Laboratory

549 Responses to “Laboratory”

1. Scott says:

   January 20, 2012 at 8:52 am

   If this Lab is going to be an on-going work in process, which I would assume it will be, could you add “Updated on Jan. xx, 2012″, for example, each time something is changed? Great concept though! Thanks!
2. FrequentMiler says:

   January 20, 2012 at 8:56 am

   Scott: Good idea. I added a “last updated” line to the top.
3. Anita says:

   January 20, 2012 at 10:16 am

   I emailed Chase to ask if magazines that are classified by Magazines.com as automatically renewing are not eligible for the 40x points when first ordered, or if they just don’t earn 40x when renewed.

   The exchange was fairly comical, but in the end I got what I think was good news.

   My question to them:
   “Do magazines
   that are part of magazines.com’s automatic renewal program
   earn points only on the initial purchase but not upon
   renewal OR do they earn no points at all?”

   Chase’s response:

   “Further, you will earn the bonus rewards of $40 points per
   dollar for the purchase made at magazine. com. However, at
   the time of renewal you would only receive 1 point per
   dollar as per the base earn and would not receive the
   accelerated point. This offer is valid from 01/01/2011 to
   01/31/2011.”

   So it sounds like ANY magazine should earn the initial 40x but that we simply should not expect to earn 40x (or whatever the current bonus is) again in 6 months when it automatically renews.

   Anita
4. FrequentMiler says:

   January 20, 2012 at 1:02 pm

   Anita: That is good news! I’m still not sure that we have a working formula for a double dip (it seems hit or miss), but this info definitely helps!
5. Kushal says:

   January 26, 2012 at 12:58 pm

   I should point out since your Amoozle experiment is underway, I had a bad experience from a merchant similar to Amoozle from CA. When purchasing from CA, make sure you are purchase using a credit card which does not has any Foreign transaction fees like saphire, cap1 or citi premier.

   The merchant when I had bad experience was Cardilly.com. I had to eventually do a charge back since they were not returning the money. They had a similar model where they were handing our gift cards for half the price minus the $4.95. If it works good for us.
6. FrequentMiler says:

   January 26, 2012 at 1:40 pm

   Kushal: Thanks for the info. Yes, I think there’s a good chance I’ll have to fight for my money back, but I figured it was worth a shot.
7. jeff says:

   February 2, 2012 at 11:35 am

   So the giant eagle near me sells amazon gift cards . I noted that amazon gift cards mostly tend to sell above their face value on ebay (the reason I have no idea) also whenever you purchase $50 in purchases you get 10cents of gallons of gas at the get go gas station. (Example purchase $75 in gift cards you get 10 cents and all you need to spend next time is another $25. 20 cents off every gallon of gas.)

   Conservatively ebay and paypal fees will rip 8-10% of total sale of item depending on ebay seller discounts.
8. FrequentMiler says:

   February 2, 2012 at 12:53 pm

   Jeff: Thanks for the tip. Yes it looks like you could create a decent gift card churn from this if you live near a Giant Eagle and you have a big gas tank . There are several reasons that I know of that people will buy gift cards above face value on EBay: 1) they have EBay bucks that are about to expire; 2) EBay gives them 2% back (in the form of EBay bucks); 3) They have EBay gift cards that they want to convert to something more useful; and 4) money laundering
9. jeff says:

   February 3, 2012 at 8:25 am

   Max is 30 gallons. You must use a gas container but every once in a while a young clerk will not notice you passing the pump to friend when he pulls up to fill a extra vehicle. My first experience with this when I bought my dyson. I had my amex blue at 5% cash back rate (after the US mint) bought ebay gift cards at grocery store (5% cash back and 20cents of every gallon of gas for every $50 spent promo)and then went thru bing cashback portal (11%) portal to ebay and purchased bed bath and beyond gift cards along with 20% off coupon.

   My friends were amazed, but after reading your stuff. It brings a tears to my eyes to see such a complicated system.
10. James says:

    February 4, 2012 at 5:06 pm

    For the drugstore.com experiment, Chase UR is only offering 5X points now.
11. FrequentMiler says:

    February 4, 2012 at 6:24 pm

    James: Yes, sadly I know. I’m pretty sure I saw 10% cash back somewhere so I’ll change the experiment to do that instead. I did order the beauty.com gift card, but it still hasn’t arrived.
12. Mint Cilantro says:

    February 13, 2012 at 8:31 pm

    I noticed that shop discover has 5% cash back on many stores found on evreward.com. Do you have any experience about that program. Seems like good value for categories that don’t currently have promotions at Chase UR or Amex program. Any thoughts?
13. FrequentMiler says:

    February 13, 2012 at 8:45 pm

    Mint Cilantro: You’re absolutely right. Shop Discover always seems to have the best cash back rates, by far. I don’t have any Discover cards so I haven’t had a chance to try it. Anyone else?
14. Kushal says:

    February 16, 2012 at 3:14 pm

    Update from my Amoozle experiment. I eventually gave up and did a chargeback with cap1. I called their US number and CA number and the mailbox was full. Emails were not answered, so I decided to pull the plug and get my money back since it was stuck for almost 20 days.
15. FrequentMiler says:

    February 16, 2012 at 6:58 pm

    Kushal: Thanks for the update. My Amoozle account still shows “processing”. I’ll give it another few weeks.
16. jinny says:

    February 20, 2012 at 1:05 pm

    I do have shopdiscover card but you need to use discover card only to get cashback bonus. (at lease from my experience)

    Also, I can’t find amazon gift card on walgreen.com. did you purchase in person?
    can you tell me if there is any place to get amazon card online with possible bonus points? I have read your posts but it looks like i can only purchase them in person, right?
17. FrequentMiler says:

    February 20, 2012 at 6:24 pm

    jinny: Thanks for the shopdiscover info. Yes, the Amazon gift cards were purchased in person at Walgreens. I don’t think there is a way to buy Amazon gift cards online anywhere but through Amazon.com itself which limits the options for bonus points. I’ll look into it though.
18. mike says:

    February 24, 2012 at 3:36 pm

    What portal can you get walgreens G.C. …. like you said YmmV.
19. FrequentMiler says:

    February 25, 2012 at 7:17 am

    mike: Sadly, I haven’t found a way to get Walgreens gcs with points or cash back. I’ve heard that Mr. Rebates works, but it didn’t work for me.
20. MidnightMiler says:

    February 27, 2012 at 4:25 am

    My Amoozle update. Went to send them an email inquiry about gift cards and found their site is gone! Immediately called and disputed the charges on my card before any more time goes by. Too good to be true I suppose.
21. FrequentMiler says:

    February 27, 2012 at 2:21 pm

    MidnightMiler: Yep, I need to call my credit card company too for the same reason.
22. Chase Sapphire VS Chase Ink Bold: Which one to keep/use? - Page 2 - FlyerTalk Forums says:

