Staples Success!

I’ve reported before that it should be possible to get 10 points per dollar buying gift cards at Staples.com.  Go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Staples.com and then use the new Chase Ink Bold credit card to make your purchases.  Multiple readers have reported success with this, but of course I had to try it myself.  This morning, points posted for purchases of both a Lands End card and a Visa gift card!  I don’t have the new Ink Bold (yet), so I can’t verify that you will get 5X for an office store purchase, but I don’t see any reason why that won’t happen.  In my credit card transactions, the purchases are correctly listed as being from Staples.

Ultimate Rewards Mall Predictions

Tomorrow is the beginning of February.  This is significant because some of the current Ultimate Rewards Mall offers were only promised to go until the end of January.  These include Staples (5X), Target (5X), HP (5X), and Drugstore.com (10X).

Starting tomorrow, I expect we’ll see some changes and some new offers.  Here are my predictions (without any basis in fact whatsoever):

• Staples.com will stay at 5X (maybe just my wishful thinking?)
• Target.com will decrease from 5X to 3X
• HP will stay at 5X
• Drugstore.com will decrease to 8X
• Sears will increase to 6X or 7X

What do you think?  Anyone want to offer up your own predictions?

I’ve written before about ways to leverage the OPEN Savings program that comes with American Express business credit cards.  For example, see Maximize points per dollar at Amazon.com and Triple dip shopping at Barnes & Noble.  Did you know, though, that MasterCard has a similar program?  If you have a MasterCard credit card for business (such as the Ink Bold), then you qualify for this program.

Easy Savings

Details about the MasterCard Easy Savings program can be found here.  Just like the American Express OPEN program, with Easy Savings you get cash back automatically when using your credit card at certain merchants.

For frequent travelers, it is notable that you get 1% back at many gas stations (through the Fuelman network), 5% back for car rentals at Budget and Avis, 5% back for Frontier Airlines purchases, 5% back at Wyndham hotels, and 4% back from any hotel in the Easy Savings hotel network.  For the latter, I checked my local area and found that the hotel list is quite broad and includes both Hilton and Marriott hotels among many others.

The Easy Savings website has a button for registering for the program.  I somehow received cash back from a post office purchase without registering my Ink Bold, but I’d recommend registering just in case.

Double, triple, quadruple dipping

One of the things that I love about this program and the Amex OPEN Savings program is that the savings stack automatically with any other discounts or rebates you can find.  For example, FatWallet offers 1.5% Mr Rebates offers 2%  cash back for booking Wingate Hotels by Wyndham through their site.  And, the Ink Bold offers 2 points per dollar for hotel expenses.  So, you can easily triple dip by using your Ink Bold through the FatWallet Mr Rebates website!  You will get 5% cash back from Easy Savings, 2% cash back from Mr Rebates, and 2 points per dollar from your Ink Bold!  Quadruple dip opportunities come when you have a special promo code, corporate code, or other discount that you can apply as well.

Win a Nook!

Reminder: Until Feb 14th, you can win a Barnes & Noble Nook Color simply by adding a comment to our ever growing story. Visit this page to participate!

Through the Ultimate Rewards Mall, Magazines.com currently offers 40 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent.  Ever since lovetofly reported on Milepoint that he partially succeeded in double dipping Magazines.com, I’ve been trying to find a way to turn that 40X bonus into 80X by buying and redeeming gift cards through the online mall.  Initially, both lovetofly and I partially succeeded: we received full points for our gift card purchases, but only half points for our magazine purchases (using the gift cards).

Double Dip RIP

I tried purchasing magazines with one year subscriptions (rather than the two year subscriptions originally purchased), then I tried purchasing magazines through a second portal, then I tried sending my wife a magazines.com gift card so that she could redeem it through the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  Unfortunately, all of these experiments failed.  I have consistently received 40X points for purchasing e-gift cards, but not since the first experiment have I (or my wife) received points for using gift cards.  So, I’m officially closing down the magazines.com double dip experiments.  Unless someone comes up with a new secret twist, I’m going to assume that the original double dip was a fluke or a bug that has since been fixed.

