As far as I can tell, nothing has changed.

Yesterday, a number of ads on the Ultimate Rewards Mall site said that the deals were “valid through Feb 28th” so I speculated that there might be changes afoot. Well, now the same or similar ads say “valid through March 6th”. I think the marketing team asked for and got a one week extension.

A day or a week?

Besides the “valid through March 6th” deals, other deals say they are valid through Feb 29th, so we’ll see if anything changes tomorrow. Otherwise, we’ll wait and take another peek on March 7th.

A possible change

One thing I noticed that might be new is Bloomingdales at 6X.  Does anyone know for sure?  Have you spotted anything new?

Last year I signed up for the Delta Reserve credit card and went on my first ever pure mileage run in order to get to Delta’s almost-top-tier Platinum status.  Getting to Platinum status requires 75,000 MQMs (Medallion Qualifying Miles).  It’s not as impressive as Diamond status (which requires 125,000 MQMs), but it’s pretty darn good. 

My favorite benefit is the ability to change or cancel award tickets for free up until 72 hours prior to a trip.  With this benefit, my approach to booking travel has completely changed.  I used to wait until I was 100% sure of a particular trip before booking flights because I never wanted to risk the hefty change fees that would be incurred if plans changed.  The problem with that approach was that often the best flights and best prices would be gone by the time I got around to booking.  Now, however, if I’m simply considering a trip, I log into Delta.com, find the best award travel prices I can find, and I book it.  There’s no risk!  If I later find a better deal, or change my plans, I simply rebook the miles.

Here are just a few of the ways I’ve already taken advantage of this Platinum status perk:

• In planning travel to the Kiva DO in March, I accidentally booked my flight to LA instead of to San Francisco!  No worries, though: when I discovered the problem, I simply logged on, canceled the original flight, and booked a new one.  No fees.
• Over Christmas, my mom had a flight scheduled with a layover in Chicago.  Predictions of bad weather had us worried that her flight might be cancelled so I booked her an alternate direct route on Delta using miles, just in case.  Within 3 days of her flight, weather forecasts were looking better, so I cancelled the award ticket.  No fees, and her original flight was fine.
• In planning our summer vacation, I found low level award business class tickets to Paris, returning from Amsterdam.  Even though I wasn’t 100% sure the dates would work, and even though I might want to add additional legs to the flight, I went ahead and booked it, knowing that I can freely make changes as needed.  In the past I would have deliberated for weeks about the trip, most likely until the award seats were no longer available.

Higher Value Awards

In the past I’ve tried to ensure that I get at least 2 cents per mile value when redeeming miles.  For details, see: “When is an award flight a good deal?”  However, with the Platinum benefit, I can’t directly compare award flights to lowest cost paid flights because award flights are fully refundable (up to 72 hours before the flight).  So, now, instead of looking for 2 cents per mile value, I’m happy with 1.5 cents.  And, in cases where my travel is really unsure, I’ll go even lower.  The freedom and lower stress involved in booking refundable award tickets is, to me, a huge benefit that is worth paying miles for.

Keeping Elite Status

The irony in all of this, is the dilemma it causes.  Now that I have a taste for Platinum benefits, I can never go back!  However, the more I use the benefit, the fewer MQMs and redeemable miles I earn from flying (because you do not get miles from flying on award tickets).  My solution is to spend ridiculous amounts of money on my Delta Reserve and Delta Platinum Amex cards.  Between the two, I can earn 50K MQMs and 160K redeemable miles from absurd amounts of spending.  The final 25K MQMs needed to maintain Platinum will come from paid flights (I will still do some of those!) and hopefully some Delta promotions.  In the past Delta has often run promotions where people can earn MQMs from staying in certain hotels, transferring points from Membership Rewards, etc.  I expect we’ll see more opportunities like that in the future.  And, if I get to the end of the year and still don’t have enough MQMs, I’ll be back to mileage running.  Yes, I value Platinum that much.

