Chase Just Added NEW Pay Yourself Back Categories for Q3 2026!

In this video, I want to talk about the new Chase Pay Your Back categories that have just gone live this quarter three of 2026. There are some new categories this quarter, some returning favorites, and depending on which Chase card you have, you may be able to get more value out of your ultimate rewards points without having to book a flight. We'll go through every Chase card that got updated, the redemption rates, and at the end, I'll tell you which cards got the best deal and whether I actually think these things are worth using. Hey, Credit Warriors, welcome to the show. My name is Ben Hedges, aka The Credit Shoofoo, and on this channel, I cover US credit cards, personal finance, and luxury travel. If you like the sound of that, please subscribe, but let's get into it. So first, a quick refresher. Pay Yourself Back lets you redeem points against purchases you've already made instead of redeeming for cash back, booking through the Chase travel portal, or transferring points to airlines and hotels. You simply erase eligible purchases from your statement. Now, the categories change every quarter for most ultimate rewards cards, and Chase has just released the quarter three lineup, which runs through September 30th. Let's start with what is probably the most interesting card, and that would be the Chase Sapphire Reserve. If you have the Sapphire Reserve, qualifying charitable donations continue at 1.5 cents per point, which is the highest Pay Yourself Redemption Rate Chase offers, but it's also probably the least used category. I mean, I'm not calling people ungenerous, but come on, like, you're accumulating credit card points to get extra value for yourself. Are you just going to give them away to charity? I don't know how many people are actually doing that. Your annual fee can also be erased using points, but at 1.25 cents per point, and you know, that's a pretty good use of them, in my opinion, if you're not going to redeem them for travel, right? If you have a surplus that you really don't need, you don't really want to sit on like 500,000 points, you know, maybe paying the annual fee could be one way to use some of them. But the big addition this quarter is that gas stations and public transit have been added as eligible categories, redeemable at 1.2 cents per point. Personally, I think that's actually a pretty useful addition, especially since gas prices have not fully recovered yet back down from the Iran conflict. All right, let's move on to the next card, the Chase Sapphire Preferred. Now, over on the Sapphire Preferred, charitable donations remain at 1.25 cents per point. Your annual fee can now be erased at 1.1 cents per point, okay? But those aren't the only eligible purchases. This quarter, Chase has also added pet supply stores and veterinary services, also redeeming at 1.1 cents per point. Not the broadest category, I know, but I actually personally have several cats, so I could take advantage of this. And finally, public transit qualifies at 1.05 cents per point. That is a really useful one, but barely above what you get for redeeming for cashback anyway. So, you know, I'm not really going to give them that much credit for that since you could just redeem the points for cashback and use it for public transport. You're getting just a tiny little bit more value with this. All right, moving on to the Freedom If you've got a Freedom Flex, Freedom Unlimited, or the original Freedom card, there's really no surprise this quarter. The only elevated pay yourself back category remains qualifying charitable donations, redeeming at 1.25 cents per point through September 30th. Oh, our favorite category, right? Giving to charity. The same is true for the new Sapphire Reserve business card as well. Let's now talk about the Ink business cards. For Ink business preferred card holders, qualifying charitable donations continue at 1.25 cents per point. Again, the useful business category this quarter, though, is shipping plus internet cable and phone services, which redeem at 1.1 cents per point. This one makes a lot of sense because these are recurring expenses that many businesses already have every month. Meanwhile, the Ink Cash, Ink Unlimited, and Ink Premier card holders only receive the charitable donation category at 1.25 cents per point. What about Chase's airline and hotel cards, you may ask? Those aren't changing this quarter because most of them now have ongoing pay yourself back benefits. So for example, Aeroplan card holders, you guys can continue redeeming points towards eligible travel purchases and your annual fee at 1.25 cents per point, up to 200,000 points or $2,500 per year. Dining, grocery stores, and gas stations continue redeeming at 0.8 cents per point, although Target and Walmart and wholesale clubs are excluded. And you know, 0.8 cents per point, I wouldn't do that if I were you. Although these are different, they're not Chase points, they're Air Canada Aeroplan miles, but still less than 1 cent per mile. It's a bad redemption. United card holders continue getting one of the better ongoing benefits. You can raise your annual fee at between 1.35 and 1.5 cents per United mile, depending on which United card you have. While United airfare purchase directly from the airline redeems at 1 cent per mile. Southwest card holders can also continue to use pay yourself back towards their annual fee within 90 days of the charge. And there are a couple more co-branded cards that have this benefit, but the value gets less and less as we go on. So they're not really worth mentioning, but in general, and especially for the ultimate rewards, earning cards, are these worth using? Well, here's my opinion for Sapphire reserve card holders. I actually think the gas station category is the biggest winner this quarter. Everyone buys gas and redeeming at 1.2 cents per point is a nice little option. If you don't have travel planned, Sapphire preferred additions are a little more niche. So if you're a pet owner, great. But if you're not, then realistically your only everyday option is going to be public transit. And the rate on that isn't very high with all that said though, I don't think pay yourself back should be your first choice for ultimate rewards, points, redemptions. They added it during the pandemic because people weren't really doing traveling. Okay. So that was the whole point of this feature. They've continued it on, but it's severely nerfed. Okay. Compared to what it used to be personally, I would still rather transfer points to hired British airways, good quality transfer partners like that, or just find good travel redemptions through the travel portal using the points boost feature, which can get you up to 2 cents per point, depending on which car you have. But you know, not everyone wants to spend hours searching for reward availability. So if you are sitting on a large balance of ultimate rewards points, and you'd rather reduce your monthly expenses than book travel, these new categories can give you another option. Anyway, guys, I'd like to know what you think in the comments below. I will also put the links to some of these chase cards below as well. If you're interested in signing up for any of them, it does really help me out. If you use my Sapphire preferred also currently has a limited time 100,000 point welcome bonus for you to check out two links are below. If you enjoyed this video, don't forget to give it a thumbs up, subscribe. He knew we'll see you next time. Bye.