Update: Chase has confirmed that pay yourself back for Sapphire Reserve and Sapphire Preferred on dining, grocery store, home improvement, and select charity categories will remain in place at the current rate through at least 4/30/21!
Chase is also adding the 25% bonus pay yourself back program to the Freedom Flex Mastercard and Freedom Unlimited, but only for the select charities listed below.
Originally posted on 8/23:
Chase tells me that Pay Yourself Back will be a permanent feature of the Ultimate Rewards program, and that they will add more cards and change the categories for the program in the future. This adds a ton of value to the Ultimate Rewards program as you can buy anything from those stores, even gift cards to other stores, and make them free by redeeming points at a value of 1.5 cents each. The ability to get that kind of value from your points even when you’re not traveling is outstanding.
Back in May, Chase added the ability to pay yourself back and redeem your Sapphire Reserve Ultimate Rewards points to offset any dining, grocery store, or home improvement purchases at a rate of 1.5 cents per point through 9/30.
They also added select charities to the program, which you can offset your donation with points. Those include American Red Cross, Equal Justice Initiative, Feeding America, Habitat for Humanity, International Medical Corporation, Leadership Education Fund, NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, National Urban League, Thurgood Marshall College Fund, United Negro College Fund, United Way, and World Central Kitchen.
You can also redeem your Sapphire Preferred Ultimate Rewards points for those categories at a rate of 1.25 cents per point.
A great feature of the program is that you keep the original points that the purchase earned, even though you paid yourself back for the purchase. That means your points will be worth more than 1.5 cents each!
- For example:
- If you spend $300 on grocery or home improvement purchases, you can use 20,000 points to offset that purchase and make it free. Plus, you’ll still earn the 300 points for spending, so you effectively used 19,700 points to offset the purchase. That means your points were worth 1.52 cents each!
- If you spend $300 on dining, you can use 20,000 points to offset that purchase and make it free. Plus, you’ll still earn the 900 points for dining, so you effectively used 19,100 points to offset the purchase. That means your points were worth 1.57 cents each!
- If you spend $300 on Instacart, you can use 20,000 points to offset that purchase and make it free. Plus, you’ll still earn the 1,500 points for Instacart spending, so you effectively used 18,500 points to offset the purchase. That means your points were worth 1.62 cents each!
And you can even pay yourself back twice for purchases like Doordash, which have already been reimbursed by the card. In other words if you make a $60 Doordash purchase you’ll get $60 back automatically as part of the annual $60 Doordash credit, plus you can use 4,000 points to get another $60 credit, and you’ll still keep the 180 points from the purchase!
Meanwhile, the no-annual fee Chase Freedom Unlimited has increased its signup bonus from 15,000 points to 20,000 points. Plus, you’ll earn 5 points per dollar on up to $12,000 of grocery spending in your first year, so you can earn another 60,000 points on your grocery spending!
These are marketed as a $200 signup bonus and 5% back, but you’ll actually get 20,000 Ultimate Rewards points for signing up and 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar which can be worth much more than 5% back by transferring them to a Sapphire card.
The Freedom Unlimited + Sapphire Reserve bifecta is pretty awesome. Sapphire Reserve has a $550 annual fee ($450 this year for renewing cardholders), but that’s easily offset by the credits and benefits of the card.
- Sapphire Reserve’s $300 annual travel credit has always been flexible, but it can also be used to buy groceries and gas through 12/31/20.
- Sapphire Reserve’s points can normally be used at a value of 1.5 cents each towards airfare, hotels, car rentals, and other travel. You can click here to redeem your points for statement credits against dining, grocery store, or home improvement purchases at an even better rate as explained above.
- You can get $50 back on Instacart Express membership through 9/30.
- Instacart purchases made until 9/30 earn 5 points per dollar on up to $3,000 in spending, plus they qualify for the $300 credit, and you can use points to offset them at a value of 1.5 cents each, and you keep the 5 points per dollar earned! You can stack all of these together!