    March 8, 2012 at 1:23 pm

    [...] Suggest read this most excellent blog article (and don't forget to consider supporting the laboratory the next time you apply for a card). Good stuff and should give you a pretty good idea re. your question: http://boardingarea.com/blogs/frequentmiler/laboratory/ [...]
23. Loophole says:

    March 9, 2012 at 3:00 pm

    Staples.com
    Use the new Chase Ink Bold to buy a Visa gift card through Staples.com through the Ultimate Rewards mall. See if you get both 5X from the Ink Bold for office purchases and 5X from the Ultimate Rewards mall for Staples purchases for a combined 10X! Result: Success! (note that there is a $5.95 fee for $100 Visa gift cards)

    From the above statement, after getting the $100 Visa gift, can we then use it to purchase a $100 Staples gift card through UR mall for 4X. So basically getting 1400pts for using Ink Bold?
24. Dave says:

    March 10, 2012 at 1:27 am

    I’d also like to know the answer to Loophole’s question. Also, if the Ink Bold gives 5X + 5X using this trick but there is a $5.95 penalty..How many equivalent points are we getting the $100 gift card for assuming we value a UR point at 2c per point? Thanks!!

    Currently I’m using my new ink bold to get Shell gift cards in store at Staples to get gas at 5x instead of the normal 2x..I’d like to understand the highest amount of points I can get for normal expenses like gas. Thanks for replying!
25. Dave says:

    March 10, 2012 at 1:32 am

    Another question, will Staples allow you to buy merchant gift cards in store using a Staples gift card? Curious if you can buy a staples gift card online with Ink bold to get 9 to 10x points and then use in store to get Amazon/ebay/shell gift cards that they don’t sell online?
26. FrequentMiler says:

    March 11, 2012 at 4:35 pm

    Loophole: Yes, that should work but note that Staples gift cards cannot be used online.

    Dave: I haven’t tried it, but I’ve read that Staples will not allow you to buy gift cards using their gift cards.

    Dave: The Lab info is a little out of date in that you currently get 4X in the Ultimate Rewards Mall at Staples (not 5X). With the Fair Trading Price of UR points at 1.31 cents each, the 9X with the $5.95 fee is equivalent to 5X. If you prefer to value points at 2 cents each, the 9X with the $5.95 fee is equivalent to 6.5X. Visa gift cards are problematic to use at gas stations, so if you want to go this route, I’d suggest you use the visa gift card to buy gas cards and use them.
27. Chase Ink Bold or Chase Sapphire Preferred: Beyond the Free Year - Mommy Points says:

    March 12, 2012 at 9:00 pm

    [...] the various shopping portals to earn even more points.  I highly recommend you check-out the Frequent Miler Laboratory to learn more about which retailers payout miles when using or buying gift [...]
28. Loophole says:

    March 13, 2012 at 11:44 am

    Kohls:

    Double dip: Buy gift cards through Ultimate Rewards mall and then spend gift cards through Ultimate Rewards mall. Partial success! Points are usually awarded on both transactions. Occasionally points are not awarded for the purchase of gift cards.

    Are you talking about the physcial gift card or e-gift card from Kohls.com? Anybody with success/failure for buying any of these?
29. DaninSTL says:

    March 13, 2012 at 2:09 pm

    How about buying gift cards through a shopping portal for points or miles with a points or miles card. They temporarly register it with Idine for your chosen program and earn points by eating out which most of us do anyway. It would have to be a mastercard, visa etc. but might work. Seems like it would be best to buy a large amount card and dine on it several times because of the registration pain.
30. Nick says:

    March 13, 2012 at 8:01 pm

    Anyone know about this scenario:
    Buy gift card to KMart, Walmart, Walgreens etc, through shopping portal (Chase, any airline, hotel.
    Use that gift card in store to buy a gift card to another retailer.
    Use that gift card to buy something online while shopping through a portal?

    It seems like you’ve had some success doing this double dip with Sears and AAdvantage Shopping mall. I was hoping for:
    Sears gc through Ultimate Rewards, use at Sears/KMart to buy Amazon, use Amazon gc through Hawaiian Shopping. Thoughts?
31. Mariana says:

    March 14, 2012 at 9:44 am

    I have purchased Home Depot gift cards through the Ultimate Rewards mall and have not been given any extra points for it. So gift cards are probably excluded.
32. Eugene says:

    March 14, 2012 at 10:57 am

    Walgreen’s does nor reward extra point for gift cards purchased through UR mall.
33. Mileage Portals: Can You Pay with Gift Cards? - FlyerTalk Forums says:

    March 17, 2012 at 6:33 pm

    [...] Laboratory (in the Resources menu of my site) in which I list what has worked and what hasn't: http://boardingarea.com/blogs/frequentmiler/laboratory/ Please take a [...]
34. Judy Jones says:

    March 18, 2012 at 11:22 am

    It sounds like Amzoozle is another Cardilly that scammed everyone, address was a parking lot in sarasota, FL.
    On Office Max, can all the Maxperks rewards money be used for the Amazon cards or is that a no no?
35. FrequentMiler says:

    March 18, 2012 at 11:32 am

    Judy Jones: I doubt you can use Maxperks rewards to buy gift cards, but I haven’t tried it. If/when Office Max offers free after rebate items that can be a good way to convert your rewards to cash.
36. FrequentMiler says:

    March 18, 2012 at 11:40 am

    Nick: No, I haven’t seen Amazon gift cards at Sears or Kmart so you can’t do exactly what you’re saying, but the general idea works in some places. The easiest is Staples. Go through UR mall to Staples and buy a gift card for a different merchant: Kohls, for example. Then go through UR mall to Kohls to buy things using the gift card. That would work.

    DaninSTL: Yes, I expect that would work. For others, an example of the idea is this: go through UR mall to Staples to buy visa gift cards. Register Visa gift card as a credit card in a mileage dining program. Eat out and pay with the visa gift card. That could be a good way to get both dining points and UR Mall points for the same restaurant.

    Loophole: My experiments with buying Kohl’s gift cards were all with physical gift cards. I have redeemed e-gift cards through the UR mall and was successful in getting points.
37. Chris says:

    March 21, 2012 at 12:00 am

    Did you get UR points for gift card purchase using a giftcard?