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I’ve made a bit of a game out of trying to predict Ultimate Rewards Mall changes.  For examples see here and here.  Well, there is some reason to believe we’ll see some changes in the mall tomorrow.  For evidence, see the screen capture below showing multiple offers that supposedly expire today:

I said “supposedly expire” because it has happened in the past that expired promotions have continued on at the same rate, but we’ll see.  Anyway, below are my predictions.  We’ll score it like this: I get half a point for being directionally correct (e.g. the extra points go “down”, “up”, or “stay the same”) and another half point for exactly guessing the new point awards.  Here goes:

Frequent Miler’s Predictions

• OfficeMax will go down to 3X (from 4X)
• Staples will stay at 4X
• Sears will go up to 5X (from 4X)
• Kmart will go up to 5X (from 4X)
• Lands’ End will go down to 4X (from 5X)
• Barnes & Noble will stay at 10X
• The Body Shop will stay at 5X
• Target.com will stay at 3X
• Drugstore.com will stay at 5X

Leap Year Mistake?

According to my calendar, tomorrow is February 29th.  I’m betting that the “Feb 28th” expiration is a mistake and that the real changes will be made on March 1st.  Someone forgot about leap year!  If we don’t see any changes tomorrow, then we’ll keep my above predictions ready for March 1st.

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My failed Drugstore.com experiment revealed a nice deal.. 

The Experiment

Last month, drugstore.com offered 10 points per dollar for purchases made through the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  I was tempted to try to double dip by buying drugstore.com gift cards and then using them in order to get to 20X.  I didn’t try it, though, because of the terms and conditions:

However, I noticed that Beauty.com and Drugstore.com are the same company and that Beauty.com gift cards are available for extra points in the Ultimate Rewards Mall:

My hope was that I could get 15X by buying Beauty.com gift cards for 5X and then spending them through Drugstore.com for an additional 10X.  So, I bought a $50 Beauty.com gift card by going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall, and then I spent it by going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall (and a few other portals). 

Well, I did get 5X points for the gift card purchase, and I now get lots of Beauty.com emails that I really don’t need, but none of the drugstore.com purchases using the gift card resulted in any points or cash back.  I tried the Ultimate Rewards Mall, Big Crumbs, Aadvantage eShopping, and BeFrugal.  None of these purchases resulted in additional points or cash back.  I now think that the Drugstore.com T&C statement “Not eligible on gift cards” means “not eligible on purchases made with gift cards.”  I’m guessing that buying gift cards at Drugstore.com probably will result in points from the Ultimate Rewards mall.  Currently, though, Drugstore.com is down to 5X in the Ultimate Rewards Mall so there is no advantage to buying gift cards through Drugstore.com as opposed to Beauty.com, but it might be a good experiment to run in case Drugstore.com goes back to 10X.

The Triple Dip

Drugstore.com and Beauty.com offer an automatic double dip:  when you make purchases, you are automatically given 5% back in the form of “Drugstore.com dollars” that can be used in the future.  The surprising discovery was that I was given Drugstore.com dollars for both the purchase and the use of the Beauty.com gift card!  In other words, by first buying a gift card and then using the gift card, I got 10% back to be used for future purchases!

Obviously this won’t help you much if you just want to make a single purchase, but if you regularly buy from Drugstore.com (or Beauty.com) you can maximize your savings by doing the following:

Step 1: Go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Beauty.com to buy gift cards.  Currently you will get 5 points per dollar.

Step 2: Use the gift cards to buy what you need.  For most items you can get free shipping by putting at least $25 of items in your cart or by using your ShopRunner membership if you have one.

Step 3: Make sure to use your drugstore.com dollars when they become available and before they expire.

If you follow the above steps, you will get a 10% rebate on your Drugstore.com purchases, free shipping, and 5X Ultimate Rewards! 

Note: some products are mysteriously not available for free shipping.

Happy shopping!

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Here are ways to ease the pain at the pump. 