- Gas purchases made until 9/30 earn 5 points per dollar on up to $1,500 in spending, plus they qualify for the $300 credit, and you keep the 5 points per dollar earned! You can stack these together!
- Select streaming purchases made until 9/30 earn 10 points per dollar.
Freedom Unlimited + Sapphire Preferred is also a great combo and only has a $95 combined annual fee, but with that card your points are worth 1.25 cents each instead of 1.5 cents each.
Freedom Unlimited earns 1.5 points per dollar everywhere. By transferring points from that card to Sapphire Reserve you can normally get a value of 2.25% towards paid travel, but now you will get 2.25% back as statement credits to offset for grocery, dining, and home improvement purchases. You’ll actually get more than that as you keep the points for the offset purchase, so you can effectively earn 2.28-2.43 cents per point everywhere by making everyday purchases on Freedom Unlimited and cashing out on Sapphire Reserve.
Freedom Unlimited now earns 3 points per dollar on drugstore purchases and dining. Plus it earns 5 points per dollar on all travel purchased through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal!
Freedom Unlimited also has 0% APR on purchases for 15 months.
That’s quite a combo! When redeeming your points for a statement credit, you’ll effectively earn 2.28%-2.43% cash back on everything (1.5 points per dollar on Freedom Unlimited), 4.56%-4.86% cash back on drugstores, dining, and travel (3 points per dollar on Sapphire Reserve or Freedom Unlimited), 7.6%-8.1% cash back on groceries or travel via the Chase portal (5 points per dollar on a new Freedom Unlimited card), 7.6%-8.1% cash back on Instacart (5 points per dollar on Sapphire Reserve), and 15.2%-16.2% cash back on Lyft (10 points per dollar on Sapphire Reserve).
If you don’t have enough grocery, dining, and home improvement purchases to cash out your points you can always buy gift cards for those stores, Visa gift cards good everywhere, or gift cards for hundreds of other stores like Amazon. Plus many grocery stores even give free gas rewards for buying gift cards, on top of the 5 points per dollar, the $300 in credit, and cashing out your points at more than 1.5 cents each to pay for the gift cards!
You can also upgrade a card to Sapphire Reserve to take advantage of cashing out your points at 1.5 cents each for previous purchases.
If you, a household member, or an additional user business co-owner have points on other cards you can combine them together to redeem them with your Sapphire card.
You can do that by clicking here to go to the combine points page. Just click on the card you want to transfer points to and from or click to add a household card account.
Of course this all comes on top of other Sapphire Reserve benefits:
- Ability to transfer all Chase points into airline miles and hotel points, where they can be worth even more than 1.5 cents each.
- Reimbursement of Global Entry/Pre-Check fees.
- $60 Doordash credit in 2020 and 2021, plus you can use points at a value of 1.5 cents each for statement credits even if the purchase was reimbursed.
- Doordash Dashpass membership through 12/31/21, a $9.99/month value.
- Priority Pass lounge membership with 2 free guests and unlike with AMEX cards, you can still use this for restaurant/food/drink credit.
- Lyft Pink 1 year free membership, a $19.99/month value.
- Free roadside assistance.
- Primary rental car insurance worldwide.
- $10K/item Purchase Protection for for items damaged or stolen within 120 days.
- $10K/item Extended Warranty Protection
- $500/item Return Protection
- Trip Cancellation/Trip Interruption Insurance
- Lost Luggage Insurance
- Baggage Delay Reimbursement
- Travel Accident Insurance
- Emergency Evacuation and Transportation due to injury or illness on a trip
- Repatriation of Remains Insurance
- Emergency Medical and Dental Benefit while traveling
Do you have a Freedom Unlimited + Sapphire Reserve or a Freedom Unlimited + Sapphire Preferred combo?
If I don’t travel except maybe once a year by plane (especially now), is it worth it to get the reserve or the preferred? Or should I just keep the freedom unlimited solo?
