Chase Card Adds 5x in THESE Categories + Last Chance for $175 in Amex Credits

Hey, Credit Warriors, welcome to the show. And we have the Chase Freedom quarterly categories for the next quarter for you. Chase has added 5 percent slash 5x points on two really useful everyday categories. Then we have a brand new travel credit card that just launched. And it is your last chance to use up to one hundred and seventy five dollars worth of Amex credits before they reset at the end of this month. We'll tell you which ones in just a moment. Hey, Credit Warriors, welcome to the show. My name is Ben Hedges, a.k.a. the Credit Shifu. And on this channel, I cover U.S. credit cards, personal finance and luxury travel. If you like the sound of that, please subscribe. But let's get into it. And this video is brought to you by Silo, the brokerage where you can earn credit card style points on your investments. They've just launched a new entry level plan and double the points earning caps. But more on that later. All right. So Chase Freedom categories. I currently have the Freedom Flex and the Chase Freedom, the old one, which isn't available to new applicants anymore. But you can product change to it. And both of these cards offer rotating five percent or five X points quarterly categories where you can earn five X on one thousand five hundred dollars worth of spending for the quarter. The categories so far this year have been Norwegian Cruise Line, dining and the American Heart Foundation in quarter one. So dining really was the only one that mattered in quarter one since the other two were super niche. Then in quarter two, we had Amazon Chase Travel and Feeding America. Then gas transit, EV charging and United Way, another charity in quarter three. And that's this quarter's categories are at quarter three. And here's my progress at maxing out the categories through gas spending. I'm about halfway on the Freedom Flex and about 20 percent of the way there on the freedom. So not the best, but we still have about half a month to go. So maybe even though I'm not going to buy loads of extra gas just to max it out. Right. There's no point doing that. There may be some other things that I need anyway. Actually, I guess I could buy gas in gas cans and then use it next month. I mean, that is a way I could do it, I guess. But there may be some other things from gas stations, you know, the little supermarkets that are at gas stations that still code as gas that I could get maybe some gift cards or something. All right. Now, the categories for quarter four are not public yet, but I phoned Chase and the rep gave me the categories. He said that they would be announced on September 16th. So he probably wasn't supposed to tell me, but he could actually see them in my account on the back end of the site that he has access to. So he just told me them. So let's now look at what this Chase rep says are the categories for quarter four. So apparently the categories for quarter four are grocery, excluding Target and Walmart, dining and the American Red Cross. Now, if this is true, these are solid categories and it will be easy to totally max them out on my two cards. That's two times seventy five dollars to one hundred and fifty dollars in cash back, also convertible to 15000 points, which has even more value. I have actually phoned them up before and found out the categories from a phone rep and it was the real information. We've only seen dining once this year and we've not seen grocery yet. So it makes sense that we would see grocery again. Having dining again is maybe a little bit unusual and having dining and grocery at the same time, you know, in the same quarter is a little bit more unusual. So that just makes me slightly suspicious. But even though I'm a little bit surprised, I doubt the phone rep would make it up. OK, you'd kind of be risking your job in that case. So he would probably just say that he couldn't tell me if he really couldn't tell me. Anyway, if he did make it up, you'll see a video on that tomorrow. Remember, you have two weeks or so until the end of the month to max out the old categories and you will be able to activate the quarter four categories, I believe, from September 16th. All right, guys, let's now move on to a new travel credit card that just launched. And then after that, we'll talk about some Amex credits that are about to expire. But first, over the past year, you've probably heard me talking about silo, silo, silo, silo, silo, silo. Well, there's a reason for that. It is the investing platform that enables you to earn points on your stocks. It's like what Bilt has done with earning points on rent. But for investing this month, they launched two big updates that make the platform much more useful and accessible. The first is Blue Rewards, a new entry level plan that costs just ninety five dollars per year. That's the same annual fee as a mid tier credit card. It lets you earn half a point per dollar each year on up to a fifty thousand dollar portfolio that works out to as many as twenty five thousand points per year paid monthly. Silo have just launched their travel portal where you can use silo points to book travel at one cent per point with over 300 airlines and hotel chains. It's a really cool interface and makes searching and booking travel an absolute breeze. In my opinion, the booking experience is better than most big banks. Not naming any names. This is all in addition to up to five hundred thousand points on your portfolio balance each year and an up to two hundred and fifty thousand point welcome bonus in the first year. So a total of potentially seven hundred and fifty thousand points in your first year. That's their Labor Day bonus, and it's only available until the end of the month. So if you want to check out