    -Buy Visa gift card online using Walmart gift card. Success!
38. FrequentMiler says:

    March 21, 2012 at 6:40 am

    Chris: No, Walmart doesn’t give points for gift card purchases.
39. Milestogo says:

    March 21, 2012 at 7:56 pm

    Has anyone has this specific experience.
    Buy Staples GC with Ink Bold to get the 9X and then buy GC at Kohl and go through UR to get 10X so total 19x.. I know this has been eluded to above but wanted to see if anyone was successful with this.
40. FrequentMiler says:

    March 21, 2012 at 9:14 pm

    Milestogo: it’s even easier than what you wrote. Staples sells kohls gift cards directly, so go thru UR mall to staples, buy kohls gift cards using your ink card, and then use those gift cards by going thru UR mall to kohls. I haven’t done the whole process, but I’ve done each piece. Yes, it should work. Yes, it should get you 19x
41. MJL says:

    March 22, 2012 at 8:00 pm

    I just bought an Amazon GC at OfficeMax, and bungled the silver scratch off LOL. I’m in the process of recovering or replacing the card, but does anyone have any hints or tricks at getting that durn silver junk off, once you have bought the card?
42. Gina says:

    March 22, 2012 at 9:12 pm

    I just started using the UR mall. Do I have to use my Chase card to make a purchase or can I use any credit card?
43. FrequentMiler says:

    March 23, 2012 at 5:52 pm

    MJL: I hate that silver stuff too! I ruined one of my son’s itunes cards once for the same reason and had to get help at the Apple store. Yes, if anyone knows a better way to scratch that stuff off, let us know!
44. FrequentMiler says:

    March 23, 2012 at 5:55 pm

    Gina: Chase will tell you yes, but experience says no. I’ve earned many thousands of points using gift cards or Amex cards through the UR mall. The problem is if there is an error and your points don’t post you might not get any help from Chase.
45. Mark says:

    March 24, 2012 at 9:40 am

    Did you use your Walmart gift card at Walmart.com to get any gift cards that didn’t cost anything? The Visa card has about $2 in fees.

    Thanks
46. FrequentMiler says:

    March 24, 2012 at 10:49 am

    Mark: I used my Walmart card to buy other Walmart cards for no fee. I believe you can buy any merchant gift cards for no fee (e.g. restaurants, etc.), but bank gift cards (Amex, mastercard, visa) have fees.
47. Steve K says:

    March 24, 2012 at 1:34 pm

    Hi! Regarding the silver strip of those amazon gift cards, here is what I do (expressed in FrequentMiler parlance.)

    Completed experiment:

    Double dip: 1) completely remove that nasty silver paint (or whatever it may be) away from the plastic section underneath without in any manner harming the gift card claim code, and 2) not make a mess that needs to be cleaned up (nor soiling your fingers in the process.)

    Methodology: Rip a small section of paper towel (about 1 by 1 inch; I use “Bounty”), moisten it, and gently rub the code off with an even horizontal motion. Then throw the paper towel away. Result: Success!
48. MJL says:

    March 24, 2012 at 2:05 pm

    @Steve K ROFL! Tx I will try the “Bounty Towel Trick-It” method.

    Some people at slickdeals are using the AmEx Twitter promo to buy TicketMaster gift cards at $100 (+2.50 fee) to get $50 off. You could either use it yourself at a future time, or sell it on PlasticJungle. Certainly get $52.50 back from it.

    Haven’t figured how to double-dip for points / miles yet but is a way to get another $100 in spending.

    http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/70738/american-express-american-express-twitter-deals-best-buy-10-statement-credit-w-10-purchase-dell-100-back-w-599-purchase-mcdonalds-5-back-w-5-purchase-whole-foods-10-back-w-next-purchase-ticketmaster-50-back-w-100-purchase
49. Steve K says:

    March 24, 2012 at 4:21 pm

    Thanks MJL! I had forgotten to mention that I folded the paper towel a couple times for a better rub. Perhaps a larger piece of paper towel, slightly moistened, folded twice would be better. If more water was needed, a second dip should do the trick.
50. Mow says:

    March 25, 2012 at 7:38 am

    Staples question. Which worths more?
    1. buy $200 visa gift cards for $206.96 and get x5 UR points using ink card
    2. Buy x2 $100 visa gift cards for $$211.9 and get x9 UR points using ink card
51. FrequentMiler says:

    March 25, 2012 at 7:41 am

    Mow: Option 2 is better. See details here: http://boardingarea.com/blogs/frequentmiler/2012/03/25/the-best-way-to-ink-money/
52. dan says:

    March 26, 2012 at 6:46 am

    Using URmall and Home Depot 10x bonus: can I use CCs at checkout other than Chase Sapphire and Ink?
53. Michael H. says:

    March 29, 2012 at 7:19 pm

    Any luck using kohls gift cards in-store to buy merchant gift cards?
54. Michael H. says:

    March 29, 2012 at 7:20 pm

    Nevermind, found it above!
55. Frequent Flyer Collector says:

    March 30, 2012 at 10:09 am

    i dunno if you’ve tried it already, but I’ll try the wag.com double dip and report back next time I need pet supplies
56. FrequentMiler says:

    April 1, 2012 at 12:42 pm

    Frequent Flyer Collector: I haven’t tried wag.com yet, so if you’re up for it, please do!!
57. Joshua says:

    April 13, 2012 at 3:03 pm

    Hey Miler,

    The southwest shopping portal is offering 6 points per dollar on Sears purchases. Do you think I could buy a gift card from there and exchange it in a kmart for a bp gas card? Was wondering if the southwest portal would award me the points.
58. FrequentMiler says:

    April 13, 2012 at 3:27 pm

    Joshua: I haven’t tried that with the Southwest portal, but yes it should work. Make sure your Kmart has BP cards first, and please let us know if it all works out
59. Joshua says:

    April 13, 2012 at 10:04 pm

    I’m going to make sure tomorrow that my kmart has BP gift cards before I jump on this, but I’ve read that some people haven’t had success buying third party gift cards at kmart…what’s your take?
60. FrequentMiler says:

    April 14, 2012 at 8:22 am

    Joshua: That’s true: I got turned away once when I tried to do a bunch of cards at once. Since then I’ve always loaded my cart with other stuff (cereal boxes, tissues, etc) and only bought 2 or 3 gift cards at a time. I haven’t had a problem since.
61. DealsSeeker says:

    April 14, 2012 at 1:07 pm

    I had success buying an ebay gift card, but i first put through the other items I purchased. It was an egift card and had no problems with it. I had purchased a Lands End Gift card for 10x at UR, used it at gofers.com for an additional 6x at the mall. Then picked up items at Kmart (they didn’t have everything in stock from my gofers.com order) so I purchased some other items, including the ebay gift card.
62. DealsSeeker says:

    April 14, 2012 at 1:10 pm

    Tip: I purchased a Groupon Gift Card through the UR mall (hasn’t come up yet, don’t know if they give credit for that) and checked on Blueprint what they categorize it as, guess what? It’s under Office and School Supplies. I don’t have the Ink card yet, but it would be interesting if you could get 5x for Groupon gift card purchases.
63. Sergey says:

    April 14, 2012 at 1:42 pm

    Did anybody try to use TopCashBack for Staples.com purchases? FrequentMiler mentioned that they give 5.5% cash back, but in reality they give only 2%. So, beware.
64. FrequentMiler says:

