The original Chase Freedom stopped accepting new applicants back in late 2020, but plenty of long-time cardholders still carry it. One writer for The Points Guy, who has held the card since 2017, recently decided to product change his legacy Freedom into a Freedom Flex — and for travellers, the reasoning is worth understanding.
The clincher was the foreign transaction fee. The legacy Freedom charges 3% on purchases made outside the US, which quietly guts most of the card's headline 5% rotating quarterly bonus categories. For someone who has moved to Spain, that made the card nearly useless: groceries and petrol stations have been recurring bonus categories over the years, exactly the kind of purchases you make abroad. The Freedom Flex, by contrast, has now dropped its foreign transaction fee entirely, so those same categories can finally be used on overseas trips without surrendering 3% back to the bank.
The second nudge was an elevated earning rate. This quarter, the Freedom Flex is earning 7% back on dining (with activation), up from the usual 5%, capped within a shared $1,500 quarterly bonus limit. Chase has offered these 7% boosts on dining three times in recent years, so it's a recurring — if irregular — perk. The writer plans to stack that with the ability to convert cash back into transferable Ultimate Rewards points by holding a premium Chase card like the Sapphire Preferred, stretching the value well beyond plain cash back.
The switch itself took ten minutes on the phone with no new application. The catch: product changes don't earn a welcome bonus, and the Freedom Flex is currently offering one of its best in years — $250 cash back after spending $500 in the first three months. So the maths splits depending on your situation. If you're under Chase's 5/24 rule (few than five new cards opened in 24 months), applying fresh for the Flex may beat converting. If you're over 5/24 like the writer, a product change is the only realistic route in.
There are also reasons to hold fire. The legacy Freedom is a Visa; the Flex is a Mastercard, so it won't work at Costco. But wholesale clubs haven't appeared as a Freedom bonus category in three years, so that alone is a weak reason to keep the old card. And you don't have to choose: Chase lets you hold both. TPG's editor-in-chief does exactly that, running 5% groceries on the legacy Freedom and 7% dining on the Flex this quarter for a combined $3,000 quarterly cap and up to $180 back — or 18,000 points once transferred.
The short version for anyone who travels internationally on a legacy Freedom: the 3% fee was making a no-annual-fee card cost money abroad, and the Flex now solves that. If you can't qualify for a new card anyway, a quick call is an easy upgrade. Everyone else should weigh the welcome bonus before swapping anything.
