The Chase Trifecta: What makes it the most appealing card strategy for racking up CUR points

One of the reasons for Chase being so highly regarded in the credit card business is mainly its points system, chase ultimate rewards points (CUR points for short) are especially valuable because of the flexibility that you have with them and the added value you get when transferring to travel partners, this makes these CUR points some of the best points currency out there, now, with these points being so highly coveted, people started to form different strategies with chase cards, thus the birth of the famous Chase Trifecta, this strategy consists of a build of three chase cards that can help you rack up and absurd amount of points by taking advantage of each cards traits, this makes it easier to get points back for every dollar and get your free hotel stays or airfare tickets faster. Now, what cards make up the Chase Trifecta, well the truth is that there are various versions of the trifecta but today we will talk about the most common one, which doesn't have high annual fees between cards and can still get you a good amount of points if you know how to take advantage of their respective cash back or points categories.

The cards that make up the trifecta that we're going to talk about are the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Freedom and Chase Freedom Unlimited, each one of these cards has their own role to play in this system but before we get into more detail we'll first have to talk about which categories give you cash back on both freedom cards and the sapphire card. If you read our article on the Chase Sapphire Preferred then you're already aware of what categories give you the most bang for your buck on that card which is 2x back on the travel and dining categories, now, the Freedom card is kind of tricky because it doesn't glue itself to a certain category for too long, meaning that this is a card that changes the categories that you can get cash back from throughout the year, the freedom gives you a hefty amount of cash back (5%) but it its only on quarterly rotating categories, what this means is that the categories where you can get that 5% back change every three months throughout the year, let's say that from January through March you can get that 5% cash back on pharmacies, after those three months pass the category will change and you won't get that 5% back on pharmacies anymore but you will get it on gas stations from April all the way through June and so on, the only two cons on this is that if you're looking to get the 5% back on a specific category you won't be able to do so, the other con being that you have to activate your cash back categories manually every three months, on the other hand, the Freedom Unlimited is a much more simpler card, the freedom unlimited is what is known as a flat rate cash back card, what this means is that this card will get you 1.5% cash back on every purchase no matter the category, this is pretty self explanatory and is a great card for people who don't want to be attached to a certain category.

You're probably asking how is it that these cards work with each other to get the most out of your spending, well the main thing that needs to be pointed out is the difference in cash back or rewards on each card, the sapphire gives you 2x back on travel and dining, the freedom gives 5% back on rotating quarterly categories and the freedom unlimited gets you 1.5% back on any and every purchase. The way to effectively use these cards together is pretty simple, the two that will be working together the most is the sapphire and freedom unlimited, the objective is to use the sapphire for travel and dining and the freedom unlimited for any other purchase not related to those two categories, now, where does the freedom fit in with these other two, well the freedom card will be used to get the 5% cash back on the categories that the card has running at that time, now lets say that the category that is currently running on the freedom is 5% back on restaurants, in that case we won't be using our sapphire card on that purchase because the freedom will be giving you 3x more than the 2x that you normally get with the sapphire, now lets say that the freedoms currently running category is 5% back at amazon online, then you would use it for that purpose and keep using the sapphire for travel and dining and the unlimited for any other purchase that isn't travel, dining or amazon related, be it gas or supermarkets etc. This is the most effective way to use the trifecta, use the sapphire to get your 2x back on travel and dining, the freedom to get the 5% back on the specific categories for that quarter and the unlimited for every other purchase that doesn't fall under the other two cards categories. Use this strategy that way that it is meant to be used and you'll be racking up points like a pro for your next vacation.