Last month I published ways to maximize points per dollar at Amazon.com.  Now, with gas prices rising through the roof, it’s time to look at what we can do to ease the pain at the pump.  There are quite a few really good options, but each depends on which credit cards you carry.  If you carry a card that automatically gives extra points for gas station purchases (such as, for example, the PenFed Platinum Rewards Card at 5X), then you may already be maximizing your savings.  Otherwise, read on:

Blue Cash Preferred:

This card already gives 3% cash back for gas purchases, but you can do better!  Since the card gives 6% cash back for grocery purchases, you can go to your local grocery store to buy gas gift cards and receive 6% cash back!  Even better, if you shop for gas cards at either Giant Eagle or Kroger grocery stores, you can earn additional gas discounts through their rewards programs!

Chase Freedom:

In the first quarter of 2012, gas stations and Amazon.com are the 5X bonus categories for the Chase Freedom card.  As long as you register for the promotion, until the end of March gas station purchases will be rewarded with 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar, up to $1500 for the quarter.  After the first quarter, not all is lost.  Take a look at the Freedom’s bonus category chart:

• Q1 (January – March): Gas stations and Amazon.com
• Q2 (April – June): Groceries and movie theaters
• Q3 (July – September): Gas stations and restaurants
• Q4 (October – December): Hotels, airlines, Best Buy and Kohl’s

Q1 is already covered.  In Q2, note that groceries are on the list.  Many grocery stores carry gas station gift cards.  So, from April to June, rather than using your Freedom card at the gas station, go to your grocery store to buy gas gift cards.  In Q3, gas stations return to the bonus category list so you can go back to using the Freedom card directly at gas stations.  In Q4 you may be out of luck unless you can find gas gift cards at Best Buy or Kohl’s.

Chase Ink:

The Chase Ink Bold, Ink Classic, and Ink Cash cards offer 5 points per dollar for purchases at office supply stores.  So, using your Ink card, visit an office supply superstore such as Office Depot and load up on gas gift cards.  Note that I’ve seen gas gift cards at Office Depot, but not at OfficeMax.  I haven’t looked yet at Staples. 

American Express Business cards

Most American Express business cards give you American Express OPEN Savings.  This means that, for purchases at certain merchants, you get money credited back to your account.  One example is OfficeMax in which you receive 5% back for purchases of $100 or more.  If you can find gas gift cards at your local OfficeMax then you can save 5% on all gas purchases!  Note, though, that my local OfficeMax does not appear to carry gas gift cards so this may not be possible unless the OfficeMax near you carries them.

Other Cards

If you hold a credit card that offers bonus points in certain categories such as groceries, drug stores, office supplies, etc., then check to see if your local stores carry gas gift cards.  Find a store that qualifies and use your card to load up!

Icing on the Cake

Many gas stations charge more for credit card purchases than for cash.  With gas gift cards, though, you will be charged the cash price! 

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Aadvantage eShopping Mall

For quite a while Sears has offered 10 miles per dollar for purchases made through Aadvantage eShopping, but I found today that Sears is now down to 6 miles per dollar.  Rats!  Also, Sears is still pegged at 4 points per dollar in the UR Mall.

Nordstrom

When Nordstrom offered 36 British Airways miles per dollar, I threw down over $4K.  Since then I’ve been trying to sell the items for as little loss as possible.  My stated goal was to average a loss of .5 cents per mile.  Sales are not complete, but so far I’m tracking pretty closely to this.  Also, my British Airways miles finally moved to actual usable miles!  For those of you who participated, how is it going for you?