    April 16, 2012 at 6:12 am

    Sergey: You’re right. TopCashBack was getting a different payback from Staples for each product so they didn’t know the amount to post as the cashback rate. People have had more success with 5% back from Upromise.
65. FrequentMiler says:

    April 16, 2012 at 6:13 am

    DealSeeker: Great tip! I’ll add it to the proposed experiments.
66. Joshua says:

    April 16, 2012 at 9:44 pm

    Lowe’s experiment–Here’s my own experiment for your Lab. Chase Freedom is offering 5% cashback on grocery store purchases. Bought a Lowe’s gift card for $25 at local grocery because we need some retaining wall material. Went to UR Mall. Lowe’s is offering 5 points per dollar. Used Gift Card. Will report back results.
67. FrequentMiler says:

    April 17, 2012 at 5:53 am

    Joshua: Thanks! I added your experiment to the list. I’ve also updated the Lab with colors to indicate recent changes.
68. Joshua says:

    April 18, 2012 at 8:58 am

    Just FYI. Went through UR Mall and made a purchase at macys.com, used my southwest card. UR points posted today. So essentially got 4 points per dollar in UR points and will receive all the southwest points from the purchase. Not a huge moneymaker, but still proving that you CAN use a different card through UR mall to pay for things.
69. FrequentMiler says:

    April 18, 2012 at 12:24 pm

    Joshua: Thanks!
70. Joshua says:

    April 18, 2012 at 3:44 pm

    Probably just getting a little bit too creative with this, but I wonder if you could go through a cashback portal i.e UR for staples.com, then buy a staples.com gift card. Then possibly go through another portal and spend the gift card on a third party gift card i.e starbucks gift card. Seems like a lot of work, for a small % back though…
71. FrequentMiler says:

    April 18, 2012 at 3:48 pm

    Joshua: unfortunately Staples gift cards can’t be used online so there are no double dip opportunities there.
72. Joshua says:

    April 18, 2012 at 4:00 pm

    Thanks for the update. That’s why this lab is the best…I probably would have tried and failed!!
73. Ford says:

    April 18, 2012 at 11:04 pm

    With Amex Blue Cash Preferred:

    Bought an Amazon gift card at Safeway(in person) for 6% cash back.
    Also bought $25 visa gift card as experiment to make sure 6% CB posted for both. Looks like they’ve been categorized as such on my statement, though the statement isn’t final yet. Can buy up to $500 visa/mc/Amex gift cards with $5.95 activation fee, leaving me with 4.8%cb on anything I want to buy(except recurring payments and gambling the card tells me). I assume these gift cards can be used to buy anything through a shopping portal to rack up additional points/miles.
74. FrequentMiler says:

    April 19, 2012 at 8:16 am

    Ford: Good job! Thanks for the input. Yes, you should be able to use the Visa gift cards online, but you do have to register them first with your home address or zip code.
75. Loophole says:

    April 20, 2012 at 1:04 am

    Has anybody tried going through UR mall using bestbuy gift cards to get points? Any lab rats done this with success?
76. Joshua says:

    April 20, 2012 at 6:51 pm

    Ford: This was the only reason I didn’t get the Amex Preferred Card. On their policies it says that you don’t get cashback on prepaid Amex Gift cards. If this is not the case this makes the AMEX Preferred one of the best money makers out there…
77. Atxtravel says:

    April 20, 2012 at 10:28 pm

    Staples sells Southwest gift cards, good towards airfare, in $50, $100 and I think $200 increments. There’s no service fee.

    By going through UR mall and using INK Bold, that’s like getting 7x points on Southwest airfare! Plus you’ll get the credit for miles flown.
78. FrequentMiler says:

    April 21, 2012 at 5:20 am

    Atxtravel: That’s exactly right! You can do even better by going through uPromise to Staples. You’ll get 5% back from uPromise and 5X via the Ink Bold. Note you can do the same with Marriott gift cards as well.
79. Atxtravel says:

    April 21, 2012 at 8:35 am

    FrequentMiler: How reliable are for payouts? Never went through their portal before.
80. Joshua says:

    April 21, 2012 at 10:13 am

    Update on the Lowe’s experiment. I think this falls under the partial success. Got the points from the chase freedom card, but since the whole purchase was made with a gift card, didn’t get any points for the purchase online through UR mall. Looks like your theory is correct. As long as you charge even just $.50 on ANY credit card for the transaction the points post. Otherwise full payment with a gift card doesn’t yield points. Result=Partial Success.
81. Dayswim says:

    April 21, 2012 at 10:19 am

    Just received a postcard from staples stated they will no pay for the FAR dated 4/7/12
    It states that for the trend…….. I exceeded product limit. I purchased 10
    Any ideas how to get back my $350?
82. FrequentMiler says:

    April 21, 2012 at 10:59 am

    Dayswim: first check to see if you submitted more than once for the same rebate number. If so, you can expect any beyond the first to be rejected. If you really only bought the number allowed and only submitted once for the rebate then you should contact Staples for help
83. FrequentMiler says:

    April 21, 2012 at 1:57 pm

    Joshua: Thanks for the update! I’ll update the lab soon
84. FrequentMiler says:

    April 21, 2012 at 1:59 pm

    Atxtravel: I don’t have much experience with uPromise so I can’t say. I can say though that TopCashBack is reliable (in my experience) and they just changed their Staples policy so you now get 5.5% cash back on everything including gift card purchases! I’ll write this up as a blog post soon.
85. Nikki O says:

    April 30, 2012 at 2:10 pm

    Experiment in progress- purchased Old Navy/Gap gift card at grocery store for 6% cash back from American Express. Trying to use gift card to shop at Old Navy through Ultimate Rewards website for 4 extra points per dollar
86. DealsSeeker says:

    May 1, 2012 at 1:17 am

    Hi FM,
    Maybe you forgot, but remember that I sent you a link to my blog post of how I got United miles through buying a drugstore.com gift card? And then went thru the UR Mall for more points for using it.
87. Joshua says:

    May 1, 2012 at 11:19 am

    Miler-The lowes project was only partial success. I got the category bonus from chase, but I did not get any UR points from the UR mall.
88. FrequentMiler says:

    May 1, 2012 at 11:33 am

    Nikki O: Thanks for the info. I’ve added the in progress experiment.

    DealsSeeker: You’re right that I forgot. I added it to completed experiments. Please let me know if I don’t have the details correct.