The $300 travel credit will work for gas and groceries and pay yourself back allows you to use your points at the increased value, so there’s no need to travel these days to get value from either card.
But when you are ready to travel, they will both help you out as well.
My annual membership fee is up for my Marriott Bonvoy card. With no plans on using that award night anymore, thinking of cancelling and just getting the chase freedom unlimited.
Do my Marriott points expire if I close the card?
After two years of non-use. But they have extended the award night expiry till 1/31/21 and froze the expiry of points.
You can try calling Chase for a retention offer. I got one that covers the AF.
You can also sell the free night.
Can you transfer the points from Marriott card to chase ultimate rewards?
Does this render the travel portal obsolete? Better to pay $300 for a flight – then “pay yourself back” than spend 20,000 points in the portal.
“Pay Yourself Back” isn’t for all purchases. It doesn’t cover travel. It only works for select categories. Currently it is, “grocery stores, home improvement stores and dining, including restaurants, takeout and eligible delivery services.”
The pay yourself back feature does not currently cover travel expenses. So to get a 1.5 value for travel, one would need to use the portal.
Yes, but you are better off paying for the flight and getting that cash back using “Pay yourself back” feature on groceries if you can. I think this is what aaron is talking about.
The below is confusing. What do you mean by paying yourself back twice exactly?
And you can even pay yourself back twice for purchases like Doordash, which have already been reimbursed by the card. In other words a $60 Doordash purchase will be free, plus you’ll get $60 back in automatic Doordash credit, plus you can use 4,000 points to get another $60 credit, and you’ll keep the 180 points from the purchase!
Yup, I’ve updated that paragraph.
“Primary rental car insurance worldwide.”
If I’m not mistaking, Chase sapphire covers rental car insurance for additional users too.
Yes. Primary means that the card will cover you even if you have your own car insurance.
Most cards offer secondary insurance, which means they won’t cover you if you have your own car insurance.
Dan, you made my day! thanks for updating us regarding this. I was wondering what was going to happen to this feature after September. Regarding the Primary rental insurance, does it cover a spouse that does not have an authorized user card? Thanks
Yes. Had this exact situation happen — I have the CSR and reserved a car for P2. Confirmed with the rental place ahead of time (Enterprise) that P2 could use the rental even though it was on my card. I did have to go in when picking up the rental to actually rent the car though. P2 took the car on a trip, hit a rock, and Chase coverage took care of everything, even though P2 is not an AU on my CSR. Like I said, though, I did have to go in to show the card and my ID when renting — but that was a requirement of Enterprise, not Chase. When renting, Enterprise had me down as the primary driver and P2 as additional driver.
Just to clarify – this means that the ability to redeem UR points for groceries at a rate of 1.5 cents is not ending on September 30th, but will be made permanent?
The categories may change, but the program will be permanent.
been using it since they offered it to me 1.5 value anytime is great! yes i may get better for traveling etc but anytime 1.5 for resturant and groceries is really good value!
Yup, especially because it’s actually more than 1.5 cents each!
When would you get better for travelling? Both travel and groceries is the same 1.5?
When you redeem for miles.
But if I spend on groceries with my Freedom Unlimited, I’ll ear 5 ppd, but that purchase doesn’t qualify for Pay Yourself Back.. because that’s only on purchases made with the Sapphire Reserve, no?…
True, you’ll have to spend on CSR according to how many points you want to redeem.
Haha, I thought I was the only one that contemplated that important detail. Many of us have cards that would earn more on those categories (heck, even a 2% cashback would be earning more…) – so there is still an opportunity cost to some degree.
Not sure this is right:
“ Freedom Unlimited earns 1.5 points per dollar everywhere. By transferring points from that card to Sapphire Reserve you can normally get a value of 2.25% towards paid travel, but now you will get 2.25% back as statement credits to offset for grocery, dining, and home improvement purchases. You’ll actually get more than that as you keep the points for the offset purchase, so you can effectively earn 2.28-2.43 cents per point everywhere by making everyday purchases on Freedom Unlimited and cashing out on Sapphire Reserve.”
