Earn this multiplier when you purchase via the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal. If you purchase any other way, you will earn 1X points.
Earn this multiplier when you purchase via the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal. If you purchase any other way, you will earn 1X points.
Earn this multiplier when you purchase via the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal. If you purchase any other way, you will earn 1X points.
Our ratings are determined by the authors and editors on our team. Each individual card feature is compared against all other cards we offer and the total score is an average of those 4 ratings.
This is a primary card in the Chase Trifecta, which includes a Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Sapphire Reserve, a Chase Freedom Unlimited, and this card, the Chase Freedom Flex. You’ll earn 3% on dining and drugstore purchases with the Freedom Flex. But whereas the Freedom Unlimited gives you 1.5% cash back on other spend categories, The Flex earns only 1%. That is because it has the rotating 5% bonus categories.
The rotating bonus categories each quarter can be fantastic. Amazon is a popular choice, meaning you’d earn 7,500 Ultimate Rewards points ($75) if you spent $1,500 during that quarter.
Since the Chase Freedom Flex is a pure cash back credit card unless you also have a Chase Sapphire Preferred®, Sapphire Reserve®, or Ink Business Preferred® with which to combine your Chase Ultimate Rewards points, it’s ideally used as part of a combo.
When you hold one of these premium Ultimate Rewards-earning credit cards, you can transfer points earned on the Freedom Flex to the premium card. Once you’ve moved the Ultimate Rewards over to the premium credit card, you can take advantage of points transfers to 12 Chase airline and hotel partners or book travel through the travel portal.
Best of all, you can accrue cash back on this card and decide to add a Chase Sapphire Preferred®, Sapphire Reserve®, or Ink Business Preferred® later on – if you suddenly decide that you’d like to delve into the world of credit card rewards that transfer to frequent flyer and hotel programs to book free award flights and hotel nights.
If you book through the travel portal and have a Sapphire Reserve, your points redeem for 1.5 cents each, meaning that you earn 1.5X points or cash back per dollar and redeem them for 1.5X, giving you an effective 2.25% return on your spend.
If you book through the travel portal and have a Sapphire Preferred, or Ink Business Preferred, your points redeem for 1.25 cents each, meaning that you earn 1.5X per dollar and redeem for 1.5X, giving you an effective 1.875% return on your spend.
But our absolute favorite way to redeem is always via airline and hotel transfer partners. The easiest high-value redemption is usually Hyatt. We often get better than 2 cents per World of Hyatt point. Keep in mind that Hyatt doesn’t charge any resort fees when you stay on a free night award. So let’s say you are looking at a hotel with a cash price of $259 and a $25 a night resort fee and 8% tax. That would come to $307 a night. But if that same room costs 8,000 or 12,000 Hyatt points, you could be using your points (which transfer at an even 1:1 ratio to all airline and hotel partners) with a rate of return of 3 – 4 cents.
To be clear, if you don’t also have a Chase Sapphire Preferred®, Sapphire Reserve®, or Ink Business Preferred®, the rewards earned with the Chase Freedom Flex are purely cash back rewards.
That said, even without a card combo, it’s still a solid card to earn cash back, including 3% on dining , including takeout and eligible delivery services, and drugstores) since it has no annual fee.
The Chase Freedom Flex credit card comes with a solid range of benefits for a card with no annual fee. You’ll get Purchase Protection and Extended Warranty on the shopping side and you’ll be taken care of on canceled or shortened pre-paid trips if a covered reason arises. with the included Trip Cancellation/Interruption Insurance.
Our ratings are determined by the authors and editors on our team. Each individual card feature is compared against all other cards we offer and the total score is an average of those 4 ratings.
For most small business owners, it makes sense to have all three Chase Ink credit cards: this card, the Chase Ink Business Cash® Credit Card, the Chase Ink Preferred®, and the Chase Ink Unlimited®.
They all complement each other perfectly. Once you have a the Chase Ink Preferred®, which allows you to transfer points to Chase’s great lineup of airline and hotel partners like World of Hyatt, you will want to get the Ink Cash and Ink Unlimited to maximize your total earnings on bonus categories – since all points can be combined to your Ink Preferred.
The Ink Cash is a truly amazing card when it comes to bonus multipliers on select business categories. With 5% cash back on the first $25,000 spent in combined purchases at office supply stores and on internet, cable and phone services each account anniversary year plus 2% cash back on the first $25,000 spent in combined purchases at gas stations and restaurants each account anniversary year, you have tremendous bonus category multipliers on a no annual fee card.
But the most important thing to know is that although this card says you are earning cash back, that is only if you don’t also have a Chase Ink Preferred®, Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, or Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card.
Either way, you are earning Chase Ultimate Rewards points. But without one of the above cards, you can only redeem your points for 1 cent per point. Once you do have a Chase Ink Preferred®, Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, or Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card in your arsenal, though, you’ll be able to move your points from your Ink Cash to any of those three cards, where you can either transfer to airline and hotel partner programs or redeem through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal where your points are worth 1.25 – 1.5 cents each, depending on which card you have. The Ink Preferred and Sapphire Preferred offer 1.25 cents a point while the much higher annual fee Sapphire Reserve gives you 1.5 cents per point when booking travel in the Ultimate Rewards portal.
Even if you don’t “combo” your Ink Cash, those 5% and 2% bonus categories are exceptionally strong for business spending on a business credit card with no annual fees. And that large signup bonus doesn’t hurt either!
Overall, the Chase Ink Cash is one of my very favorite cards. I charge my cable, internet, and phone to the card and use it often at office supply stores, which sell a wide array of goods. I also use it for gas stations and dining as I like racking up Chase Ultimate Rewards points at a 2X bonus rate.
But keep in mind that it is at its most powerful when paired with a Chase Ink Preferred®, Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, or Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card. To show you the difference, you know cash back means each point is worth a penny. But when you have it paired with one of these other cards to unlock points transfers, we value those points at 1.75 cents a piece – due to the flexibility of transfer partners and the potential redemptions those programs offer. So pairing your card boosts the rewards value, in our humble opinion, by 75%.
When using our spend calculator on this card, you’ll notice that we ask if you have a Chase Ink Preferred®, Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, or Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card and, if you do, we’ll increase the value of rewards on this card from 1 cent to 1.75 cents accordingly.
Please note: you must be under 5/24 (more on the Chase 5/24 rule) to apply for this card and you cannot apply for more than one Chase Business card in any 30 day period. You can apply for a maximum of two Chase cards within 30 days, with only, at most, 1 of them being a business card.
This card is also mentioned in the article Business Credit Cards That Don’t Report to Personal Credit Bureaus.