This Chase Card Is Giving New Members Double Cash Back for a Year

Have you ever looked at a Discover credit card and thought, "Boy, this welcome offer of double my rewards for the first year is pretty cool, why don't other issuers do this?!"

Ta-da! I bring you the Chase Freedom Unlimited® and its latest welcome offer.

The offer

For a limited time, you can get yourself a new Chase Freedom Unlimited® card with a double cash back offer. Chase will match all of the cash back you earn in your first 12 months, automatically, after you hit your anniversary.

As an example, let's say you earn $100 cash back in the first year of using your card. At the end of that year, Chase will give you another $100 in cash back. But what if you earned $500 in cash back your first year? Yep, that's right, you'll get an additional $500 in cash back after your 12 months are up.

How does this offer compare to the standard welcome offer? Typically, this card's welcome bonus is $200 for spending $500 on your card in the first three months. This means you'll need to earn at least $200 in cash back during your first year for the match to be worth what you'd get from the normal offer.

What does that mean in real numbers? To earn $200 in cash back using only the base 1.5% cash back the card earns, you'd need to spend $13,333.33 on your card during the year.

The possibilities

"The possibilities are unlimited."

As Chase says, there's unlimited possibility in this offer; that is, there is no limit to how much cash back you can earn. And while Discover's marquee deal is on its line-up of rotating category cards, the Chase Freedom Unlimited® doesn't have changing categories -- or caps on cash back for those categories.

Indeed, you'll earn the following: Enjoy 5% cash back on travel purchased through Chase Travel, our premier rewards program that lets you redeem rewards for cash back, travel, gift cards and more; 3% cash back on drugstore purchases and dining at restaurants, including takeout and eligible delivery service, and 1.5% on all other purchases.

Now, these bonus rewards categories are, I think, the key part of what could make this offer valuable to some folks. Like I noted above, if you're only earning the base 1.5% cash back, it can take a lot of spending to earn a decent bonus.

But, what if you're planning a vacation? Maybe you book your travel through Chase for 5% back. Then you go to the drugstore for sunscreen and sudoku books at 3% back. And then you use your card at all the restaurants you visit, also earning 3% cash back. You could accumulate some pretty decent cash back from your overall trip.

And that's just one trip. Add on dining for the year, other types of travel, and just general spending that you want to earn 1.5% back on, and you could get a decent return from this bonus.

If you really want to maximize your potential return here, though, you'll want one of these Chase cards:

• Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
• Chase Sapphire Reserve®

When paired with the Chase Freedom Unlimited®, these Sapphire cards let you pool your Ultimate Rewards points. Then, you can transfer them to an airline or hotel partner and redeem for free travel. Using this path, you could easily earn $0.02 or more per point, giving you twice the return for your rewards than you'd receive by redeeming for cash back alone.

The fine print

As you may expect, there's a bit of fine print to be aware of with this card offer. To start, you may not even see this particular card offer depending on what links you use. Welcome bonuses tend to vary by source.

Then, there's this (from Chase): "This product is available to you if you do not have this card and have not received a new cardmember bonus for this card in the past 24 months."

What this means is that if you already have a Chase Freedom Unlimited® card, you can't earn this bonus. It also means that you can't get this offer if you had a Chase Freedom Unlimited® and earned the welcome bonus for it within the last two years.

Another thing to keep in mind? The Chase 5/24 rule. Essentially, Chase won't approve your application if you've opened five or more new card accounts in the past 24 months. And no, it doesn't matter if they're not Chase accounts -- any new personal credit cards will count toward this limit.

Does your card history disqualify you from this offer? Don't sweat it too much. Given how much you'd need to spend (and earn) with this card to maximize the offer, most folks would be better off with a standard sign-up bonus.

Indeed, even if you can qualify for this credit card offer, consider if your upcoming spending will actually make sense with this offer. If you don't have big non-category expenses, a big trip (or two), and/or a ton of dining out planned for the next 12 months, you may not earn enough cash back to get a worthwhile match.