their new blue plan and earn points on your portfolio that you can use for free travel, you can click my link in the description or go directly to silo markets dot com slash Ben to get started today. All right. So Navy Federal Credit Union has just launched a brand new mid tier travel credit card, and the points earning rates on this card are pretty impressive. It is called the Navy Federal Flagship Premier Visa Signature Card, and this is actually Navy Federal's first metal credit card. If you care about metal credit cards in twenty twenty six, they're everywhere these days. I just got the ex debit card and it's made of metal. Doesn't even have an annual fee. Anyway, this card has a ninety five dollar annual fee. But right now there's a welcome bonus of fifty thousand points. That's worth five hundred dollars after spending four thousand dollars in your first 90 days. That offer does have a public end date, and it is currently scheduled to expire on January 3rd, twenty twenty seven. Now, the earning rates on this card are where it gets really interesting. You get four points per dollar on travel, three points per dollar on dining and one point per dollar on everything else. And that travel category is pretty broad. We're talking about airlines, hotels, cruises, vacation, rentals, campgrounds, RV parks, rental cars, ride share, parking tolls and ferries. And importantly, you don't have to book through a travel portal to get that four X. You can book directly. The value of the points is one cent per point, and there are no transfer partners where you might get more value. So it is just a fixed value with this one, I'm afraid. So that 50,000 point bonus, like we said, is worth five hundred dollars. And that four X category is equal to four percent back. But this is great for a ninety five dollar annual fee card. However, you might not even end up paying ninety five dollars because you also get a one hundred dollar airline statement credit every year after spending at least one hundred dollars on eligible airline purchases. So if you're going to use that anyway, that credit alone can theoretically offset the entire ninety five dollar annual fee. There's also up to one hundred and twenty dollars toward a global entry or TSA precheck every four years, plus a complimentary three gigabyte gig sky global mobile data plan valid for up to 15 days after activation. I assume that's every year. And the old version of the card actually did have this. So it's not something new. But there is one big catch with this card. You can't just go into Navy Federal and apply. You have to qualify for Navy Federal membership first. That includes active duty military, plus reservists, veterans, retirees, etc. Then there are some other broader eligible applicants like DOD employees. Actually, I guess it's DOW now, Department of War. But DOD just rolls off the tongue, right? Government employees assigned to the DOD installations qualifying DOD contractors. Then even immediate family and household members can qualify to. Or even if you just live with someone who is a member, you can actually be eligible. They're just giving it away now. Right. But if you have no connection with the military or with existing members, there isn't an easy go around with this one, like with some military credit unions where you can just join an organization that supports our troops for like $15 a year or something. I went through the whole eligibility process and actually, unfortunately, I wasn't eligible. So anyway, if you are eligible, especially if you're in the military, thank you for your service. And this card may be a good option for you. You also need to open a Navy Federal membership savings account and maintain at least $5 in it to establish and maintain membership. And there is currently an upgrade offer where if you upgrade from flagship to flagship Premier, you can get 10 points on travel up to 15,000 points in the first 90 days. All right, guys, let's now move on to some Amex credits that you need to use before the end of the quarter. So the end of this month. So we're coming to the end of the quarter. Summer is over. Fall is here. Pumpkin spice lattes are everywhere. And that means one thing for Amex Platinum members. There are two credits expiring the Lululemon credit, which is $75 for the quarter and the Resi credit, which is $100. Let's take a look now at how I did with these two credits in quarter three of 2026. I spent $64 worth of the $75 Lululemon credit. I don't think I'll max it out totally, but 64 out of 75 is pretty good. And that was all spent upgrading my wardrobe in ways that were sorely needed anyway. New underwear, new socks. So I count that as a win. And then you can see here that I spent all of my $100 Resi credit for the quarter as well. So if you haven't used those yet, hurry up and use them. The Lululemon credit can be used for anything on Lululemon's website or in store. Personally, I really like using it on the We Made Too Much section on their website, since you get stuff that's about 30% off. So the credit goes even further. Then for the Resi credit, pretty much any Resi restaurant will do. There are now a few that don't qualify for the credit, but Amex tells you on their site which ones do qualify. So it's good to check, but it's the vast majority of them do qualify for the credit. You do not, however, have to book through Resi. You just go to the restaurant and pay with the Amex Platinum. All right, guys, that is the video for today. Don't forget, if you want to check out their new blue plan and earn points on your portfolio that you can use for free travel, use my link silomarkets.com slash Ben to claim your last chance to get up to 250,000 bonus points. Please subscribe if you're new. And we'll see you in the next video. Bye bye.