If the grocery or home improvement spend is on the FU, presumably you cannot then redeem it on the pay yourself back on saphire. Am I misunderstanding?
Those rates are for any spend on Freedom Unlimited that are then redeemed against Sapphire Reserve purchases.
In short it doesn’t make sense to use chase points for travel, your better off paying for the travel and then redeeming it as cashback. (Obviously except in cases where transferring to other programs)
Can you please compile the stores and restaurants that are considered grocery stores. From my experience: empire kosher, and trader Joe’s work. Many restaurants however not all.
Walmart and target and amazing savings dont work.
Does Costco work?? Which kosher restaurants work ??
You can search the category here:
https://www.visa.com/supplierlocator-app/app/#/home/supplier-locator
Is there something like this for Amex and Mastercard?
I have the Amex Gold which gets 4 points per dollar at grocery stores so I’ve been conflicted about which card to use. I’m wondering your thoughts on this Dan? Thank you!
Get the Freedom Unlimited for 5x in the meantime?
Is there anyway to get the offer on the freedom if u already have one
Open a new one?
What’s the excitement? There are tons of 2% cashbacks cards if that’s your route.
1. This is 2.43%-16.2%.
2. This leaves open the ability to transfer to miles, where the sky is the limit on points value.
@Sillypainter you are correct , unless you plan to use those points for travel , there are much better deals on groceries .
This isn’t just about groceries, it’s about everyday purchases.
Has Chase told you that they plan to preserve the redemption rate of 1.5 CPP for CSR?
This is awesome. I’ve always been annoyed that VRBO doesn’t qualify as travel. Now no biggie, I just payed myself back for the same 1.5 points value for other purchases. Was thinking of downgrading to preferred due to the increased annual fee ($550) but I’m probably going to keep it now.
What about if you book your VRBO through Travelocity? Will it then be counted(billed) as travel?
Probably…but that would only work to get the 3 PPD, wouldn’t help for redemption since that has to be direct thru chase UR site.
In which store’s will work the buying gift cards?
Restaurant, grocery store, or home improvement store.
What about buying a visa gift card at a grocery store will I be able to pay myself back for that?
I upgraded from CSP to CSR back in early June for the PYB feature. No sign of the CSR annual fee however, and i’m wondering if the fee will be $550 or $450. Anyone else who upgraded this year have their annual fee post yet?
thanks!
Why is this any better than just redeeming the points for cash into your bank account? Or even a statement credit?
Because that only gives a value of 1 cent per point.
So I understand when I use my freedom unlimited I am getting 1.5 points per dollar and it redeems at 1 cent per point but if I get the Reserve it still only redeems at 1 cent per point unless it is redeemed as a “pay yourself back” in which case those same 1.5 points per dollar are redeemed at 50% extra on the reserve card?
In that case wow, signing up. Thanks in advance for this tip.
Correct!
Awesome, thank for the time and explanation Dan the freakin man!!!
Now go kick some JetBlue butt 😉
Very nice. However, after enjoying 10% and 15% instant cash back via the cash app at grocery stores, Walgreens, Walmart, dolar general , I have accumulated enough gift cards to last me a long while. Top that of with Sofi bank giving 10% cash back at trader joes and wholefoods up to a spend of $500 , this summer leaves me with a nice stack without paying chases outrages yearly card fees.
“If you don’t have enough grocery, dining, and home improvement purchases to cash out your points you can always buy gift cards *for* those stores, Visa gift cards good everywhere, or gift cards for hundreds of other stores like Amazon.”
Should this say for or from?
Thanks
does freedom unlimited have a foreighn transaction fee?
Why do they make it so hard to select all purchases?
If I have a regular freedom card do I have to wait 48 months for a freedom unlimited bonus or is it considered a different card?
