January 1, 2013
Another boring month in the Ultimate Rewards Mall. Sigh.
Every month, the Ultimate Rewards Mall has new month-long specials. Last month, I wrote about the December specials in the post Ultimate Rewards Mall December Edition.” Today, I’ll show you how things look for January.
As always, thanks goes to HikerT for updating his website that shows the Ultimate Rewards Mall payouts for different Chase cards. You can find his website here: lakebagger.com/ur/.
New stuff
Several new merchants appeared this month:
- Darphin 5X
- Travelsmith 5X
- LastCall by Neiman Marcus 5X
- Horchow 4X
- Tory Burch 4X
- Williams-Sonoma 4X
- Bergdorf Goodman 4X
- Vitacost 4X
Now the bad stuff…
Here are some of the merchants that dropped their multipliers:
- Sears drops from 6X to 3X
- Holiday Inn, InterContinental Hotels Group drops from 8X to 3X
- Paul Fredrick drops from 12X to 8X
- FAO Schwartz drops from 4X to 1X
- Brookstone drops from 9X to 6X
- Home Depot drops from 5X to 3X
Continued good stuff
Some of the good options from before continue:
- Kohl’s 10X
- Shoebuy 10X
- The North Face 8X
- J. Crew 5X
- Lowe’s 5X
- Macy’s 5X
- OfficeMax 5X
MileagePlus
The United Airlines MileagePlus Shopping portal sometimes has better offers than the Ultimate Rewards Mall, specifically for MileagePlus Visa cardholders. HikerT’s site now shows those instances where this is true.
Double Dip Opportunities
For any of the above deals that you’re interested in, checkout the Frequent Miler Laboratory to see if buying and/or using gift cards has been tested and whether or not it works. In some cases, it is possible to double your point earnings through a double dip: go through the portal to buy gift cards and then go through again to use the gift cards.
If you are new to collecting miles, click here for the free newsletter |
Which date determines the hotel bonus: book date or stay date? I mean, if I make an IHG hotel reservation during an 8x month, will I receive 8x even if the bonus has dropped by the date of stay? Thanks.
Oops, looks like I carried over some of last month’s UA specials by mistake. Magazines.com 40x, Omaha Steaks 14x, Harry & David 12x, and Sears 8x were a few of last month’s UA specials. Looks like FTD 30x is still there for UA.
colleen: For hotels, the date you book the hotel through the portal determines which points you’ll get. So, yes, you should still get 8X in your example.
HikerT: Thanks for the correction. I’ve deleted the details from the United section since they turned out to be wrong.
What a stinker. I’m buying 2k in appliance this month was hoping to go through the mall for sears or best buy. Still 3x or so is better but 6x plus would have been sweet.
Thanks for the quick answer, and for the update!
I just checked and only saw 12 miles per $ for magazines.com at the mileage plus page – hopefully 40 per $ is correct. If it is I will definately get some magazines.
See note above. The 40x at magazines.com was one of last month’s UA specials. Here are the UA specials for January (for UA cardholders only):
drugstore.com 8x
Finish Line 8x
Neiman Marcus 6x
nutrisystem 12x
Vision Direct 6x
walgreens 6x
Also, FTD is 30x at UA. This is available to everyone (not just UA cardholders). The UR mall still offers 30x for magazines.com.
Lands End gift cards still available at redemption rate of 0.8. $100 GC for only 8,000 points. This isn’t new, but sometimes they take this away for a quarter and then bring it back. Seems like it’s been around for at least the past two or three quarters, however.
I wonder if AMEX killing its shopping mall is making Chase less inclined to aggressive in the bonuses it is offering.
Seems like a slow month. Hopefully amex will step it up!
Any word on Amex shopping portal? Its been down for months. . .
Anyone know which store in the UR mall would be smart for jewelery that can ship to Canada? =x
Thanks HikerT for all the hard work in putting the list together!
Is it possible to shop via the UA MP shopping portal if I don’t have the UA MP Visa card? I do have a MP account, though. If I try to shop from this portal, would I get the “x” Hiker T shows?
If you don’t have the UA card you will get the payout shown at the UA MP shopping portal when you login. No way around it unless you want to give the points to someone who has the card and shop under their account.
@Mike H – No cash back, but you should check out a Sears Outlet store if there is one nearby.
I had to purchase a new washer/dryer earlier last year and saved well over $1000 on a Maytag set through Sears Outlet (compared to my local Sears store).
I also found the Sears Outlet people to generally be more knowledgeable than the Sears salespeople, but that’s obviously not a universal guarantee.
One thing I’ve learned the hard way is that if your points don’t post to your account on the UA MP Shopping Portal you can’t go to Chase for help or United.
I didn’t know it at the time, but Chase is only behind tje MP Explorer card, the site belongs to UA. The problem is that when you call UA for help they are clueless. They can help you without issue for flight miles that don’t post, but when it comes to MP Mall shopping they don’t know what they’re doing.
My missing miles: eBags.com purchase made on 8/31/12 totaling $323.99 @ 18miles/$!
[...] Mall has new month-long specials. Last month, I wrote about the January specials in the post “Ultimate Rewards Mall Jan 2013 Edition.” Today, I’ll show you how things look for [...]