Still a Good Deal

Despite not being able to double dip, it’s worth noting that 40 points per dollar is an incredible bonus by itself.  Magazines.com will match competitor prices (hat tip to WillRunForMiles), so if you’re in the market for magazines, you don’t have to live with paying extra for those extra points.  If you’re interested in books, they carry those too.  Note that the terms and conditions prohibit getting points for books, but you can circumvent that very easily by buying yourself a gift card first, and then use that to buy books!

Buying Points

40 points per dollar is an interesting bonus amount because buying magazines.com gift cards is equivalent buying Ultimate Rewards points for 2.5 cents each.  2.5 cents happens to be the same price that Chase will charge to sell you points directly!  If you buy directly from Chase, you have the advantage of getting points instantly, but you are limited to 5000 per month.  If you buy indirectly through magazines.com you will have to wait up to a month to get the points, but there is no limit to how many you can buy.

Improving the Deal

If you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card, you will get an annual 7% bonus on top of any points received from the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  So, the 40 points per dollar becomes 42.8 points per dollar.  This translates into buying points for 2.3 cents each, which is less than Chase charges!  Next, if you use your gift cards to donate magazines and books to schools, libraries, or hospitals, you might be able to itemize these charitable gifts on your taxes and save as much as 30%.  If so, that would lower the purchase price all the way to 1.6 cents per point.  (Note: I am not an accountant so please do not take anything I say as tax advice!)

Analysis

If you’re in the market for magazines or books, I doubt you could do much better than this.  Go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall, and buy yourself a magazines.com e-gift card.  Then, go through the mall again to buy what you want (you never know, they might mess up and give you double credit!).  You will get at least 40 points per dollar, which is a terrific bonus.  At the fair trading price of 1.31 cents, a 40 point bonus is equivalent to a 52.4% rebate!

If you’re interested in buying Ultimate Rewards points regardless of whether you get books or magazines, this might be a good option for you.  No matter what, I wouldn’t recommend buying points unless your are sure you can redeem them at a higher value than what you paid.  If you need the points immediately, then your only choice is to buy directly from Chase.  If you don’t think you’ll need them for a while, I’d recommend waiting for better opportunities.  If you need the points soon, and can afford to wait as much as a month to get the points credited, then by all means jump on this opportunity! 

Win a Nook!

Reminder: Until Feb 14th, you can win a Barnes & Noble Nook Color simply by adding a comment to our ever growing story. Visit this page to participate!

The contest to Win a Nook continues! Until Feb 14th, all you have to do to enter is add a single line to the ever growing story. Yesterday, though, I announced an interim prize: a $20 Barnes & Noble gift card.

So, at 1:45 EST this afternoon, I found a total of 615 comments had been posted so far.  I then generated a random number from 1 to 615:

Entry 404, was written by Steelsnow who also happens to be the contributor of the Slow, but viable Perpetual Point Machine that I wrote about back in November!  Congratulations Steelsnow!  Look for an email soon with your $20 e-gift card!

More to come

To keep things interesting, I’ll do more interim contests as we slog along race towards Feb 14th.  In that way, every one of your contest entries will have multiple chances to win a prize!

Win a Nook!

Reminder: Until Feb 14th, you can win a Barnes & Noble Nook Color simply by adding a comment to our ever growing story. Visit this page to participate!

The contest to Win a Nook continues! Until Feb 14th, all you have to do to enter is add a single line to the ever growing story. Even better, you can enter the contest as many times as you’d like!

At the time of my writing this post, there are 520 lines to the ongoing Nook story!  In the previous update I summarized the adventures of TSA Special Operative Scott Scanner.  Since then, the story has continued to get crazier than before.  It’s so zany, I won’t even try to summarize it this time.  I will say, though, that there are many hilarious one liners and plot twists.  I‘ve found myself literally laughing out loud many times.  My favorite has to be the flying Hyatt that repeatedly circles the international date line to get more points (and, presumably, credit towards hotel elite status).  I know.. It doesn’t sound funny when I re-tell it… 

Interim Contest!

