This December, earn 5% or 5 points per dollar with the Chase Freedom Card through PayPal

The most wonderful time of the year is almost here: the holidays are here and we’re checking off our gift lists for our loved ones. For rewards card lovers, now is also the easiest time of year to earn 5 points for every $1 spent.

Ready to learn how? Let’s dive into what Chase Select cardholders should know.

Earn bonus points using PayPal on the Freedom Card

In December, PayPal once again served as a traditional Chase Freedom* and Chase Freedom Flex® (See Rates and Fees).

Now through December 31, cardholders can earn 5% cash back on purchases up to $1,500 via PayPal (activation required) in one of the easiest categories ever to maximize.

However, if you carry multiple Chase cards, i.e. Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (see rates and charges) or Chase Sapphire Reserve® (See Rates & Fees) – Your cash back is unlimited. Chase allows those who have both a Freedom or Freedom Flex card and a Sapphire Preferred or Sapphire Reserve card to convert cash back earned with the Freedom family of cards into transferable points. So, for the month of December, the 5% cash back you earn on PayPal purchases becomes up to 5 points for every $1 spent.

*This card is no longer available to new applicants. Chase Freedom’s information is independently collected by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

Related: 4 Reasons I Recommend the Chase Freedom Flex to Beginners

Where can I use PayPal?

When shopping online, PayPal is often a checkout option, even at major retailers that accept credit cards directly.

Whether you’re checking out online at Home Depot, Nordstrom or Target, or want to top up your Starbucks balance, PayPal is often a payment option. Some brick-and-mortar stores now also accept PayPal as a payment method.

As a simple example, if you place an order from Target.com, select Edit payment options and then select PayPal and the linked Chase Freedom or Free and flexible card. Then, you can earn 5% cash back (or 5 points per $1 spent) as long as you activate the bonus before December 14th.

Example: Pay taxes with PayPal

TPG credit card contributing editor Matt Moffitt recently used PayPal to pay his quarterly estimated taxes through Pay1040. He paid $1,474 in taxes and fees with his Freedom card, plus a $26 fee, for a total of $1,500.

Because he still holds Sapphire ReserveFreedom’s cash back earnings can be converted into Ultimate Rewards points — in this case, 7,500 points worth $154 based on TPG’s December 2025 valuation.

After fees, the net profit is about $128, which is an easy way to maximize your winnings if you inevitably need to accept PayPal to pay your bills.

Can you earn reward points for person-to-person transfers through PayPal?

What about other PayPal options, such as sending money to other people?

Details on Chase’s website state, “Person-to-person (P2P) transactions made on PayPal using your Chase Freedom Card may not qualify for the 5% discount.”

In the past, these trades have sometimes been treated as bonus triggering events in our testing. However, keep in mind that unlike checking out through a retailer’s online website, when you send money to a friend or the like, you’re usually the one paying the PayPal fees.

In the past when this bonus category came up, I refunded $120 to a friend via PayPal. There is a fee of about $4 to send money, and I earned about 620 points through Freedom.

Because I have it too Sapphire Reservebased on TPG’s December 2025 valuation, those 620 points are worth about $13 — far more than the $4 fee I needed to earn them.

If you don’t have a premium Ultimate Rewards card, points earned on Freedom are typically worth 1 cent each, which would make those earnings worth about $6.

The reward is still about $2 more than the fee itself. But even if you don’t need to send money to friends, you can often use PayPal to checkout at hundreds of online retailers at no additional cost and still earn 5% cash back (or 5 points per $1 spent).

Related: The Power of Chase Trifecta: Maximize Your Earnings with 3 Cards

bottom line

The biggest challenge with rotating free bonus categories is keeping up with them, since they change every three months. The PayPal category didn’t start until earlier this month. However, maxing it out is still easy.

You can set an eligible Freedom card as the default card in your PayPal account and check out that method when shopping online through the end of the year.

If you do this and there’s a heavy online shopping pattern during the holidays, you should maximize your rewards categories for the quarter immediately.

To learn more, read our full review of Freedom Flex.

Apply here: Chasing freedom and flexibility