we go through each card, I want to let you know that we put together a

wallet size cheat sheet that you can download for free from our website. If you're

like me and you can't remember the categories, this should be really helpful.

I'll include a link in the video description below. For the Chase Freedom

card, we're ending the third quarter bonus categories of restaurants and

movie theaters. Starting October 1st until the end of December, you'll earn 5%

on purchases from Walmart and department stores. Walmart charges include those

from Supercenters, Walmart Neighborhood Markets, Walmart.com, and Walmart-branded

gas stations operated by Walmart. For department stores, stores listed that

qualify for the bonus include: JCPenney, Kohl's, Macy's, Nordstrom, and Nordstrom

Rack. To be honest, I'm a little disappointed with Chase's fourth-quarter

bonus category. In the past couple years, Chase has offered Amazon and other

department stores as their bonus category, which was much more useful and

valuable to me. For the Discover card, were also ending the third quarter bonus

category of restaurants and entering the fourth quarter on October 1st with a 5%

bonus category of Amazon.com and Target. This actually works great for me as I'll

likely do most of my holiday shopping either at Amazon or at Target. Lastly,

Citi Dividend users are ending the third quarter bonus category of Hilton and

airline purchases, and starting October 1st, will be receiving 5% at Best Buy and

department stores. Citi defines "department stores" as larger merchants

that sell a general line of apparel, home

furnishings, furniture, electronics, cosmetics, housewares, and major

appliances. In general, these stores have several departments that usually have a

separate checkout counter. I would assume that these are very similar to Chase's

definition. Make sure you log in and activate the bonus for these cards. While

you can wait until December 14th to activate your Chase Freedom bonus

category since Chase will award the points retroactively, you're better

off doing it now before you forget. Unfortunately, Discover and Citi won't

award you a bonus until you activate it, so do it now before you miss out. I've

included links to these cards below in case you're interested in applying. As of

September 2017, the Chase Freedom is offering a $150

bonus opening and Discover is offering a $50 cashback bonus

with a cashback match for the entire year, so it's pretty lucrative. Also, in

case you're wondering about the Citi Dividend card, it's no longer available

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