OK, yes, I’ll admit it: running a contest like this for 3 weeks is a bit long.  Too long.  Agonizingly long.  So, to break things up a bit, I’ll occasionally hold an interim contest!  Sometime tomorrow (Sunday) I’ll roll a 600 sided die to pick an interim winner who will receive, via email, a $20 Barnes & Noble Gift Card!  If the winner of the gift card happens to also win the Nook on Feb 14, then they can use it to buy e-books for their new Nook!  Otherwise, the winner of the gift card, can use the gift card to buy old fashioned books made out of trees (remember those?).

Win a Nook!

Reminder: Until Feb 14th, you can win a Barnes & Noble Nook Color simply by adding a comment to our ever growing story. Visit this page to participate!

Buy Hyatt points for 1.59 cents each and get top tier Diamond status in return!

Hyatt’s Q1 Promo and Diamond Challenge

You’ve probably already heard about the upcoming Hyatt promotion in which you can earn up to 55,000 bonus points for staying 16 nights at Hyatt properties between Feb 1 and April 30 2012.  In order to get the full number of points, you need to have the Chase Visa credit card.  I won’t go into the full details, but you can read more about it here and here.  On its own, I don’t find this promo that exciting because I don’t expect to be able to stay at a Hyatt for that many nights.  However, when combined with a Diamond Challenge, it suddenly becomes interesting!

I’ve been eyeing Hyatt’s Diamond status ever since I learned about its incredible benefits: four confirmed suite upgrades per year, free breakfast or club lounge access, late checkouts, and more.  I even contacted Hyatt to see about getting a Diamond Challenge in order to fast track to Diamond.  I received the following response:

Regarding your inquiry, currently a Diamond Trial Offer is available. You will receive trial Diamond membership for 60 days with proof of top tier status with one of our competitors program.  However, you must complete 12 nights in 60 days to maintain Diamond tier through February of 2013.  You will also receive 1000 bonus points on your first six eligible nights within 60 days, up to a maximum of 6000 bonus points.

I haven’t acted on this information yet, though, because I haven’t seen a time in the near future in which I could meet the terms of the challenge.  I don’t want to take the challenge if I can’t meet it!  I could, of course, “mattress run” by booking Hyatt rooms for no reason other than to meet this challenge, but that seems like much too big of an expense in exchange for status that I may or may not make much use of.

Analysis

The latest promotion makes me wonder if a mattress run makes sense after all.  What if I sign up for the Diamond challenge (to get instant Diamond status), then sign up for the Hyatt Visa credit card, and then use the credit card to pay for 16 nights at a local Hyatt?  Is it worth it?   I found a (somewhat) local Hyatt that I can get for $65 per night ($71 after taxes).  What if I book this hotel for 16 nights?  Let’s run the numbers:

• Cost = 16 X $71 = $1,136
• Hyatt Promo points earned = 55,000
• Diamond Challenge bonus points = 6,000
• Base points earned + 30% for Diamond Elites = 16 X $65 X 5 X 1.3 = 6,760
• Credit card points (3X) = 16 X $71 X 3 = 3,408
• Welcome point bonus = 500 (If I made 16 separate bookings I would get 500 X 16 = 8000 points, but I’m not going to do that)
• Total Points earned = 71,668
• Cost per point = $1,136 / 71,668 = 1.59 cents

Compared to the Fair Trading Price of 1.31 cents, paying 1.59 cents per point is a bit high, but it’s not outrageous since Hyatt points can be easily redeemed for much more than that.  Top tier Hyatt hotel rooms can be reserved for only 22,000 points per night so a room that would normally cost, say $600, would give your points a value of 2.7 cents each. 

Other benefits to this scheme come from the credit card itself.  Diamond members who sign up for the card receive two free nights in a suite at any Hyatt hotel!  So, when all is said and done, if I did this, I would end up with enough points for three nights at any Hyatt in the world and two nights in suites and four confirmed suite upgrades for paid stays and free breakfasts, etc.

I don’t know if I’ll really do this, but it is very tempting!  The main argument against it is that I’ve been applying for a lot of Chase credit cards lately and I was planning to take a break for a while.  Plus, I don’t yet have the new Ink Bold or the Freedom, both of which are extremely useful for gift card churning.  Hmmm. 