Different card.
What are the tax implications?
None. It’s not taxable.
What’s your opinion on the freedom and chase ink combo
There are several Chase Ink cards…
Business preferred
That won’t get pay yourself back credit or 1.5 cents towards travel.
Is there anything good about the combo and is there anything good about the ink card at all
My older Ink (Preferred) gets 1.25 cpm so the CFU + INK combo works for me
Why go though all this hassle when you can get the no annual fee Citi double cash 2% credit card? Am I missing something?
1. With the combo you earn 2.28%-16.2% back on everything.
2. With the combo you earn 1.5-10 miles per dollar on everything that can be transferred to airlines or hotels where the points can be worth 2 cents or even 20 cents each when properly utilized.
Is there now any concern that Chase will eventually limit point sharing between card?
Oldest rumor in the book.
https://www.dansdeals.com/credit-cards/ultimate-rewards-transfer-changes-hurt-rumor-mill-7-years-consolidate-points-every-month/
Hey Dan,
I was reading the article you wrote about chase sapphire reserve 4th anniversary and how some of the first people to sign up will qualify for the sign up points bonus again. You recommended to downgrade the sapphire reserve card to a freedom or freedom unlimited. What if you already have freedom and freedom unlimited? Should I then close one of those cards or is there another way?
You can downgrade and get another Freedom. You would then be able to double up on the categories.
If I downgrade a card and it gives new card number does that count toward 5/24?
Downgrading a card keeps the same number and does not count towards 5/24.
Thanks Dan. The specific card I’m referring to (bank of America Amtrak card) the rep told me if I downgrade to the free version there’s a possibility the number would change. Any insight?
Thought you meant Chase.
Yes, if the number changes it may reset 5/24. I don’t experience downgrading a BOA card.
Thanks
Any advantage of Freedom Unlimited over Ink Unlimited? Worth having if I already have all 3 ink cards?
5x on groceries for the first year.
I use credit cards for a lot of home improvements.
What’s better for every day spending using a 2% cash back card like citicards double cash.
or using chase freedom, transferring to sapphire reserve, and redeeming for the statement credit.
What I like about this is that even though the points are worth1.25 for travel as for groceries, on the ultimate rewards portal the “prices” of flights are sometimes more than elsewhere so that effectively reduces the value of the points, ma she’ein kein if you use them for groceries and just buy tickets elsewhere. Thanks r Dan for your clear and concise reports!
Thanks Dan, is there any recourse if Chase doesn’t categorize a restaurant correctly, causing me to not be able to use to pay myself back?
@Dan any update on how confirmed this is? General info still says 9/30…
@Dan any confirmation on this?
any idea if they are extending some perks? for example %50 off instacart express?
Gift cards question: want to buy a prepaid cell with time, would pay with gift card so they cant replensih. does address on GC registration need to match shipping address?
Great discussion but what about Flex vs. Freedom Unlimited-which should I get. The Flex offers rotating 5% cash back categories vs. the 1.5% back on everything on the Unlimited
If i sign up for the preferred to get the 80k and then upgrade to the Reserve will I get the $300 credit?
Sure.
Also there is no unwritten rules that won’t let me get the preferred and the freedom unlimited except for 5/24 correct?
Will Amex join chase and also offer a pay your self back option?
Chase is also adding the 25% bonus pay yourself back program to the Freedom Flex Mastercard and Freedom Unlimited, but only for the select charities listed below.
Where are they listed ?
Read the post?
how do you get $300=20,000 points?????
Can I get the freedom and sapphire? Will it be one pull or two? How will effect my 5/24?
Any idea how long it takes for the credit to post ?
how do you get $300=20,000 points?????
If I have never had a Chase credit card, which one should I apply for first?
chase doesn’t give me the option to pay yourself back on grocery stores do you have any explanation for that? thanks
The offer has expired. Only certain spending qualifies now, charity, air B and B etc. it will say online/on the app if any purchases qualify