Amex Platinum 100K Offer

Yesterday I asked for help deciding how to handle my next credit card churn.  The general consensus seemed to be to go ahead and signup for the 100K Amex offer now, and worry about other offers later.  So, I went ahead and did just that. I was approved on the spot!  Now I’m trying to figure out why I was targeted so that others can get in on this too…

When the best laid plans go awry due to too much opportunity… 

My intent this year was to go easy on new credit card signups and focus instead on earning elite status, points, and miles through gift card churns and other schemes.  Of course, I always knew that if a giant signup bonus offer came my way I would leap on it.  Plus, there are still several cards I want that I don’t yet have.  For example, both the new Chase Ink Bold (I have the old one) and the Chase Freedom would be excellent compliments to my Sapphire Preferred for earning Ultimate Rewards points.  And, I’m still tempted to follow through on the Hacking Hyatt idea, but that would require the Chase Hyatt card.  And, that’s not all!  The Hilton HHonors cards are tempting because of their very generous bonus categories.  I also like the bonus categories available for the Amex Premier Rewards Gold card…

My plan had been that once a great new offer came along, I would signup for it and pile on a couple of other credit card signups on the same day.  I thought the plan was simple until reality struck:

The Offer

A few weeks ago a giant offer showed up in my mailbox:

100,000 Membership Rewards Points

I was given a targeted offer of 100K Membership Rewards points to signup for the business version of the American Express Platinum card.  Even though the card costs $450, this signup is a no-brainer.  The card pays for Global Entry which I’ve been meaning to get anyway so I’ll save $100 there.  Plus, the card offers $200 back for incidental airline fees each year.  I’ll make sure to use all $200 in 2012, and again in the beginning of 2013 for a total of $400 back!  The card also provides airport club access.  That will be nice if/when I fly airlines other than Delta (my Delta Reserve card provides Delta Sky Club access).  And, maybe I’ll even take advantage of the Fine Hotels and Resorts program.  We’ll see.

The main downside is that to get the 100K points, I will need to spend $10K on the card by June 8th.  By itself, that wouldn’t be too hard for me (thanks to gift card churning, free after rebate software, etc.).  But, with my ambitious goals for spending $110K this year on my Delta cards, this will be a bit of a stretch.  This one is too good to pass up, though, so if I have to I’ll scale back spending on my Delta Platinum card. 

So, what is the dilemma?  Shouldn’t I go ahead and pick a couple more cards to signup for and get it over with?  Well, American Express gave me until March 10th to apply.  I’ve been waiting to see if another mega-offer comes along before pulling the trigger.  My thought was that if I wait until March 10th I might have yet another great offer to add to my one day app signup.  Plus, there have been rumors of a Capital One offer coming soon…

The Rumor

Last year, Capital One launched a big promotion in which new Venture cardholders would be given points equal to the number of miles they held in a major airline program, up to 100K.  Plus, they would get a 10K signup bonus.  So, naturally, frequent flyers jumped on this offer to get 110,000 points worth $1100 in travel. 

Lately, there have been several hints and rumors that the Capital One offer will return soon!  See, for example, this thread on FlyerTalk.  I didn’t get the card last year, but I would love to do so this year.  Even better would be to get both the personal and business cards for a total of 220,000 points!

So, far, so good, right?  All I have to do is wait until March 10th to apply for the Amex card and hope that the Capital One offer comes out before then.  I was happy with that plan until I read this post in the same FlyerTalk thread:

..The terms are not known yet but the ads are going to start running around March 11th…

March 11!  If this is true, the Capital One promotion will start one day after my targeted Amex offer ends!

Decision Time

One option is for me to signup for the Amex card as soon as possible so that I can let a month or so go by before signing up for the Capital One card.  With that option, I think I’m better off signing up for the Amex by itself without doing any other signups that day.  That way, when Capital One looks at my credit report they’ll see only one recent signup. 

Another option is to apply for the Amex and a couple of other cards right now, and hope that the Capital One offer (if it really exists) will still be available about 3 months later.  That way I can keep to a regular 3 month cycle of credit apps.

Of course, it’s quite possible that the March 11th start date is wrong.  If it actually starts earlier, I’d hate to miss out on signing up early.  It does seem like a reasonable start date, though:  Last year, Gary of View from the Wing first wrote about the promo on March 9th. 

What would you do in this circumstance?  What do you think I should do?  Please, comment below!

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This deal is only good through Saturday Feb 25th, so act fast!

