March 14, 2012
Kohl’s doesn’t always have the best prices, but if you stack readily available discounts, it’s hard to beat. Here’s how to save 32% and get 10 points per dollar on everything at Kohl’s (even clearance items):
Step 1: Estimate your total cost
Find what you want to buy at Kohl’s and note the total price. This technique will work even for clearance items so look for big markdowns! When you’re ready, make sure your shopping cart is empty because, later, you’ll want to add the items after going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall.
Step 2: Calculate 20% off from coupon
In a later step, you’ll apply a 20% off coupon to your order. For now, simply calculate the discounted total: To do so, take the total from step 1 and multiply by .8.
Step 3: Buy Kohl’s e-gift card for 15% off
Go to Cardpool.com and buy a Kohl’s e-gift card. They sell Kohl’s gift cards for 15% off. Ideally you will find a card with a face value close to the 20% off amount you calculated in step 2. If you plan to make future purchases at Kohl’s you could go ahead and buy a gift card for a larger amount. Note that it may take several hours for Cardpool to email the gift card.
Optional: you can get an extra .8% cash back by starting at ShopAtHome before clicking through to Cardpool.com. This will only work for your first $1000 in transactions at Cardpool.com.
Step 4: Go through Ultimate Rewards Mall for 10X
Once you receive your gift card from step 3, go to the Ultimate Rewards Mall, find Kohl’s, and click through to shop at Kohl’s. Now any purchases you make will return 10 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent!
Step 5: Shop Kohl’s, apply coupon and gift card
Load up your Kohl’s shopping cart. When you go to check out, make sure to apply a 20% off coupon code. These are readily available through Google searches. One that I used successfully recently was SMS6532 (with free shipping too). Also make sure to apply your gift card to the order.
Add up the savings
Let’s say your total purchase before savings is $100. The 20% off coupon will reduce the price to $80. At Cardpool, you can buy a $80 gift card for $68. So, your total savings on $100 worth of items is $32 or 32%. Plus, you will get 10 points per dollar based on the $80 spent at Kohl’s, or 800 total points. The fair trading price of 800 Ultimate Rewards points is $10.48.
Additional savings: Kohl’s frequently runs special deals where you can earn $10 in Kohl’s bucks for every $50 spent. If you spend very close to a multiple of $50, then this becomes nearly a 20% rebate that stacks on top of all of the savings shown above!
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I have similar luck with Groupon: buy a groupon gift card at 12x UR rewards, then buy the item through UR for another 12x…plus you’re getting a Groupon, so it was a good deal to begin with!
Note of caution from something I’ve recently learned. I have done the exact process you noted above on three seperate occasions now. 2 out of 3 transactions, I had a small balance to pay after applying coupon code and gift card. I used my Sapphire card to pay for the small balance and I DID receive full UR points for those transactions. However on the last transaction, the coupon code and gift card covered the whole balance of my transaction and I didn’t have to use my Sapphire card for the balance. I DID NOT get any UR points for that transaction. So my advice would be to follow your process as noted above however, pay a small balance of the over amount due with a credit card. Somehow that triggers that you will get the UR points.
Randy, I think your experience is opposite of mine. I am almost positive that the time I had to cover some of the purchase with my card, I only got ur points for the charged portion.
Frequent miler, last week kohls had samsonite luggage in sale at a pretty decent price. After all the discounts and kohls cash, I paid around $100 for the driv360 spinner 21 carry on.
Anita
The Deal Mommy, are you sure it works with the groupon? The TC mentioned that its not eligible for giftcards through UR?
I thought u didn’t have to use a UR Chase Card to buy stuff to get the points!
I was incorrect in my post above regarding partial credits. I was thinking of a different shopping portal. My UR shopping experiences with Kohls are all as described above except that I use my Kohls card for an additional 15% off. (may or may not stack with the 20% code) I get points for the entire purchase amount less discounts at the UR Mall, and no portion of the purchase went on my Chase Sapphire.
Anita
Randy: Thanks for the caution. I’ve reviewed all of my Kohl’s purchases to see if I had any paid entirely with gift cards, but all of them had at least a dollar or so on a credit card. I did find one where the credit card portion was an Amex, not a Citi card and I did get Ultimate Rewards Mall credit for that one. But you might be right that purchases made 100% with gift cards won’t register. I’ll try that experiment next.
Anita: I actually saw the same deal on the luggage, but forgot to buy it! Darn! Thanks for the info, by the way.
Ryan from MA: Correct, you do not need to use your Chase card. See my answer to Randy. However, when the total price is just a few dollars more than my gift card amount I do like to use my Chase card so that if anything goes wrong I can get Chase’s help in tracking down the extra points.