How about you: are you thinking of doing this?  Or, do you have a better scheme?  Let me know!

Win a Nook!

Reminder: Until Feb 14th, you can win a Barnes & Noble Nook Color simply by adding a comment to our ever growing story. Visit this page to participate!

Through a special triple dip with the Chase Ink Bold credit card, you can earn 20 points per dollar at Kohl’s and Sears!

In a previous post, I wrote about how to get 10 points per dollar using the Chase Ink Bold credit card (for more about this card, please see Preparing for Miles).  In this post, I’ll show how to turn that trick into a triple dip worth 20 points per dollar!

Step 1: Log into the Ultimate Rewards Mall and shop at Staples.com

By going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Staples you will earn 5 points per dollar from the mall and another 5 points per dollar when using your Chase Ink Bold credit card at Staples!

Step 2: Buy Gift Cards

If your goal is to shop at Kohl’s, then buy Kohl’s gift cards.  If your goal is to shop at Sears, then buy Lands End gift cards (which work at Sears).  With the exception of Visa gift cards, Staples does not charge any service fees or shipping charges for gift cards.  Use your Ink Bold for these purchases.  As described above, you will earn 10 points per dollar for this transaction! 

If you do not have an Ink Bold, another option is to use the Chase Sapphire Preferred.  You will get 5 points from the mall, plus 1 base point from the credit card, plus a 7% annual bonus.  In total, you will get 6.42 points per dollar using this card.

If you have both the Ink Bold and the Sapphire Preferred, then log into the Ultimate Rewards Mall with your Sapphire account, but make your purchases with the Ink Bold.  In this way, 5 of the bonus points will count towards your annual 7% bonus and you will increase your points per dollar to 10.35!

Step 3: Spend your gift cards online via an appropriate portal

Kohl’s currently offers 10 points per dollar through the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  So, when shopping for Kohl’s merchandise, go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Kohl’s and then use your gift cards to make your purchases.

Sears currently offers 10 points per dollar through the Aadvantage eShopping Mall.  So, when shopping for Sears’ merchandise, go through the AA mall to Sears and then use your Lands’ End gift cards to make the purchase.

With either of the above steps you will earn an extra 10 points (or miles) per dollar, for a total of 20 Points Per Dollar!

Win a Nook!

Reminder: Until Feb 14th, you can win a Barnes & Noble Nook Color simply by adding a comment to our ever growing story. Visit this page to participate!

The contest to Win a Nook is in full swing!  Until Feb 14th, all you have to do to enter is add a single line to the ever growing story.  Even better, you can enter the contest as many times as you’d like!

At the time of my writing this post, there are 317 lines to the ongoing Nook story!  While it looks like people are having a lot of fun with this, I realize that for newcomers it can be a bit daunting.  So, let’s catch you up on what has gone before:

On a dark and stormy night at the airport, a shot rang out. Fortunately, TSA Special Operative Scott Scanner was on the scene. An MD80 was found dead and thousands of people were left stranded due to 170 seats being no longer available. But that was just the beginning of the adventure! While Erin Foster wept for her dead tabby cat, Jack Bower joined the case! Leaving Jack and Erin behind, Scott boarded a plane for Zurich but mysteriously landed in Las Vegas instead!

While gagging on a bad apple, Scott ran to the nearest restroom. There he encountered a man with a cigar, who abruptly tipped over… dead! Scott noted that this would not have happened had the man signed up for free A Club platinum status, which apparently has the most valuable elite perk of all time: immortality!

Having a hard time with his latest assignment, Scott downed a few drinks before running into William Shatner who was now a zombie, having recently fallen to his death in a Priceline commercial. As improbable as this seems, William and Scott somehow transported to New York City in the blink of an eye. Scott realized that he had somehow broken the space-time continuum and had traveled through a parallel universe! Having had this revelation, it was not surprising when William Shatner disappeared to be replaced by Richard Branson and a glowing, levitating Randy Peterson! With their help, he made his way to the airport with the intention of joining the One World Mega DO, but then Richard Branson gave him a ticket to Necker Island.

