Comments on: Merchant categories on Chase Freedom statement

By: Yan

Yan — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 20:05:11 +0000

I recently tried to cancel my Citibank Divident MasterCard but the rep offered me 5% on all Grocery & Gas purchases for 1 year and so I kept it and now use it for all my groceries and and gasoline purchases

By: Alison

Alison — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 19:01:26 +0000

I have been extremely frustrated by this very problem.

Every grocery store I have shopped at has been categorized as “other.” These include Jewel, Pick ‘N Save, Sentry, Whole Foods, Gerbe’s (Kroger) and Wal-Mart.

Since groceries are my biggest monthly credit card expense I wish there was something I could do to change this. Does anyone know if there is someone at the stores we can contact about having them change the category they registered with?

By: mantis89

mantis89 — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:52:50 +0000

Sorry,

http://visa.via.infonow.net/locator/usa/supplier/

You may have to go to this site first.

By: mantis89

mantis89 — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:50:35 +0000

I found a way to find the Merchant Category Codes (MCC) for locations that Visa uses to categorize your rewards. Go here: http://visa.via.infonow.net/lo.....dAction.do

You can search by location name where you live and it will pull up a list of those locations along with the MCC that they use.

I hope this helps.

By: Lee

Lee — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:59:01 +0000

Each merchants bank assigns the merchant a code called a Merchant Catergory Code (MCC). The MCC code must be within one of the bonus earning catergories to earn the 2% bonus. So basically it all depends on what code the merchants bank gives them at processing.

By: Chad

Chad — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 04:39:06 +0000

If you shop online I strongly suggest you go to ChaseRewardsPlus.com and sign in with your Chase username and password. If you have more than one account,then select which card account you want to shop with and then browser the over 400 online merchants for extra cash back and other special offers. For example, I bought a TV from Vanns.com recently and earned another $38 in Chase Rewards just by clicking on the button from the Chase site before checking out at Vanns.com. I've seen rewards up to 10% back or 10 points per dollar spent. Combine the discount with the other automatic 1% to get your total discount.

By: Chad

Chad — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 04:32:23 +0000

Evelyn – please read the comment from Jake above. He sounds like he works for Chase and I happen to know Chase very well…so just trust the comments I’m sharing if you don’t follow his comment. Your statement should have a bonus earning amount each month and should say which of the 15 bonus categories you have spent in during the activity period. Chase does not have the ability currently for these unique categories to be applied to the Freedom account. So you will see a lot of OTHER next to items that could be a rewards category. My previous comments explained the logic – and again – just trust me. Note that not all stores qualify for the extra 2% bonus rewards. For example, HomeDepot is a discount store. It is the responsibility of the store or merchant to report the transaction properly to Chase as well. The following text was taken from chasefreedomnow.com – Purchases not eligible to receive the 2 bonus points include, but are not limited to, purchases made at superstores, warehouse clubs and discount stores. Online and catalog purchases are not eligible to receive the bonus points unless the merchants have correctly identified and billed the transactions.

By: Evelyn

Evelyn — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:56:03 +0000

I’m not sure why nobody else seems to have reported this, but I have never been able to earn 3% on anything since getting the Chase Freedom card in October 2007. We live in California and all of our purchases are showing as (Other). We use our card mostly for groceries at Safeway, Lunardi’s, Molly Stones and Trader Joe. None of these stores seem to qualify. Home Depot and Pet Smart also show as “Other”. When we asked customer service to supply us with a list of which stores are honored in their rewards categories, we received a vanilla form letter (no answer at all).

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 20:37:05 +0000

Hi, I just wanted to let you know that most of the vendors on your list qualify for greater than 2% bonus if you shop through the rewards program online. This is probably why they are not recognized when you shop in store. For example, I believe Dicks Sporting goods actually gives you 5% bonus (1% base 4% bonus) if you shop through the online chase rewards portal and use your card.

PS. I just upgraded to the Plus program and the CSR told me that the cash version is automatic credit every month, so I took the points one, hoping that the 20000 points fo $250 cheque deal still applies.

By: John F.

John F. — Tue, 06 May 2008 21:33:07 +0000

The discrepancy between the activity categories and the rewards categories isn’t unique to the Chase Freedom program. We’ve had 4 other Chase cards with 4 different rewards category definitions for several years.

Since Chase hasn’t done anything over the years to bring the activity categories into line with the various rewards programs, I’m inclined to think that doing so either isn’t a high priority, or that they don’t really regard it as a “kink” to be worked out.

For all I know, the various rewards category groupings were developed independently by different teams at Chase, without consultation with each other, with each category painstakingly defined with a unique selected list of merchant category codes. It may not be a simple project to rationalize all of those categories defined in disparate programs, so that the activity categories exactly match each of category reward schemes.

Alternatively, Chase could display the reward categories in the activity page instead of the same activity category definitions for all programs. But that could get complicated, and they’ve been doing these reward cards for years without feeling the need to do so.