OK, so this isn’t as good as last week’s similar offer, but hey free points are free points. The idea is to go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Staples.com. Once there, buy a “Free After Rebate” downloadable software product for $79.99. You will get 4 points per dollar from the Ultimate Rewards Mall and another 5 points if you pay with your Chase Ink card or another 1 point if you pay with any other point earning credit card. This means that you will earn 720 Free Ultimate Rewards points with your Ink card or 400 points with another card.

Staples has an amazingly easy “Easy Rebate” system. Once you purchase the software, they send you a rebate link via email. You click the link, fill out a little bit of info and you’re done.  Note that you will have to wait a while, though.  It may take as much as a few months to receive your check.

Here are the steps to follow:

Step 1: Go to Staples via the Ultimate Rewards Mall:

Step 2: Add one copy of QuickBooks Online SimpleStart 2012 for Windows or Mac to your cart:

TIP: Search for item 369783

Step 3: Check out

TIP 1: If you have a Chase Ink card that gives 5X for office supplies, use it!

TIP 2: Your state may charge sales tax. If you know someone in a state that doesn’t charge sales tax for internet orders (CA, NH, etc.), then set their address as the delivery address and no tax will be charged. This is a download only purchase anyway, so nothing will really be delivered. I picked “deliver to store” and picked a store in California that I’ll be close to on a trip next month. Of course, there won’t really be anything to pick up.

Step 4: Submit Easy Rebates

You will receive an email from Staples with a link in it for submitting the rebate form. It’s easy!

TIP: The software rebate can be changed from a Visa gift card to a check! See screen shot:

Questions:

If you have questions about how this works, details can be found here.

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Buying and selling discount gift cards is a good option if you are looking to increase credit card spending in order to qualify for sign-up bonuses, gain bonus miles or elite status from high spend, or simply to earn credit card rewards (cash back, miles, points, etc.).  In the post “Top 20 best value gift cards” I showed that it is sometimes possible to buy gift cards for the same price or less than you can sell them.  A big advantage of merchant gift cards for buying and selling is that they are usually sold with no shipping or handling costs and with no sales tax.  By wisely buying and selling gift cards it is possible to drive up spending on your credit cards and get most, if not all, of your money back for paying off the bills.

My first stop is always GiftCardGranny.com which maintains up to date buy and sell prices for a number of gift card resellers.  Through careful scouting of this site, it is possible to find cards that you can sell for about the same price as you will buy.

Below are my experiences with buying and selling discount gift cards from several online gift card resellers:

PlasticJungle

PlasticJungle is probably the best known gift card re-seller.  I haven’t yet bought any cards from PlasticJungle, but I did sell one without any problem.  They provided a shipping label which I printed and affixed to a regular letter sized envelope.  I mailed the gift card and received a check in about a week.  If you’re thinking of buying from them, consider going through FatWallet to get an extra 1% cash back from your transaction.  Also note that, while I had no problems, a few readers have complained in the past about issues dealing with PlasticJungle.  There is a reasonable chance that these issues were due to growing pains.  Hopefully they have things running smoothly now.

CardPool.com

Through CardPool.com I ordered a $99.00 Home Depot electronic gift card for $89.89 (9.2% off face value).  After they called me to check my identity, I received the gift card via email.  They told me that the phone call was only needed for my first order.  Overall, the process was simple, fast, and painless.

I also sold a gift card to CardPool.  Like PlasticJungle, CardPool paid for postage and I received a check promptly.  In both cases (buying and selling), I first went through the ShopAtHome cash-back portal.  ShopAtHome offers .8% cash back when you buy gift cards from CardPool.com and 1.6% cash back when you sell gift cards to CardPool.com.  In both cases, cash back appeared as pending within a few days.  The amazing thing was that the cash back percentages turned out to be percentages of the gift card’s face value, not the transaction amount!