Sure that this flight would lead him to solve the ongoing mystery, Scott boarded a plane headed to Necker Island. To his surprise, he was brought instead to Iceland! There, Jack Bower found him and  gave him a carnivorous Koala. Traveling through the space time continuum was clearly too much for Scott. Any tenuous hold on reality that he had before was now completely snapped! His mind imagined one strange inexplicable thing after another.  Repeatedly, he thought he had awoken from a dream, only to find himself in yet another dream…

What will happen next?  Will Scott regain his senses and continue the investigation?  Will Jack Bower ever be allowed back into Iceland?  Will the time-space continuum be repaired?  YOU can help decide!  Visit the contest page here: Write a Book, Win a Nook!

EARLY PRIZE: Many lines in the story so far have made me laugh.  My favorite, though, has to be the idea of A Club Platinum status conferring immortality.  See lines 68 and 69 in the story.  Steelsnow and Matt, as thanks for making me laugh, I’d like to give you each a free magazine subscription!  Go to magazines.com and find a non-auto-renewing magazine that you’d like and email me the info.

As you probably know, the new Chase Ink Bold business credit card is a great option for credit card churning.  It offers 50,000 valuable Ultimate Rewards points after spending $5000 in three months with no annual fee the first year (For more info, please see Preparing for Miles).  Beyond simply credit card churning, though, the Ink Bold is a great option for gift card churning:

Gift Card Churning

The Ink Bold will give you 5 points for every dollar spent on office supply stores, cable and wireless service, and landline communications.  The office supply store category is especially interesting because you can use your Ink Bold at office supply stores in order to buy gift cards for other types of stores and restaurants.  In that way, you can effectively get 5 points per dollar for virtually all of your purchases!

Double Dip

If you have the Ink Bold then you also have access to the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  Here you can get extra points for clicking through the mall to online retailers.  You can easily double dip with the Ink Bold by clicking through to office supply stores such as Office Depot, OfficeMax, and Staples.  In this way, you will earn 5 points per dollar from the Ink Bold for office supply purchases, and another 3 to 5 points per dollar from the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  Until the end of January, Staples is offering 5 points per dollar through the Ultimate Rewards Mall, so you can get a total of 10 points per dollar for all Staples purchases!

Staples.com

Staples.com is one of the few online merchants I know about that sells gift cards from other merchants.  Many stores have gift card racks in their brick and mortar stores, but not online.  The interesting thing is that not only does Staples sell these cards online, but several readers have reported that they have received Ultimate Rewards Mall points from buying gift cards at Staples.com.  This means that, by buying gift cards at Staples through the Ultimate Rewards Mall using your Chase Ink Bold credit card, you will earn 10 points per dollar for all purchases using those gift cards!  For your convenience, here is the list of cards currently available online:

Ironically, one gift card to be wary of is the Staples gift card itself.  It can only be used in-store and not online.  So, if you buy these, make sure you plan to make purchases in person!

NOTE: I haven’t yet confirmed this double dip on my own, but since Staples is likely to reduce their Ultimate Rewards bonus starting February 1st, I thought it was important to get this information out right away.  I have heard from more than one reader that it works.

Triple Dip

In a future post I’ll show how to take this trick a step further to triple dip for as much as 20 points per dollar!

Win a Nook!

Reminder: Until Feb 14th, you can win a Barnes & Noble Nook Color simply by adding a comment to our ever growing story. Visit this page to participate!

American Express has some of the most generous rewards cards available.  Some can be used to earn valuable, flexible points (e.g. Amex SPG, Premier Rewards Gold, etc.).  Others can be used to earn elite status as well (e.g. Delta Reserve, Hilton Surpass, SPG, etc.).  The only problem with Amex cards is that many merchants “don’t take American Express” (as Visa commercials like to say).  This can be especially frustrating when you’re trying to meet spending thresholds to get bonus points or elite status.

Here is a solution that not only puts the spend on your card, but saves you money as well!

The Business Card

First, make sure you have the business version of the American Express card and that it qualifies for OPEN Savings.  If you don’t already have such a card, consider signing up for one.  If you don’t have a business, that’s OK.  You can use your own name as the sole proprietorship business name, and your own SSN as the business’ tax ID. 

