SECRET Chase Freedom 5% in June + 5 FREE Nights Hotel Card Bonus

In this video, I want to cover a secret surprise 5% category on the Chase Freedom Flex only for the month of June. Then we have the Discover 5% categories for the next quarter revealed. We have a 30% transfer bonus from American Express to a certain airline. And we also have a five free night welcome bonus on a certain hotel credit card, too. Hey credit warriors, welcome to the show. My name is Ben Hedges, aka the credit shifu. And on this channel, we cover US credit cards and how to earn points and rewards for free travel as well as personal finance topics. If you like the sound of that, please subscribe. But otherwise, let's get into it. And this video is brought to you by Mumu, but more on that later. All right, so first up, let's talk about this extra 5% category for the Chase Freedom Flex in the month of June. Now, if you don't know, the Chase Freedom Flex is Chase's very popular no annual fee rotating category card where you can earn 5% back, which is also transferable into five points back per dollar on $1,500 in spending per quarter in certain categories that change each quarter. Okay? We call them rotating quarterly categories. Now, the categories for the second quarter of 2025 are Amazon.com and select streaming services. Now, if you're like me and you also have the Amazon card from Chase, well, that already gets you 5% back on Amazon, so it's not really that great of a category on the Chase Freedom because you're kind of doubling up. Yeah, I know technically the Chase Freedom Flex earns points, so it could be worth more if you're redeeming of points, but if you're looking for cash back, it is the same. But to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the 5% rotating categories on this card, Chase is offering this year and this year only an additional 5x category for the last month of each quarter. And for June, which is the last month of the second quarter of the year, that category is internet, cable, and phone services. Now, okay, I don't know how much spending people have in that category. I'm guessing it's going to be maybe $100 to $300 total per month maximum, but I guess it's a little extra bonus. All right. And just remember, this category is included in the $1,500 total limit. So, if you already spent $1,500 on Amazon in the first two months of the quarter and streaming services, then you would just be earning 1% on this category since you've already surpassed the limit. But if you haven't done that, you can use this category to hopefully max out that $1,500 limit. And the extra category runs for the whole of June. All right, let's move on to the Discover 5% bonus categories for quarter 2 of 2025. Now, the Discover it cashback card is very similar to the Chase Freedom Flex with rotating quarterly categories. Discover used to release all its categories for the year at the beginning of the year, but more recently, they've started releasing info on each quarter's categories about a month before the quarter starts. I guess they probably figured out it was a good way to get people talking about it and some free media attention from people like me. Anyway, Discover is owned by Capital One now, too, by the way. Okay, just putting that out there. If you want to learn about that, we have a video looks like this. I'll put it on screen at the end of the video. And that acquisition just happened a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, let's take a look at the discover categories for quarter 3, and they are gas stations, EV charging, public transit, and utilities. Now, it's always great to have 5% on gas, but personally, I only spend maybe $250 to $300 a month on gas. So, that wouldn't max it out. I'd be at about $900 in spending. But you also have utilities, which is a rare category, and I definitely have a few hundred more dollars per month in utility spending. So, even though I don't have this card, if I did, I would probably max out the categories this coming quarter. All right, let's now move on to the MX transfer bonus and the five free night welcome bonus on a certain hotel card. But first, I know you're watching this video because you are savvy with your money and you want to get value out of your spending. Well, that is why I have partnered with Mumu, an investing app that is delivering some great value for new customers who sign up. They are offering five free stocks when you open a new brokerage account and deposit $100, 25 free stocks if you deposit $2,000, and 60 free stocks if you deposit $5,000. 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So if you are an experienced investor or you're just getting into it right now with the instability in the market over tariffs, there could be many dips to buy and Mumu could be a great investing app to check out. Get up to 60 free stocks and 8.1% APY on your uninvested cash with my link below. All right, let's now look at this transfer bonus from American Express to a certain airline, and that would be British Airways. So, if you don't know what a transfer bonus is, it just means that when you transfer AMX points out to the airline, you get a bonus percentage. In this case, it's 30%. So, for every,000 AMX points you transfer, you get 1,300 British Airways AIOS in your BA account. And actually, it isn't just BA. Heirlingus and Iberia also have a 30% bonus, although they use the same points currency. And if you transfer to BA, you can actually transfer out to those two airlines anyway and actually to Qatar Airlines as well. So, you could maybe book a trip on that new luxury plane that Trump is getting from Qatar. Okay, just kidding. It's not bookable, but it does look beautiful inside if you like lots of gold. But anyway, if you found award availability through BA for a flight that you want to take, whether that's on BA or any other One World Alliance airline like American Airlines, this is a great time to transfer. Or if you're experienced already at using BA AIOS and you know that you will have a use for them in the future, then it could also be a great time to transfer, too. 30% is a really good bonus. The highest I've seen is 40%, but 20% is more common. So 30% definitely respectable. The bonus is running until July 15th, 2025. So, you have a month and a half if you want to take advantage of it. All right. Now, for our final story of the day, and that would be the five free night offer on the IHG Premier card. Now, this is for five free nights, each worth 60,000 IHG points when you spend $5,000 in purchases in your first 3 months. So, that is equivalent of 300,000 points. According to the points guy, IHG points are worth 1 cent each. So that's $1,500 in value. Now, the only slightly negative thing about this is that these free night certificates cannot be topped up with extra points from your account to stay at a slightly nicer hotel. So a hotel like the Intercontinental, the Warf in DC that I stayed at last year would be just slightly out of reach at 63,000 points a night. But if you were going to DC, there would still be some pretty cool hotels within reach, like this Kimton Hotel Monaco, which looks really cool for 50,000 points a night. Or there's also this Kimpton Hotel George. So anyway, in my opinion, it is still a good deal, and Chase says that it is their best offer of 2025 on this card. Just don't expect to be able to book their very top-of-the-line hotels. Now, the Premier card does have an annual fee of $99, although it gets you a load of cool benefits like IHG Platinum Elite Status that's got me free upgrades before. But if you are looking for something with no annual fee, the IHG Traveler card also has an increased welcome bonus right now of $120,000 points for spending $2,000 in your first 3 months. If we use the Points Sky valuation of 0.5 cents per point, that is $600 in value, which is actually very good for a no annual fee card. So, if you're not so loyal to IHG or if you're looking for something with no annual fee, so less commitment, this card could be for you. Both are limited time offers. I don't know when they will end, but get them while you can. All right, guys. That is the video for today. Don't forget to get up to 60 free stocks and 8.1% APY on uninvested cash with Mumu down in the links below. Please subscribe to the channel if you're new, and we'll see you in the next video. Bye-bye.