How I earned almost $80 in points back on a $180 purchase

Beyond welcome bonuses, points and miles aren’t always the easiest to earn. That’s why I advocate for stacking your card’s earning rates with shopping portal bonuses and other promotions whenever you can.

That’s exactly what I did recently when I purchased three tickets for my parents and me to see the Portland Timbers while they were visiting. The total charge was about $180; if I’d paid with a card earning just 1 point per dollar spent and skipped the other offers, I’d have earned only 180 points.

But by paying close attention to my Chase Freedom Flex®’s (see rates and fees) quarterly categories and promotions offered by Rove and Paze, I was able to walk away with just shy of 4,000 points (or over $75 in value back). Here’s exactly how my earnings break down.

Freedom Flex live entertainment quarterly category

For Q3 2026, the Freedom Flex offered select live entertainment as one of its rotating 5% quarterly bonus categories (activation required; on up to $1,500 in combined quarterly category spending per quarter).

Despite being marketed as a cash-back card, the Freedom Flex actually earns Ultimate Rewards points. That means my earning rate for live entertainment purchases in Q3 was effectively 5 points per dollar spent, since I have an eligible card that allows me to convert my Freedom Flex rewards into fully transferable points.

On its own, this category earned me about 900 points, a solid haul considering I’d earn only 180 points during quarters when live entertainment isn’t offered. Still, while planning my purchase, I knew I could do better.

I’ve been a big fan of Rove over the past several months, using it for a variety of events and travel bookings. Rove offers members the opportunity to earn Rove miles, which are transferable to over 20 airline and hotel partners. This includes partners that aren’t offered by any credit card loyalty programs, such as Frontier Miles and Lufthansa Miles & More.

It’s free to join. Rove has its own travel booking portal, but for this particular purchase, I focused solely on its shopping portal. At the time, Rove offered 6.5 miles per dollar spent on StubHub purchases.

By booking my tickets through StubHub, I earned over 1,100 Rove miles. An unfortunate downside to shopping through Rove is that your miles often take an extended amount of time to post, which isn’t uncommon with shopping portals. I’m still waiting for my miles to land in my account, which Rove indicates could take until early December.

Don’t forget to start your purchase in the Rove app, on Rove’s website or via its browser extension. If you’re using the browser extension or accessing Rove via desktop, make sure all other shopping portal browser extensions are disabled.

With my decision to book through StubHub, there was one more way I could make my purchase work for me: Paze.

Checking out with Paze

Currently, eligible Chase cardholders can earn 10 additional Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent when checking out with Paze at select merchants (through Dec. 31). StubHub is among those eligible for this promotion, meaning I could triple-dip on my purchase.

Checking out with Paze instead of the standard StubHub checkout process earned me roughly 1,800 additional points.

Using Paze at checkout is easy. You should be able to select it as a payment method on your eligible merchant’s checkout screen, just as you would with a digital wallet or credit card.

One technical snag to note: I wasn’t able to get Paze to work on mobile, but it worked on the first try on desktop. My transaction didn’t say anything about Paze, so don’t fret if the same is true for you. My points posted with no problem after a few days, but I recommend screen recording your purchase as proof if you’re worried.

My total earnings

To summarize, here’s how my earnings and their value broke down in the end:

*Valuations are according to TPG’s November 2026 valuations and are not provided by credit card or program issuers.

This is why my Freedom Flex stays in my wallet

My Freedom Flex is one of my oldest cards, but I still pull it out regularly, thanks in large part to strategies like this. While Chase’s Paze promotion isn’t limited to this card, the Freedom Flex is the only Chase card currently open to applicants that offers rotating 5% quarterly bonus categories.

Live entertainment reliably appears as a quarterly category every year, so I expect I’ll be able to replicate this strategy (or a similar one) in 2027.

The more credit cards you open, the harder it becomes to find new welcome bonuses to earn. With welcome offers being the main way to earn heaps of rewards at once, it’s important to have other ways to earn points and miles when that well starts to dry up.

Knowing how to maximize your purchases, especially larger ones or those you’re splitting with friends or family, will help you maintain a large rewards balance even when you’re not actively applying for new credit cards.

If you’re currently not a Freedom Flex cardholder, you can apply and, upon approval, have the chance to earn $250 cash back (or 25,000 bonus points) after spending $500 on purchases in the first three months of account opening. That’s one of the easiest welcome bonuses to earn right now, but this offer ends soon.

If you hold an eligible Ultimate Rewards card, such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (see