New 4th Quarter 5% Rotating Cash Rewards Credit Cards

Posted by Madison on September 24, 2010

Some of my favorite cash rewards credit cards now offer cash back on a rotating quarterly schedule.

Since we’re winding down 3rd quarter, it’s time to do our planning to maximize your cash rewards for fourth quarter (and holiday spending!) to make sure we’re carrying the right cards and know where to use them.

Happy Free Money Friday!

5% Cash Rewards Credit Cards for 4th Quarter

Chase Freedom. My Chase Freedom card was collecting dust for awhile, but over the summer it was my first choice card because of the 5% on gas, airlines, and hotels. It looks like I’ll be keeping it out for the fall, especially for groceries! The 4th quarter Chase Freedom 5% categories are:

  • Grocery Stores
  • Department Stores
  • Movies

Discover More. With 3rd quarter winding down, so will the 5% on grocery stores from Discover More. Although, this will be a great one for holiday shopping with the inclusion of department stores and clothing stores for 4th quarter. The 4th quarter Discover More 5% categories are:

  • Restaurants
  • Department Stores
  • Clothing Stores

Gas Purchases. With the new schedules, the next question is where to charge gas now? Since none of the rotating cards are offering 5% on gas this quarter, I’ll go back to using our TrueEarnings Card from Costco and American Express for gas at 3% (4% for businesses).

Target Purchases. Target just announced they will be giving a new Target 5% discount when you use the Target credit card. So I’ll put that one in my rotation too!

Debit Card Purchases. If you use a debit card, you can get the PerkStreet 5% Cash Back Bonus during the holidays.

Everything Else. The rest of our purchases will fall to our Schwab credit card or Fidelity Credit Card for 2% cash back.

How to Get Your 5% Cash Back

Here’s how I take advantage of the rotating cash back programs, and keep them straight!

  1. Sign up for all of the new quarterly cash back programs, even if you don’t know if you’ll use that card. To sign up, just log in to your account online and select the 4th quarter 5% cash back information. In order to earn the 5%, you have to enroll in each program quarterly.
  2. Write which categories to use each card for using a marker on the front of the card. I used to do this just for my husband, but now with everything changing each quarter, I do it for my own cards too… and it works really well!

Sign Up Bonus Offers

All of the 5% cash rewards cards I’m using this month are also running sign up bonus offers. So it’s a good time to get them if you don’t have them already; if you apply now, you should be able to get them in time for the 4th quarter 5% cash back:



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