Will The 5% Cash Back Through Chase Freedom Work on Purchasing Gift Cards at Nordstrom?

Oct. 06, 2013

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4 min read

Will The 5% Cash Back Through Chase Freedom Work on Purchasing Gift Cards at Nordstrom?

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TPG Twitter follower Alexander is looking to take advantage of Chase Freedom's 5% cash back bonus at select department stores in Q4 (The Chase Freedom is no longer open to new applicants):

"Will the 5% cash back through Chase Freedom work on purchasing gift cards at Nordstrom?"

Greetings from Madrid, everyone! I am currently at the Radisson Blu Hotel Prado, which is one of the new properties that I'll be reviewing shortly, so stay tuned!

Alexander is asking about one of the best overall benefits of the Chase Freedom card, the 5X points you earn at a rotating list of merchants or merchant categories each quarter up to a cap of $1,500.

As a reminder, Freedom’s 5X spending bonuses are one of the best ways to rack up bonus Ultimate Rewards points using your Chase Freedom Visa or Freedom Mastercard. The only downside is the $1,500 quarterly cap ($6,000 annually). That’s still a potential total of 30,000 Ultimate Rewards points annually, which is pretty lucrative for a card with no annual fee. You can activate your Chase Freedom card category spending bonuses for the fourth quarter of 2013.

To earn even more points or miles, go through an online shopping portal.

Whenever you make a purchase from one of these stores, the credit card company has no way of knowing exactly what you are buying, so as long as there is a purchase from one of the following department stores, you will get the 5X bonus points. To maximize your points earnings, you can even try to buy the gift cards online through one of the online shopping portals and earn even more bonus points that way. For example, right now, Nordstrom.com is offering 5 points per $1 through the Ultimate Rewards portal if you have a Sapphire Preferred, Ink Bold or Ink Plus.

So you could potentially earn a whopping 10 Ultimate Rewards points per $1 on your purchases. I value Ultimate Rewards points at 2 cents apiece, so in my estimation, that's like getting 20% back on your spending. Sometimes shopping portals prohibit gift card purchases but some do allow it.

I'd always recommend trying to buy gift cards through one of the online portals if you were going to get it in the store anyway. You might as well try to bank those extra portal points!

List of major department stores included:

JCPenney
Kohl's
Macy's
Nordstrom
Sears
Bloomingdale's
Dillard's
Loehmann's
Lord & Taylor
Neiman Marcus
Saks Fifth Ave and Off 5th

List of Shopping Portals:

Air Canada: Aeroplan EStore
AirTran: A+ Rewards Mall
American: AAdvantageEshopping.com
Amtrak: Amtrak Guest Rewards
Chase: Ultimate Rewards Shopping
Choice Rewards: Choice Privileges Mall
Citi: Thank You Shopping
Delta: Skymilesshopping.com
Discover: ShopDiscover
Frontier: Early Returns Mall
Hawaiian Airlines: Hawaiian Airlines eMarket
Hilton HHonors: Hilton HHonors Shop to Earn Mall
Marriott Rewards: Shop My Way
Mastercard: Mastercard Marketplace
Priority Club: Priority Club Shopping
Southwest: Rapid Rewards Shopping
United: Mileageplusshopping.com
US Airways: Dividend Miles Shopping Mall

Happy shopping!

Featured image by Earn 5% cash back at department stores this quarter.

Editorial disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airline or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.