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.

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.

I don’t know of a way to both easily and definitively discern whether a given merchant is in a bonus category, but my bills have been short and simple enough that I’ve been able to determine exactly which charges are given the 2% bonus.

For example, the monthly fee from my gym appears as “dining and entertainment” in the activity page, but it was nevertheless correctly awarded the bonus.

So just because something appears as, say, “Other” in the activity page, that doesn’t mean that it won’t be properly assigned to a bonus category.

Conversely, something labeled “Grocery” in the activity page will not necessarily be assigned to a bonus category.

In other words, the categories shown on the activity page are not a very useful guide for determining whether a given purchase will earn a bonus.

Merchants categorize themselves with credit card companies using a “merchant category code”, typically a 4-digit number. There are lots of those codes, reflecting a high granularity of categorization — much finer than the broad categories you see on the activity page or the broad categories defined by the Chase Freedom program. Those categories are essentially buckets of arbitrarily selected merchant category codes.

I believe the activity page categorization scheme is shared by all Chase card programs, predating the Chase Freedom program’s different category scheme.

My Chase Freedom (not Plus) statement clearly placed it in the Grocery category, and granted the 2% bonus.

Are you sure you got that right?