GiftCards.com

One of the neat things about GiftCards.com is that if your gift card has a PIN, you can sell them the gift card electronically by entering the gift card # and PIN into their website.  There is no need to mail anything!  The best part is that GiftCards.com doesn’t lower the sale price when you sell to them electronically as some other resellers do.  So, in the same day that I bought a Home Depot e-gift card from CardPool.com, I was able to sell it to GiftCards.com!  By going through the cash back portal, MyDealsAndCoupons, I was able to get 3.2% cash back on the sale of the gift card!  Just like with ShopAtHome, the cash back was a percentage of the gift card’s face value, not the transaction amount.  Much like PlasticJungle and CardPool.com, with GiftCards.com I received a check in about a week.

EBay

Buying and selling gift cards on EBay is very different than with the companies listed above.  When selling on EBay, you need to factor in EBay’s pretty hefty seller fees (EBay + Paypal fees come to about 11.75%) and you do need to pay for shipping or pass along that cost to the purchaser.  I sold one gift card on EBay and it went OK.  I managed to get a bit more for the card than I would have through a gift card reseller, but it was definitely quite a bit more hassle. 

I’ve also bought a few gift cards on EBay.  There are several advantages to buying gift cards on EBay over other gift card resellers: 1) You can pay with an EBay gift card and it is often possible to get points or cash back for purchasing EBay gift cards; 2) You can sometimes get better discounts than from other resellers; 3) You get 2% back in the form of EBay bucks; and 4) You can use EBay bucks to pay for gift cards.  On the other hand, there are serious downsides: 1) You never know if the seller is honest (see Washing Walmart); and 2) It can take a very long time for gift cards to be shipped and delivered. 

So far I’ve been lucky, and my EBay experiences have been fine.  I’ll continue to buy gift cards on EBay because of the significant benefits, but I’ll stay away from selling due to the extra hassle. 

Please share

Do you have gift card buying or selling experience? What has worked well for you and where have things gone wrong?  Please share your experiences in the comments below.

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It’s been long overdue, but I finally got around to updating the Preparing for Miles page on the Frequent Miler blog.  This is a permanent page that you can access at any time from the link named “Preparing for Miles” at the top of each Frequent Miler page, just below the banner.

This is the one page where I keep up to date credit card information and signup links.  Unlike most other blogs that focus on the cards with the best signup bonuses, this page is focused on cards that will help you earn points and/or elite status by using and keeping them.

What has changed

More Ink

I’ve written a lot in the past about the Chase Ink Bold card and have shown ways to leverage its 5 points per dollar at office supply stores in ways never envisioned by Chase.  But, did you know that Chase has two other cards that also offer 5 points per dollar at office supply stores?  Both the Ink Classic and the Ink Cash have this benefit, and both with no annual fee!

SPG Added

Now that Starwood has significantly improved the value of Gold and Platinum status, it’s time to take another look at this perennially favorite card.  The card gives you 5 elite nights / 2 stays per year towards elite status.  If you get both the personal and the business version of this card you will get 10 nights and 4 stays.  Plus, if you spend $30K per year on either card you will be given Gold status automatically.

Hilton Added

The Hilton HHonors and Hilton HHonors Surpass Amex cards both have amazingly generous bonus categories including 6 points per dollar at grocery stores.  Both cards grant gold status for $20K of annual spend.  The Surpass offers Diamond status for $40K of spend.  Imagine using the Surpass to spend $40K per year at grocery stores (gift cards anyone?): you would earn Diamond status and 240,000 Hilton points!

Take a look

In addition to the new cards, the page has also been completely re-written and re-formatted to make information easier to find and to read.  Please take a look:  Preparing for Miles.

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OK, so this is a little embarrassing.  Last night I wrote that it might take a while for Ultimate Rewards Mall points to post if you bought “free after rebate” software in order to get thousands of Ultimate Rewards points for free at Staples.com.  Well, this morning I found that all 4X points have already posted!  And, yes, I paid with my American Express Reserve card.

I bought the software on Thursday.  Hopefully your points will post soon too!