Good morning everyone, happy Wednesday.  We are almost halfway through Q3 (July 1 – September 30), so I thought it would be fun to check how my Chase Freedom Credit Card Q3 restaurant spending was going.  Like the old disturbing saying goes, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”  The same is also true with Chase.  I will show you how to calculate your Q3 restaurant spending using the Chase Blueprint tool and the Chase Ultimate Rewards Dashboard.  Both have pros and cons, but taken together, they provide a very detailed answer to these questions: “How much have I spent at restaurants this quarter and how much more do I need to spend to maximize this bonus category?”  Let’s start with Chase Blueprint.  Log into your Chase online account, scroll down to your Chase Freedom Credit Card and click the Go to BLUEPRINT link.

Then click See Spending in the Track It box.

Then click the Restaurants link under the Categories header.

Click on the various bars in the bar chart to see the qualifying transactions.  Here are the charges from my last few statements.

It is equally interesting to see which purchases posted in other categories.  For example, a gelato shop and coffee shop coded as grocery stores, my breakfast at a restaurant inside a Marriott hotel coded as travel, and frozen banana desserts coded as other.

That concludes the Chase Blueprint tool.  Now, let’s check out the Chase Ultimate Rewards Dashboard.  Go back to your Chase online account, scroll down to the Chase Freedom Credit Card and click the Go to Ultimate Rewards link.

Then scroll down and click on the Review More Activity link.

The Cash Back Rewards summary is pointless for our purpose, so keep scrolling down.

The Most Recent Activity table is very helpful because you can immediately see which transactions did and did not earn bonus points.  The transactions from the Chase Ultimate Rewards Dashboard match perfectly with the Chase Blueprint tool.

I copied the above table into a spreadsheet, removed the non bonus transactions and calculated how much I had spent at restaurants in Q3.  So far in Q3, I spent $805.84 and earned a total of 4,029 Chase Ultimate Rewards.  Both figures represent 54% of the maximum quarterly spending, so I are right on track.

Beneath the Most recent Activity table, there is another mostly-useless 5% Cash Back Categories section.

There you have it, now you can find out exactly how much you have spent toward Q3 restaurant spending using the Chase Blueprint tool and Chase Ultimate Rewards Dashboard.  Are you close to maxing out your restaurant spending?  Have you already maxed out your spending this quarter?  If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.  Have a great day everyone.