Pros
- Earn rate: 1.5 - 5% cash back
- 0% for 15 months on purchases and balance transfers
- $0 annual fee
Cons
- Balance transfer fee
- Foreign transaction fee
- Potential for a high regular APR
Chase Freedom Unlimited®
Transfer Fee: Either $5 or 3% of the amount of each transfer, whichever is greater in the first 60 days (5%, min $5 after)
- INTRO OFFER: Earn an additional 1.5% cash back on everything you buy (on up to $20,000 spent in the first year) - worth up to $300 cash back!
- After your first year or $20,000 spent, enjoy 5% cash back on travel purchased through Chase Travel, 3% cash back on drugstore purchases and dining at restaurants, including takeout and eligible delivery service, and unlimited 1.5% cash back on all other purchases.
Rewards Details
- INTRO OFFER: Earn an additional 1.5% cash back on everything you buy (on up to $20,000 spent in the first year) - worth up to $300 cash back!
- Enjoy 6.5% cash back on travel purchased through Chase Travel, our premier rewards program that lets you redeem rewards for cash back, travel, gift cards and more; 4.5% cash back on drugstore purchases and dining at restaurants, including takeout and eligible delivery service, and 3% on all other purchases (on up to $20,000 spent in the first year).
- After your first year or $20,000 spent, enjoy 5% cash back on travel purchased through Chase Travel, 3% cash back on drugstore purchases and dining at restaurants, including takeout and eligible delivery service, and unlimited 1.5% cash back on all other purchases.
- No minimum to redeem for cash back. You can choose to receive a statement credit or direct deposit into most U.S. checking and savings accounts. Cash Back rewards do not expire as long as your account is open!
Additional Info
- Enjoy 0% Intro APR for 15 months from account opening on purchases and balance transfers, then a variable APR of 20.49% - 29.24%.
- No annual fee – You won't have to pay an annual fee for all the great features that come with your Freedom Unlimited® card
- Keep tabs on your credit health, Chase Credit Journey helps you monitor your credit with free access to your latest score, alerts, and more.
- Member FDIC
- More Details & Reviews About Chase Freedom Unlimited®
Is Chase Freedom Unlimited Worth It?
Chase Freedom Unlimited® is worth considering because it can provide more than $1,500 in rewards over the first two years of use, on average. It also has a $0 annual fee and introductory APRs of 0% for 15 months on purchases and 0% for 15 months on balance transfers.
All in all, this is a great credit card for people with good credit or better who want solid rewards and the opportunity to save on interest. You can even get an extra 1.5% cash back on all purchases for the first year. This bonus is worth up to $300, as it applies to the first $20,000 in purchases.
What You Need to Do to Make Chase Freedom Unlimited Worthwhile
For Chase Freedom Unlimited to be worth it, you should pay your credit card bill in full each month after the introductory APR promotion ends and the regular interest rate takes effect. That will ensure any rewards you earn are not diluted by costly interest charges. The card has a $0 annual fee, so you don’t have to worry about making up for the cost of the card with your rewards.
Chase Freedom Unlimited Highlights
$0 Annual Fee
This card needn’t add to your financial burden, as it has no annual fee. This saves you $21.58 relative to the average credit card, and it might enable you to keep your account open longer than you would otherwise, thus benefiting your credit score.
0% Financing
As long as you continue to make monthly minimum payments by the due date, you won’t be charged interest on new purchases for the first 15 months your account is open. Plus, the card also offers an intro APR of 0% for 15 months on balance transfers. This has the potential to save you hundreds of dollars if used strategically, and you can get a sense of the specifics by using our credit-card calculator.
Extra 1.5% back in the first year
Currently, Chase Freedom Unlimited gives you an extra 1.5% cash back on everything you buy, up to $20,000 spent in the first year. That could result in up to $300 in additional cash back. More specifically, you’ll be earning 6.5% on travel purchased through Chase, 4.5% on dining and drugstores, and 3% on all other purchases.
1.5 - 5% Cash Back
The stable 1.5% cash back earning rate offered normally on most purchases is valuable not just for its simplicity, but also because it represents a 40% markup from the average cash-back credit card. It’s not the highest cash-back rate on the market, though. Other cards offer up to 2% back on all purchases, according to WalletHub’s latest Credit Card Landscape Report. However, the rewards continue with 5% cash back on travel booked through Chase, 3% back on dining at restaurants, including eligible delivery services and takeout, and on drugstore purchases.
Chase Freedom Unlimited Lowlights
3% Foreign-Transaction Fee
For an “Unlimited” card, this offer is rather restrictive geographically. If you use it while traveling abroad or even just buy something from an internationally based merchant, you’ll pay more than you should, thanks to its foreign fee: 3% of each transaction in U.S. dollars. If you’re wondering, the market average is 1.56%, and there’s a wide variety of cards with no foreign fees from which to choose.
Potential For A High Regular APR
Your overall creditworthiness will dictate the result, but you could be assigned an interest rate that is anywhere from 20.49% to 29.24% (V). Either way, you’ll be paying more than the 18.01% average for “excellent credit” credit cards or the 26.59% average for “fair credit” cards.
Balance-Transfer Fee
Do the math before transfer an existing balance to Chase Freedom Unlimited® because its transfer fee makes it less appealing: Either $5 or 3% of the amount of each transfer, whichever is greater in the first 60 days (5%, min $5 after). Depending on how much credit card debt you have to transfer, this fee could loom quite large or simply represent a minor annoyance.
Chase Freedom Unlimited: Other Considerations
Chase Synergies
Chase Freedom Unlimited® has the potential to represent a very important piece of a larger money-saving puzzle for committed Chase customers. Its strengths — steady, cash-based rewards, extended 0% purchase financing — fill in gaps left by some of Chase’s other elite offers, most notably Sapphire Preferred. Sapphire Preferred has one of the market’s most valuable initial bonuses, but it’s travel-oriented and doesn’t have the best ongoing rewards.
Furthermore, you can transfer earnings between Chase cards, which could enable you to boost the value of your Unlimited Card’s earnings when redeeming for travel through Chase or one of its partners.
For those comfortable managing multiple credit-card accounts at one time, Freedom Unlimited could therefore be the perfect complement, particularly since its lack of an annual fee makes opening a new card easier to justify.
Spending Power Is Not ‘Unlimited’
This aspect of the card’s name does not refer to your credit line. Your account will have a spending limit; the only question is whether it will be disclosed to you or the major credit bureaus.
Rewards Don’t Expire & You Can Redeem Anytime
The cash back that you earn with Chase Freedom Unlimited® will not disappear after a certain period of time or extended account inactivity. Earnings only expire when your account is closed, which means you’ll usually be able to avoid that unfortunate fate. The exception would be if Chase proactively closes your account due to missed payments and other poor performance.One thing that should also help you avoid rewards loss is the fact that you can redeem any time you wish, with no minimum-denomination requirements. So you won’t ever be forced to wait when the mood to cash in strikes you.
Chase Freedom Unlimited vs. The Competition
To see if Chase Freedom Unlimited® is ultimately unparalleled, we compared it to some of the strongest competitors on the market, including offers known for rewards, financing or both. We evaluated the cards based on seven important factors and selected winners in both the rewards and financing categories. You can check out our findings below.
Chase Freedom Unlimited® Review Methodology
This Chase Freedom Unlimited® review is based on WalletHub’s proprietary 100-point credit card rating system. By using a consistent methodology to evaluate the Chase Freedom Unlimited® 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 Unlimited® 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 Unlimited 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 Unlimited 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.
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