Update: This offer is expired.

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As of today, Chase starting offering an extra 2,500 bonus points when adding an authorized user on to a new Chase Freedom account. The new Freedom account will still earn the 10,000 bonus points after $500 spend within the first 3 months. The authorized user will also have to make a purchase of any amount within 3 months to get the extra 2,500 points.

Taking into account the extra 2,500 bonus points, this is a 12,500 bonus point offer for opening a new Chase Freedom credit card.

 — Just note that this promotion is only for new accounts that are now opened and not existing accounts. Though, if you recently applied for a new Freedom account, you can always try requesting a match to this new offer via a Secure Message.

The full Freedom card benefits and terms:

Also, If you have a Chase checking account, The freedom will earn you a 10% annual point dividend every February on all points earned during the previous calendar year.

One of the great benefits of the Freedom card is where you can rack up nice bonus points. The Freedom offers 5x category bonus points, where you earn 5 points per dollar spent on up-to $1,500 per quarter. There are 4 quarters per year, with each quarter offering different categories where you can earn the 5x points. This is similar to the Discover it card (read review here).

For example, this quarter you can get 5 points on every dollar at restaurants and Lowe’s home improvement stores. Lowe’s sells merchant gift cards to a slew of other merchants including Amazon. That means even if you do not plan on making any home improvement purchases, you can still maximize the 5x spend by buying gift cards to merchants where you will be shopping.

If you maximize the $1,500 spend per quarter on the 5x category spend (which is $6,000 in yearly spend) you will get 30,000 Ultimate Rewards points. Normally 30,000 Freedom Ultimate Rewards points equals $300 in cash-back, but if you have the Sapphire Preferred and/or Ink Plus/Bold cards, you can then transfer the points into your Sapphire/Ink accounts (read step by step instructions on how to do that, here).

Once the points are in your Sapphire/Ink accounts they can then also be transferred out to more lucrative options where the value per point can many times exceed the 1 cent value per point if you were to just redeem them for cash-back. Transfer options (in addition to cash back or gift cards) with the Sapphire/Ink cards are:  United Airlines, British Airways, Southwest, Korean, Virgin Atlantic, Hyatt Hotels, Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, Priority Club and Amtrak.

** For those just starting out with credit cards, the Chase Freedom card has been one of the easier cards to get approved, for those with no credit history, though it’s not guaranteed.

Applying for credit cards: All credit card offers can be viewed and applied for by clicking here or on the credit cards tab above. On the credit cards page, you can click on the “Credit Cards By Issuing Bank” link, to view all credit card offers offered by any specific credit card issuer. Just scroll down and click on the logo of the bank issuer of your choice.