OPEN Savings

American Express business cards come with OPEN Savings which automatically give you money back for using your card with certain merchants.  You can see the list of merchants here.  Make sure to click through and read the terms and conditions since some have specific requirements about how much you must spend and whether or not it can/must be online.  The key to the trick presented here is that OfficeMax is one of the partners.  They offer 5% back on purchases of $100 or more.

Buy Visa Gift Cards

The trick here is simple.  Use your Amex card with OPEN Savings, in person, at an OfficeMax store.  At my local OfficeMax, they sell $200 Visa gift cards for $206.95.  You will get 5% back from this purchase, so your total cost will be .95 x $206.95 = $196.6.  Accounting for the $6.95 fee, you will have a 1.7% savings and a visa card that can be used in places that do not take American Express!

Spending

I’ll be the first to admit that carrying a bunch of Visa gift cards around can be a bit of a headache.  For example, how will you remember how much money is on each card?  Also, some places, such as gas stations, put a hold on a certain amount of money on your card.  This can cause more headaches: the transaction may be denied because the amount on the card is less than the hold amount; and/or future transactions can be denied because the hold sometimes takes days to clear and therefore makes it look like there is less money left on the card.  Another issue is that most gift cards can only be used within the United States.  That being said, with most merchants using Visa gift cards is a painless process.

Conclusion

As is pointed out above, this trick is not without its headaches.  However, if you need to increase your Amex spending, this could be a great weapon in your arsenal! 

Reminder: Until Feb 14th, you can win a Barnes & Noble Nook Color simply by adding a comment to our ever growing story.  Visit this page to participate!

This contest is now closed.  The winner is revealed in the final comment below.  Thank you for visiting my blog!

If you have read my recent adventures on EBay, you know that I have an extra Nook Color and I’ve promised to give it away!  I have to admit I’ve never used a Nook, but I’ve been impressed with its great reviews.  Even more, I really like it’s unique design.  There’s just something about that little corner cutout that makes it super appealing! 

The Contest

For a chance to win this Nook, all you have to do is add a comment to the bottom of this blog post.  Don’t add just any comment, though.  Let’s have fun with this!  Let’s write a story together.  Each person can write one sentence at a time to contribute to the story.  The story can be about anything.  You can write truth or fiction.  It can be exciting, funny, sad, or uplifting.  It can be about travel, miles, and points, but it doesn’t have to be.  It can be almost anything.

Double Dip, Triple Dip, Quadruple Dip, etc.

You can enter this contest as many times as you like!  Each new story sentence you add below counts as another entry into the contest.  There is one BIG RULE about this: you may not enter twice in a row!  What I mean is that before you can add another sentence to the story, you must wait for another reader to add their sentence.  Each of your entries must have at least one contribution from another reader between them. 

Valentine’s Day Deadline

I will keep this contest open for new entries until noon EST on Valentine’s Day (Feb 14th 2012).  At that point I’ll use my trusty computer to generate a random number from 1 to however many entries exist.  The person who wrote the comment that corresponds with the resulting number will be the winner!

Nook Delivery

If you win, I’ll ship the Nook to you anywhere in the continental US.  If you need it delivered elsewhere, we’ll figure out the best shipping option and I’ll contribute up to $15 towards it.  Or, if any of our travels overlap (Kiva DO anyone?) I’ll hand deliver it to you.

The Rules

• Enter as many times as you like, but no two entries can be consecutive.  There must be at least one entry from another person between each of your entries.
• No explicit language is allowed.  Keep it rated G.
• Don’t be mean! 
• Your sentences can be long or short.  Very short sentences are fine.  Please avoid long run-sentences.
• Do not try to game the system (by entering the contest with multiple aliases, for example).  If I suspect you of anything like this, you will be disqualified.  I reserve the right to disqualify anyone at any time, but I really don’t want to!
• Frequent Miler, his wife, and son are not eligible to win, but they are allowed to contribute to the story.  If one happens to win, a new random number will be picked until a valid winner is found.
• Have fun!

Nook Side Chat

• To enter the contest, comment below
• To discuss the contest, please visit the Nook Side Chat.

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