Chase Freedom Flex Q4 2025 categories focus more on travel, less on holiday shopping |

The Chase Freedom Flex® traditionally leans heavily into holiday shopping with its fourth quarter bonus categories. This year, however, travel is taking center stage.

From Oct. 1 through Dec. 31, 2025, the Freedom Flex will give an extra 4 percent cash back on up to $1,500 in quarterly spending on Chase Travel^SM bookings as well as purchases at department stores and Old Navy (in-person and online). Activation is required and spending beyond the $1,500 limit earns 1 percent cash back. In December, PayPal purchases will also be eligible for the elevated rewards.

In most of these categories, this means cardholders will earn a total of 5 percent cash back (up to the $1,500 threshold with activation). That’s because the Freedom Flex gives a standard 1 percent cash back, plus the 4 percent promotion on select spending that changes every three months. But Chase Travel purchases already earn 5 percent back with the Freedom Flex, so the extra 4 percent adds up to a whopping 9 percent back during the fourth quarter.

That’s most likely more than you could earn with any of the best travel credit cards.

Chase Travel purchases represent the most Q4 value

This boosted rewards earning might be enough of an incentive to get me to use Chase Travel in Q4. I have only used it once previously. I tend to shy away from third-party bookings, preferring to make travel reservations directly with airlines and hotels. It’s more streamlined that way, and third-party bookings don’t typically earn hotel rewards or elite status perks (although airlines do sometimes award frequent flyer miles when customers book through intermediaries such as Chase Travel, Expedia, Travelocity and so on).

It’s smart business for Chase to encourage more cardholders to use its travel portal, which is already one of the largest online travel agencies. But from the perspective of Freedom Flex cardholders such as myself, Chase Travel is a boom-or-bust inclusion on the Q4 calendar. Travel is a large but episodic spending category, unlike gas, groceries and Amazon.com, which were featured on the Freedom Flex’s bonus calendar earlier in the year. My family makes those kinds of purchases every week.

Booking holiday travel in Q4 is pretty late, so to take full advantage of this promotion, most customers will probably be better suited to consider reservations for Q1 2026 and beyond. In my case, I should think about Spring and Summer 2026, since I already have flights and accommodations set for my next two family trips (in December 2025 and January 2026).

Slim pickings aside from Chase Travel?

Trying to maximize this promotion outside of Chase Travel could be challenging for me and my family. For the past several years PayPal has been the centerpiece of our Q4 Freedom Flex strategy. From the card’s inception in 2020 through 2024, PayPal purchases earned 5 percent cash back throughout the entire fourth quarter. Only getting one month of elevated PayPal rewards this year is a significant loss from my perspective. And if I could only pick one of the Q4 months to get these elevated rewards, December would be my last pick, unfortunately.

Holiday shopping starts well before Black Friday

Like a lot of people, I tend to start my holiday shopping much earlier. About half of holiday shoppers plan to begin making their purchases before Oct. 31, according to Bankrate’s 2025 Early Holiday Shopping Survey. More than a third plan to start in November and only 14 percent will wait until December.

Those statistics represent when people plan to start, rather than finish, their holiday shopping. But as the season creeps earlier — highlighted by major retail events such as Target Circle Week and Prime Big Deal Days, which are both scheduled for early October — many, if not most, holiday shopping dollars are spent prior to Dec. 1. Thanksgiving weekend definitely isn’t the holiday shopping kickoff anymore. Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday have turned into mid-season events, perhaps even verging on the beginning of the final push.

I try to have my holiday shopping wrapped up around Cyber Monday, so unless I delay it because of the Freedom Flex promo (doubtful), I’ll have to come up with other ways to maximize my cash back earnings.

I don’t shop much at Old Navy or department stores

I’m not sure how helpful the Old Navy and department store bonuses will be for my family’s spending habits. We don’t tend to shop at Old Navy. In fact, I don’t believe we shop much at any of the stores that qualify for the department store category.

Amazon, Walmart and Target are not included, a Chase representative tells me. The terms and conditions specifically exclude “supercenters, discount stores, or specialty stores (e.g., stores that sell primarily one line of products such as shoe stores, pet stores, electronics stores, clothing stores), and online marketplace websites.”

What is included? “Merchants in this category generally have multiple departments which sell apparel, home furnishings, furniture, electronics, cosmetics, housewares, and major household appliances … Purchases made on a merchant’s website are included.”

If you’re not sure about a particular retailer, you might want to test a small purchase before putting too much potential department store spending on the Freedom Flex, since your desired 5 percent rewards might only be 1 percent if the merchant category code doesn’t align to your advantage.

Traditional department stores like Macy’s and Kohl’s seemingly count toward the bonus categories. We don’t shop there much, either, but I guess we could.

In fact, that change in behavior is kind of the point of these promotions. We’re seeing more card issuers dangling incentives such as these rotating quarterly categories, card-linked offers (such as Chase Offers) and various lifestyle credits (monthly, quarterly or semi-annual stipends for certain types of food delivery, rideshares, streaming services and so on).

Credit card rewards turned coupon books

My colleague Ana Staples captured this trend perfectly in her piece, “When did travel credit cards start turning into coupon books?” Ana nailed it with this description of The Platinum Card® from American Express:

If you’re trying to offset the annual fee with statement credits, the card will dictate where you spend. You’re to shop at Walmart regularly. Your gym is Equinox. Even digital entertainment credits only apply to Disney+, a Disney+ bundle, ESPN+, Hulu, The New York Times, Peacock and The Wall Street Journal [note: Paramount+, YouTube Premium and YouTube TV were later added]. Only subscribed to Netflix and Spotify? You’re out of luck.

We see this trend throughout the industry, including the Q4 Freedom Flex categories. The list is great if you shop regularly at Old Navy, and stores such as Macy’s and Kohl’s as well. Probably not so much if you’re more loyal to Walmart or Amazon. And Old Navy’s sister brands Gap, Banana Republic and Athleta are specifically excluded, per the terms and conditions.

Increasingly, credit card rewards programs are emphasizing a narrower set of brands that pay to be included (as a form of direct response marketing) and, as a result, this whittles down the list of potential rewards opportunities for you, the cardholder.

The bottom line

I achieved the coveted “perfect year” in 2024, maximizing all the Freedom Flex’s quarterly bonus categories. This year, I fell quite a bit short in Q2. With a few days remaining in Q3, it’s going to be a close call this time around, and I don’t really know what to expect in Q4.

If future family travel plans align, I might have the chance to maximize the Chase Travel category in a single transaction (my family of four could easily spend $1,500 on a travel booking). But I’m not sure we have an upcoming trip that lines up with the promotion, in which case my normal holiday shopping habits probably won’t be enough to close the gap.

My fallback option could be to use PayPal throughout December. Even if my holiday shopping is done by then, I could use it at a local grocery store — although I have done that in the past and found it more than a little clunky.

It’s also okay if I don’t maximize every set of quarterly selections. As nice as it is to earn an extra $75 per quarter by hitting all the bonus category spending thresholds, the last thing you want to do with any rewards strategy is to overspend or carry a balance. I do my best to maximize credit card rewards, but I’ll only go so far beyond my normal routine.

Have a question about credit cards? E-mail me at ted.rossman@bankrate.com and I’d be happy to help.