FPL chips explained
What the Wildcard, Free Hit, Bench Boost and Triple Captain actually do, and the situations where each one wins you the most points.
Chips are one-off boosts that let you break the normal rules of Fantasy Premier League for a single Gameweek. Used well, one chip can be worth twenty or thirty points over what you'd otherwise score. Used on autopilot, it's a wasted asset you don't get back.
There are four to plan around: the Wildcard, the Free Hit, the Bench Boost and the Triple Captain. You get a set to use across the season, and you can only play one chip in any given Gameweek. Here's what each does and when it's strongest.
Wildcard
What it does: unlimited free transfers for one Gameweek. You can rebuild your entire squad with no point hits, as long as your final team stays within budget and the usual squad rules (15 players, max three per club).
Crucially, the Wildcard is permanent — the new team you build carries forward. That makes it the tool for fixing structural problems, not chasing a single big Gameweek.
When it's strongest:
- Your team has drifted out of shape — too many players you'd need several −4 hits to move on.
- A run of fixtures swings hard for or against several of your teams at once. Load up on players with a green run on the fixture grid.
- Around a Blank or Double Gameweek, to line up as many playing (or double-playing) assets as possible.
Don't burn it early over one or two injuries — a couple of transfers usually fixes that. Save the Wildcard for when the whole squad needs surgery.
Free Hit
What it does: unlimited free transfers for one Gameweek only — then your team snaps back to exactly what it was the following week.
This is the opposite of the Wildcard. It's a single-week rental, ideal when one Gameweek looks nothing like the rest of your season.
When it's strongest:
- A Blank Gameweek, where several of your players have no fixture. Free Hit fields a full eleven that all play, then reverts.
- A big Double Gameweek you can't fully exploit with normal transfers, letting you pack the team with players who play twice.
- A one-week fixture where a cluster of cheap, in-form players all have dream matches.
Because the team reverts, you never have to worry about the long-term balance of the side you build — optimise purely for that single week.
Bench Boost
What it does: for one Gameweek, all 15 players score, not just your starting eleven. Your four bench players' points count too.
When it's strongest:
- A Double Gameweek, so all fifteen players ideally play twice.
- When your bench is genuinely strong — cheap players who start, not £4.0m keepers and non-playing fodder.
The mistake is playing Bench Boost with a weak bench. It's worth setting up a Wildcard a week or two earlier specifically to give every bench slot a nailed-on starter, then Bench Boosting. Points from a bench of non-starters are points left on the table.
Triple Captain
What it does: your captain scores triple points that Gameweek instead of the usual double.
When it's strongest:
- A premium, explosive player with a Double Gameweek — two matches at triple weight is the classic use.
- Failing a double, an elite forward or midfielder at home to weak opposition, ideally on penalties.
Look for ceiling, not safety. Triple Captain rewards a hauls-or-nothing profile — the player who might return fifteen, not the reliable seven. Our expected points projection is a good starting filter, but for this chip weight the upside heavily.
Planning them as a set
The golden rule: chips reward preparation. The managers who gain most don't decide on a Friday — they map their chips to the season's Blank and Double Gameweeks weeks in advance, then transfer towards each one.
A common shape is to hold your Bench Boost and Triple Captain for the Double Gameweeks that tend to appear later in the season, use a Free Hit to survive a Blank, and keep a Wildcard in reserve for whenever your squad structure breaks. You don't have to follow anyone's template — but you should always know, roughly, which chip is going where.
The planner is built for exactly this: you can stage transfers across future Gameweeks and see how a chip week comes together before you commit. Next, get to grips with fixture difficulty, since almost every chip decision is really a fixture decision.