The Deal Mommy: If I remember correctly from an earlier post comment you made, you didn’t buy a groupon gift card directly through Groupon. Instead you went through Groupon to buy a certificate to a different company that sells gift cards. You then redeemed that certificate for a Groupon gift card, and then used that Groupon gift card through the UR mall to double dip. Is that right? If so, its really a special situation that isn’t often available. Awesome trickery though!
Periodically there are 30% off codes for Kohl’s this one expires today: SHOPNSAVE
I used to do the above trick. UR Mall and make full purchase using giftcards. That stopped working a few months back, so most likely as has been noted, you need to put some on your chase card.
Grr, the deal mom got my all excited about groupon double-dip………..
I have $50 Kohls cash to spend by next week. Does anyone else see any fantastic deals at Kohls currently?
Do you always need to make sure your shopping cart is empty for every merchant you shop before going thru Ultimate Rewards? You got me alarmed!
Sheila: I don’t know if its really necessary, but I think so.
You are all correct, you don’t have to use a Chase card…I didn’t mean to imply that. I have used other cards, ie: Amex and still received the UR points. I guess what I was getting at is to make sure that you don’t pay the entire balance with a gift card….leave a small portion to pay with a credit card. I think that using a credit card triggers something in the system versus just using a gift card. Kohls is the first place that has not give me credit for using a gift card for entire balance…I have done it other places ie: shoebuy, etc. Oh well, lesson learned!
Just imagine if you had double dipped with groupon gift cards @ 12x UR for this:
http://www.groupon.com/deals/ga-m-deep-ocean-expeditions
who can find anything they actually need at Kohl’s
I bought a 100$ GC last year for 1000 UR points and it took me months to find anything useful from kohls. that included holiday shopping. I ended up caving in on a 90$ iron just to get rid of the GC
The link in UR says that “the portion paid for by gift card is not eligible” for points for barnes and noble? I thought I you had suggested that double dip before?
manish: No, the double dip at B&N is to use your Amex OPEN card. Get 5% back from OPEN and get 10X from UR. Also use whatever coupons are available too, of course.
toomanybooks: Yes, that mostly matches my experience too except for one time when I tried to buy about $500 worth of gcs using Sears gcs and I had nothing else in the cart. The cashier wouldn’t allow it.
Dan: I’m about to buy tennis shoes. With the discounts listed here, Kohl’s is way cheaper than any alternative I’ve found.
I see that the Kohls T&C says that:
Not eligible on Kohl’s credit card sales made with coupon codes that are higher than 15%.
on the UR website.
I guess one cannot use the Kohl’s credit card then for this deal?
DoubleA: That’s probably true. I’m curious if anyone has tried it? You never know when the T&C is really enforced.
[...] I posted how to get huge savings at Kohl’s by buying discount gift cards, going through Ultimate Rewards Mall, and applying a 20% off [...]
Just a data point, I’ve used this system 4 times so far this year with the Kohl’s 30% off for credit card purchases. I still use GCs for the majority of the purchase and just put a couple of dollars on the kohl’s credit card.
[...] If points post for all of the above, you should get 25 points per dollar! To save even more (potentially, a lot more), check out the tips in this old (but still relevant) post: “Fantastic points and savings at Kohl’s.” [...]
Go through Topcashback to Cardpool for a 2% rebate. At Cardpool I could only find 7.5% off Kohls gift cards currently. By googling “Kohls promo codes” I did find a current code for 20% off my Kohls cart and one for free shipping for orders over $50.
I am having hard time finding the coupons. Do they come out every month? I tried a ton of them and none worked. Any help?
PhatMiles: I get a Kohl’s discount code in my inbox pretty much every day. If you can’t find good codes by googling for them, I’d recommend signing up for a Kohl’s online account and opt-in to receive promotional emails. Also, they often run a special where if you sign up for text alerts you get a 20% off code (you can then turn off those alerts).
Thanks FM
Current code for 20% off $100 or more is MISTLETOE. If you want to use your Kohl’s credit card, use RUDOLPH30 for 30% off.
Kadence: thanks
I made a purchase in December 2012 (during the 5x Freedom bonus). They had 10x UR points then as well. I paid for it fully with the freedom card and received NO UR points. I contacted Chase and they said it was ineligible because of a coupon greater than 15% (25% is what I used).
Correction I received no UR points through the shopping mall. I did receive the points (5x) on the Freedom card only. SM denied the request as above.
Jeremy: It’s always painful when points aren’t awarded. In my experience, I have received points, but its true that if the purchase doesn’t track correctly you’re not going to get help from Chase due to the T&C