    Joshua: Thanks, I’ve updated the Lab
89. Dan says:

    May 1, 2012 at 11:47 am

    The Lowe’s one is incorrect (at least for me). I got the bonus on the full amount, as well as the 5x back at the supermarket for getting the GC. I did put part of the purchase on my Chase CC though. Seems to be similar to the Home Depot in that respect.
90. FrequentMiler says:

    May 1, 2012 at 11:50 am

    Dan: Thanks, I’ve updated the Lab.
91. DealsSeeker says:

    May 1, 2012 at 7:58 pm

    Hi FM,
    I looked back at the post I had updated with my end results. This is what I wrote:
    - Received 300 miles with Continental MileagePlus Shopping Portal (awaiting the 500 bonus miles, they wouldn’t give me the bonus miles).
    - Received 75 American Airlines miles for using the Citi AA Amex Card.
    - Struck out with Ultimate Rewards, they don’t award miles for purchasing or redeeming gift cards with drugstore.com
92. FrequentMiler says:

    May 2, 2012 at 10:50 am

    DealsSeeker: Thanks for the clarification. I updated the Lab notes after you posted.
93. ct5x says:

    May 3, 2012 at 3:46 pm

    anyone try buying Sephora gc thru UR yet?
    How about buying staples gc thru UR then buying visa gc in store using gc?
94. Al says:

    May 4, 2012 at 11:00 am

    Why are you trying to maximize your Groupon purchases through the UR mall? You get 15% discover cashback which trumps UR mall’s paltry 2.0 pts. Even if it is classified as a business, you are getting a total of 7.0 ultimate rewards.

    ShopDiscover gives you 15% cashback and the (at least) .25% for the charge to your card. That is more than double your haul for the UR way (at 1UR = $0.01 in Shopdiscover cashback). I think Groupon through Shopdiscover is definitely teh way to go, hands down.
95. FrequentMiler says:

    May 4, 2012 at 11:43 am

    Al: The UR mall used to give 15X at Groupon. Since I value UR points at more than a penny each, that was the best deal around. Now that it’s down to 2X, I agree that the Discover portal is definitely better! The point of the lab exercise though is simply to see if paying with the Ink Bold automatically gives 5X because someone told me that Groupon appears to be categorized as office supplies. Anyway, I’ll update to show the Discover portal info.
96. Mark says:

    May 5, 2012 at 6:10 pm

    Hi FM
    How does one charge partially on cc n pay most on gift card.
    Ie Home Depot exp.

    All I can think of is buy and use 50 card on a 51+ purchase, remainder will be on chase cc.
    Am I getting the logic right?

    So I should use my 500 vanilla visa on that purchase cause, full payment non chase cc will not receive UR
97. Mark says:

    May 5, 2012 at 6:11 pm

    Should not I mean
98. FrequentMiler says:

    May 6, 2012 at 7:43 am

    Mark: Yes your logic is right. It’s not always easy to do this. Also, the 500 Vanilla can be difficult to use online altogether because it only allows registration of your zip code, not your full address. I don’t know if HD will take the card online.
99. Frequent Flyer Collector says:

    May 11, 2012 at 8:11 am

    hm wag.com is only 1.7% cashback now on bigcrumbs…that makes the experiment much less lucrative…
100. Frequent Flyer Collector says:

     May 11, 2012 at 8:11 am

     typo: it’s 1.4%, which is even worse
101. Frequent Flyer Collector says:

     May 11, 2012 at 8:39 am

     just got a $20 gift card at overstock via UR mall…the 10x is only good until 5/23, but i’ll let you know if i get points on the GC purchase
102. FrequentMiler says:

     May 11, 2012 at 9:32 am

     Frequent Flyer Collector: upromise has wag.com for 5% if you’re still interested in trying. Definitely let us know about Overstock. Thanks!
103. ct5x says:

     May 11, 2012 at 12:37 pm

     would be useful to put a note with the date next to the updates as well…
104. FrequentMiler says:

     May 14, 2012 at 8:59 am

     ct5X: Good idea.
105. Frequent Flyer Collector says:

     May 14, 2012 at 9:26 am

     my overstock order got held up, due to my address being wrong (it chopped off part of my apt number!)…but i cleared that up this morning. just needa see if points post.
106. Frequent Flyer Collector says:

     May 14, 2012 at 9:45 am

     just made a purchase through UR Mall and overstock using gift card (also used my prepaid AMEX loaded from office depot …we’ll see what posts to my account!

     I’ll probably give wag.com a shot in the near future as well.
107. brian says:

     May 18, 2012 at 2:22 pm

     any news on the overstock? i especially want to know about the AMEX loaded from office depot
108. Rapid Travel Chai says:

     May 18, 2012 at 4:09 pm

     Very cool!
109. FrequentMiler says:

     May 18, 2012 at 4:55 pm

     Brian: I’m not sure if anyone has tried the Overstick experiment yet.
110. brian says:

     May 18, 2012 at 5:41 pm

     I thought “Frequent Flyer Collector” said he did (post 106). I was hoping to hear his response! Although a previous post said 10x is only good through 5/23, and I don’t have a permanent card yet (want to purchase something over $500). So I’ll just order with the 10x for now…still not too shabby!
111. Frequent Miler says:

     May 18, 2012 at 5:43 pm

     brian: Oops. I forgot to update the Lab with his experiment! I’ll move that experiment to “in progress”
112. Blue says:

     May 18, 2012 at 11:31 pm

     Posting here for the first time specifically to say, the filter function is exactly what is needed. I have been coming here anonymously for the past 2 months to learn how things work, and to hopefully contribute back here once I understand how things work. I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, but never could connect the dot. This will help me think outside of the box more.

     Thanks for all that you do!
113. Blue says:

     May 18, 2012 at 11:34 pm

     How about creating another column that indicate the type of programs (UR, Open, etc) for easy filtering? and allow for multiple filters? Filter by programs then by results
114. Mike says:

     May 19, 2012 at 12:32 am

     Re: Old Navy / Gap. I recently (4/28) used a gift card purchased through CardPool and received 4x UR points for the entire transaction. Spent the remaining balance on my Chase card.
115. Mark says:

     May 19, 2012 at 7:37 am

     This thing is awesome, however, I think it also belongs in Google Docs for easier slicing and dicing of data. For example, for any FAILED experiments, I would just filter those out for my purposes. If you need help doing this, let me know.

     Great work!
116. Grant Thomas says:

     May 19, 2012 at 7:51 am

     It would be great if you can “lock” the top row so that when you scroll down the page, you can still see the top of the columns. Not sure how hard that is to do, but seen some other sites do it. Maybe you can include links to posts that show more detail about the experiments and color code certain things to make it easier to read. Great work
117. FrequentMiler says:

     May 19, 2012 at 9:27 am

     Blue: Thanks for the suggestion. I have very limited screen space (width wise) so I can’t really add another column, but the info like OPEN and UltimateRewards is there. You can filter on multiple things by adding a space. Example: search for “OPEN success” should find all of the experiments that were both amex OPEN related and successful.
118. FrequentMiler says:

     May 19, 2012 at 9:29 am

     Mark: thanks for the suggestion. I’ll see if there’s an easy way to keep it in both places (I like having it on the same page as the new experiments and comments)
119. FrequentMiler says:

     May 19, 2012 at 9:33 am

     Grant Thomas: Thanks! Good idea about the locked top row. I’m not sure how to do that though. Is it really a problem since you can limit results to 10 or so and page through them instead? What type of color coding did you have in mind?
120. FrequentMiler says:

     May 19, 2012 at 9:33 am

     Mike: Thanks! I’ll update the Lab I’ve updated the lab
121. Mark says:

     May 20, 2012 at 8:17 am

     There’s definitely an easy way to do both the Google Docs and the way you currently have it. All you have to do is to create a shareable Google Spreadsheet and dump your data into it. A link will be provided to the actual file. Alongside your “normal” view on the blog, just post a link to the Google site and say “if you want to download a copy of this, visit this link” or something like that.

     Here is a tutorial…

     http://www.askdavetaylor.com/how_to_share_google_docs_spreadsheet.html
122. points machine says:

     May 20, 2012 at 1:05 pm

     “Eligible on the redemption, not purchase, of gift cards.”,which is the T&C of chase. Does it mean failure to buygc but successful to useGC.Any experient? Thanks
123. points machine says:

     May 20, 2012 at 1:06 pm

     Eligible on the redemption, not purchase, of gift cards.”,which is the T&C of the Dell of chase UR mall. Does it mean failure to buygc but successful to useGC.Any experient? Thanks
124. FrequentMiler says:

     May 21, 2012 at 6:20 am

     points machine: Yes, that’s what the T&C means. It suggests that you will get points for using a gift card but not for buying one.
125. FrequentMiler says:

     May 21, 2012 at 6:22 am

     Mark: Thanks. I’ll look into that.
126. Frequent Flyer Collector says:

     May 21, 2012 at 9:52 am

     Update on overstock.com:

     It appears double dipping has failed. I bought a $20 gift card, and then used that gift card a few days later to make a purchase on overstock.com. A couple days ago, my purchase posted as pending bonus points on the Chase UR mall (I matched up the purchase date with what Chase sent me), but I haven’t seen anything on my gift card. it’s possible it’s just taking longer, but I think that’s unlikely since the actual purchase has posted but the gift card has not.
127. FrequentMiler says:

     May 21, 2012 at 11:54 am

     Frequent Flyer Collector: Thanks! This is very strange… Overstock is explicitly listed under “gift cards” in the UR mall so you definitely should get points from the gift card purchase! Did you buy an e-card or a physical card? Are you sure the points you received were from the merchandise purchase rather than the gift card purchase?
128. FrequentFlyerUniversity@gmail.com says:

     May 22, 2012 at 2:51 pm

     Update looks great. It is really easy to search now. Keep up the good work!
129. carwag25 says:

     May 23, 2012 at 7:33 pm

     Trying out 20X QVC gc purchase & subsequent purchase through UR via Freedom card today and tomorrow.
130. FrequentMiler says:

     May 23, 2012 at 8:12 pm

     carwag25: Thanks!
131. Chase Ultimate Rewards Transfers | Million Mile Secrets says:

     May 24, 2012 at 2:00 am

     [...] don’t see why Frequent Miler should have all the fun in his Frequent Miler Laboratory, so I’ve been performing a few experiments as [...]
132. carwag25 says:

     May 28, 2012 at 6:48 pm

     Results from QVC experiment on Freedom card UR portal:
     Gift card initial purchase: No points. I suspect this is because the QVC gift cards are actually sold by a third party CashStar.
     Purchase item on qvc.com using gift card: Points posted at 10X for base price of the item
     In summary, no double dip opportunity.
133. FrequentMiler says:

     May 28, 2012 at 7:20 pm

     carwag25: Thanks! I’ve updated the lab data.
134. carwag25 says:

     May 29, 2012 at 1:28 pm

     I am going to start researching the double dip of buying super certificates to buy gift cards and get cashback for both. I bought 5 10$ super certificates (via the topcashback portal), 2 physical and 3 electronic. Will try each card via a different cashback portal for buying the gift cards with the super certificates.
     The first couple of portals I looked at had T&C’s that state gc purchases with super certificates do not qualify, but will try them anyways.
     Any suggestions on other cashback portals not listed on ev’reward?
135. FrequentMiler says:

     May 29, 2012 at 7:40 pm

     carwag25: search via http://www.cashbackholic.com/
136. Ron says:

     May 31, 2012 at 9:41 am

     I am wondering if anyone knows (or is) an internet guru that would know a way to “trick” a portal into believing that you are at the website in which the bonus points are offered, but you are actually at another site in which you can buy something you actually want/need.

     I.E. going through ulitmate rewards to “Magazines.com” for 25x, but actually going to expedia.com to purchase travel and get 25x at expedia because UR thinks you are at Magazines.com I would think there would be some kind of hacker trick to do this.
137. FrequentMiler says:

     May 31, 2012 at 10:02 am

     Ron: I don’t think what you propose is possible without hacking into merchant computer systems (which I don’t recommend!). The way portals work is they pass along a tracking code to the merchant and then it is up to the merchant to report back actual sales. It is that second part that I think would be very difficult to spoof. Plus, doing so would be fraud, I believe.
138. atxtravel says:

     June 4, 2012 at 10:18 am

     Has anyone tried using NetSpend or MIO cards?
     https://www.netspend.com/
     https://www.miocard.com/Home.aspx

     They should be reloadable with the same Vinilla cards that the AMEX prepaid card uses.
139. Steve says:

     June 4, 2012 at 2:04 pm

     Anyone tested to see if you can use best buy gift cards through any portal and get cashback?
     I’ve got a bb GC, and a purchase to make. If no one’s tried it yet, I’ll definitely go through a portal and report my results.
140. FrequentMiler says:

     June 4, 2012 at 3:21 pm

     Steve: I’m not aware of anyone doing that. Thanks conducting the experiment!
141. FrequentMiler says:

     June 4, 2012 at 3:53 pm

     axtravel: I just ordered a netspend card. Hopefully I’ll find out soon if it works!
142. atxtravel says:

     June 4, 2012 at 5:35 pm

     Frequentmiler: Great, let us know. I’m specifically interested in it because from the FAQ it doesn’t appear to have a cash withdrawal limitation, except $400/day and being not an AMEX card might not have as much of a risk. This could be a lowcost way to meet minimum spend for any card, and maybe it can be reloaded by cards sold at stores besides OD.
143. Steve says:

     June 4, 2012 at 6:47 pm

     Ok,
     I will need to report later, but here’s what I did.
     Went through topcashback.com (should give 6% cashback on a TV). It says “Excluding gift cards and services (with the exception of Geek Squad), which do not qualify for cashback” Not sure if that means purchase of gift cards, or using a gift card.

     purchase was 529 after taxes.

     My gift card was for more than the purchase price. I tried to get an e-gift card online so I could charge some of it to my AMEX for purchase protection, but I cannot purchase an e-gift card online with a regular gift card – a credit card is required.

     If I weren’t travelling all week, I would goto BB B&M tomorrow to purchase a smaller gift card, but the deal on this tv is this week only, and I won’t have a chance to get to a BB B&M.

     So, best case scenario, I get 6% cashback + best buy rewards points (31.74+$10 of reward zone points)
     Worst case I get $0.

     I can’t complain, got the GC as a gift, but the extras would be nice.
     I will report back after the transaction completes and I have my TV. If I don’t get points, I’ll try to get something in writing from BB RZ and topcashback.
144. atxtravel says:

     June 4, 2012 at 8:18 pm

     Frequentmiler: one more thing to try out with Netspend. It has a PIN debit purchase feature which depending on the plan you’re on only costs $2 per transaction. It might be possible to use it to buy cashiers checks at grocery stores or post office.
145. FrequentMiler says:

     June 4, 2012 at 8:55 pm

     axtravel: Yes, it will open all kinds of possibilities if it works. I especially like the idea of paying taxes with it…
146. Aardvark0 says:

     June 5, 2012 at 2:00 am

     That lasted longer than I thought it would. Office Depots in SF area are now cash/debit only for vanilla reloads and visa/amex gift cards.
147. Vard says:

     June 5, 2012 at 1:23 pm

     I need to purchase a Gap giftcard, was hoping to do it through UR Mall link for 3x/1$. Has anyone had success in getting this? All i find online is that you purchased a gift card at another location and then succesfully used it online. But does an actual GC purchase qualify
148. FrequentMiler says:

     June 6, 2012 at 3:57 pm

     Aardvark0: Sorry to hear that!

     Vard: I don’t know if it will work. Please let me know the results if you try it.
149. Steve says:

     June 8, 2012 at 5:36 am

     Update on my bestbuy.cOm order.

     Cashback on purchase amount (not including tax) was posted as peding to topcashback today. Used a gift card for 100% of purchase.

     How long does cash usually pens at topcashback? I still have $10 pending from FTD from the week before mothers day.
150. FrequentMiler says:

     June 8, 2012 at 3:08 pm

     Steve: Thanks! I’ll update the Lab. The time it takes at TopCashBack to go from pending to payable depends on how long it takes for TCB to get paid by the merchant.
151. reeder says:

     June 19, 2012 at 3:49 pm

     Amex also has a prepaid college edition card that allows loading at the campus bookstore which may accept credit card loads. Not as lucrative as a 5x Ink, but maybe there’s a way to do a sideload via barnes and noble campus bookstore with B&N gift cards? Or to top off a college kid’s card (visit, feed them, load some cash onto the card).
     http://www.americanexpress.com/campusedition

     “You may add money to your American Express Campus Edition Card at the register of a participating campus bookstore. Follow the directions below to successfully add money to your Card.

     Tell the cashier how much money you would like to add to your Card.
     Provide your American Express Campus Edition Card to the cashier to swipe your Card and enter the load amount.
     Give the cashier the amount of cash you want to add to the Card (bookstores may accept credit, debit or cash). A purchase fee of up to $3.95 will be added to your purchase by the bookstore but there are no additional fees assessed by American Express for the load.”
152. FrequentMiler says:

     June 19, 2012 at 4:39 pm

     reeder: Great find! I love that they explicitly say that bookstores may accept credit, debit or cash. OK, who wants to test this one?
153. Steve says:

     June 20, 2012 at 2:15 pm

     FM- my next contribution for the lab (awaiting results).
     $535 purchase from jcpenny.com through shopathome@10%.
     $491 in two JCP egiftcards. $44 on credit card.
     I will report how much, if any, cashback I receive @ shopathome.com.

     Side note – used cardpool to get the JCP egift cards @30% off. 2% Cashback through topcashabck is showing as pending. I hope it comes through!
154. FrequentMiler says:

     June 20, 2012 at 3:40 pm

     Steve: Thanks! I’ve updated the “in progress” experiments.
155. adamu says:

     June 20, 2012 at 6:02 pm

     will topcashback also give me credit to my acct if i go login and go thru the portal and use my card to book hotels for other people?
156. FrequentMiler says:

     June 21, 2012 at 3:34 pm

     adamu: Yes, that should work.
157. Marshall says:

     June 22, 2012 at 5:22 am

     Question: How will using Corporate ID when booking ClubCarlson affect best price guarantee? When use Corp ID, get 5% discount. That makes the price BETTER than any web site price, so may lose 25% discount. Any thoughts?
158. FrequentMiler says:

     June 22, 2012 at 7:12 am

     Marshall: The 5% discount is not always the best price. Often, AAA is a better price, for example. I don’t know if using the Corporate ID affects the best price guarantee in any way other than lowering your price a bit. If you find a best price guarantee option that only works when compared to the rate without 5% off, then you’re probably better off booking it without your corporate ID
159. Steve says:

     June 26, 2012 at 3:40 pm

     Update on my JCP purchase. The scenario was weird, and probably not repeatable, but I wanted to close this out. I ended up with no merchandise
     step 1) purchased a dresser (I thought) through shopathome when it was 7%.
     2) they delivered a mirror. Item returned to JCP
     3) bought giftcards at cardpool
     4) used 2 giftcards+AMEX to purchase a dresser at JCP.
     5) got a call, the dresser is discontinued.

     In the end, I got no dresser, and no merchandise.
     The purchase @ JCP with 2 gift cards +AMEX was never reported @shopathome (order cancelled before delivery).
     I got the 7% cashback from step 1) i told them the order was cancelled, but JCP still paid the 7%.

     Now I’m in your spot. I have a lot of JCP giftcards I need to spend.
     At least I got 25 bucks out of it.
160. FrequentMiler says:

     June 26, 2012 at 7:42 pm

     Steve: Ugh, sorry you’re stuck with JCP gift cards too! This is useful, though. I’ll update the Lab to say that using gift cards (with partial credit card payment) does result in portal cash back. Thanks for doing the experiment, sorry for how it turned out. This info (and the gift cards) could be extremely useful if we ever see a big 10X or 15X JCP promotion.
161. Steve says:

     June 26, 2012 at 10:13 pm

     No, The cashback was actually just for paying for JCP purchase with a CC (my first purchase was before getting gift cards).
     The gift card credit + CC credit never hit because the order was cancelled almost immediately because it’s a discontinued product.
162. FrequentMiler says:

     June 27, 2012 at 5:54 am

     Steve: Oops, that’s what I get for working at night. I’ll fix the Lab as soon as I get a chance.
163. smurf says:

     July 3, 2012 at 8:39 am

     I’ve gotten the 10x bonus before when buying drugstore.com ecerts from drugstore.com
164. FrequentMiler says:

     July 3, 2012 at 5:53 pm

     smurf: Thanks! I’ll update the Lab table with the Drugstore.com info
165. Steve says:

     July 4, 2012 at 9:05 am

     any word yet on Michael’s? I noticed you can get them through staples.com. And the Michael’s near me (next door to office depot:)) has GCs for my local grocery store. 9x (5ink+4UR Ink portal) on groceries would be nice! Even if there’s no promo at staples, 6x UR at grocery would be awesome.
166. FrequentMiler says:

     July 4, 2012 at 9:58 am

     Steve: I ordered the Michael’s gift card, but it hasn’t arrived yet. Unfortunately, though, several readers have now told me that they were not able to use Michael’s gift cards to buy gift cards.
167. al613 says:

     July 10, 2012 at 7:43 am

     Hurry! Will end soon. Mails to Chicago and Milwaukee. It seems to be good for Toys R us as well. You can buy other gift cards (like Amazon) with this gift card in their store. http://www.dealsmagazine.com/b/deal/babies-r-us-osdhx?rid=3RQSQ6G4&rt=2
168. Friar Tuck says:

     July 11, 2012 at 3:04 pm

     I recently purchased an electronic gift certificate through Beauty.com and topcashback is showing a pending 10% back on that purchase.

     I was able to use the egift cert at drugstore.com and combine with a $5 off $40 coupon. I also went through UR on this purchase and will let you know if i am able to get another 10% off. It would not allow me to purchase a third party gift card with the beauty.com gc at drugstore.com.

     Do you know if anybody sells verizon gift cards? And if so, is there a store i can buy gift cards to and then use those gift cards to buy the verizon gift cards? It’d be nice to shave 5% of so off my cell phone bill.

     Thanks!
169. al613 says:

     July 12, 2012 at 7:04 am

     Do they sell other gift cards in Barnes and noble? Today there is a good deal for their gift cards: http://www.dealsmagazine.com/b/deal/barnes–noble-booksellers-2g5du?rid=3RQSQ6G4&rt=2
170. FrequentMiler says:

     July 12, 2012 at 8:44 am

     al613: I couldn’t find any merchant gift cards in my local B&N, but YMMV. That is a good deal — too bad it is limited to 2 per household!
171. FrequentMiler says:

     July 12, 2012 at 9:08 am

     Friar Tuck: Many places sell Verizon cards for reloading pay as you go phones, but I don’t know if those cards can be used to pay your Verizon bill. The best bet is to use a Chase Ink card which is supposed to get 5X for phone, internet, cable, etc. Just a caution: one reader wrote recently that Chase didn’t seem to give him 5X for his Verizon bill so it may or may not work as expected.
172. FrequentMiler says:

     July 12, 2012 at 9:09 am

     Steve: No, Michael’s didn’t work. Most of my other tests did work: ToysRUs, OfficeMax, Best Buy, and Bed Bath Beyond all worked without any problem or comment from the cashiers. Marshall’s didn’t work because I couldn’t find any gift cards to buy.
173. al613 says:

     July 12, 2012 at 10:38 am

     @ FrequentMiler My friend told me he has seen other gift cards in Chicago B&N. I bought 2 to try.
174. FrequentMiler says:

     July 12, 2012 at 11:46 am

     al613: Great. Let us know how it goes.
175. Friar Tuck says:

     July 12, 2012 at 9:25 pm

     my purchase through UR at drugstore.com with a beauty.com gc is not showing up in my UR activity, so i’m assuming i get no UR points.
176. FrequentMiler says:

     July 13, 2012 at 6:48 am

     Friar Tuck: Thanks for the update. That’s consistent with my findings as well.
177. Steve says:

     July 16, 2012 at 3:47 pm

     After my JCP mess
     SUCCESS – Today received 10% cashback on the purchase price of the product (Before taxes) for gift card + credit card transaction.
178. pianodude says:

     July 18, 2012 at 5:31 pm

     I use my Ink Bold for my cell phone and cable bills. I also occasionally “shop” at OD and, of course, use the card for other sundry purposes.

     Have you heard of anyone also paying their relatives/friends cell and cable bills? If yes, how many relatives/friends?

     What are your thoughts on Chase’s possible reaction to seeing 3 or 4 (or more) different cell/cable transactions on a bill each month?
179. FrequentMiler says:

     July 18, 2012 at 5:54 pm

     pianodude: I’ve never heard of anyone paying relative/friend cell and cable bills for the Ink Bold 5X. I would be a little nervous about that.
180. Friar Tuck says:

     July 18, 2012 at 8:00 pm

     Surprise email from Chase UR saying i got 10% back on my purchase at drugstore.com!

     To recap, i got 10% through topcashback for purchasing a egift card at beauty.com, then i went through UR and used the egc at drugstore.com and got 10% back on that.
181. pianodude says:

     July 18, 2012 at 9:04 pm

     @FM — Thanks for your reply. I guess it’s possible that a person could have a couple different cell or internet plans associated with his business/person. I don’t know if Chase can trace the name associated with such accounts.
     But, I agree, it may be pushing it. I may just provide OD Amex cards to my friends/family.
182. FrequentMiler says:

     July 19, 2012 at 2:11 pm

     Friar Tuck: That’s amazing. I’ll have to try again with drugstore.com!

     painodude: great idea!
183. Steve says:

     July 19, 2012 at 6:55 pm

     I currently use a Chase Ink Bold card for my family plan (ATT in my mom’s name, different address), my wife’s family plan (Verizon in her dad’s name, different address), and my internet (ATT, billing address for card). We’ve been on our own families plans since college, and we’re grandfathered in to plans that are much cheaper than what’s available today, so we’re not consolidating lines. Technically I use portions of all three (my cell, my wife’s cell, my internet) for “business”. No problems.

     No problems so far.
184. Kevin says:

     July 24, 2012 at 7:03 am

     Is earning points by purchasing Staples GCs through Chase Ultimate Mall official dead?
185. Frequent Miler says:

     July 24, 2012 at 8:27 am

     Kevin: last I heard, it was still working. YMMV
186. Kevin says:

     July 25, 2012 at 6:30 am

     To Frequent Miler: in the spreadshhet above, smitty06 reported he did not get points for Staple GC purchase through Ultimate Mall.
187. FrequentMiler says:

     July 25, 2012 at 6:44 am

     Kevin: you’re right, sorry about that (I forgot)! I had previously heard from a few people that it was still working.
188. atxtravel says:

     July 28, 2012 at 8:17 pm

     It looks like PayPal has a prepaid debit card which can be loaded through the netspend network, but is run by a different bank than netspend cards. They offer the same features for a $5/mo fee, but charge nothing for the transactions themselves. They should be reloadable with the same cards, but maybe vanilla reloads work too.
189. FrequentMiler says:

     July 29, 2012 at 8:01 am

     atxtravel: thanks for the info. I’m a little nervous about pursing this one: it’s one thing for Netspend to shut down one’s account, but if Paypal locked me out that would be a real issue…
190. atxtravel says:

     July 29, 2012 at 9:20 am

     I read the bottom of the page and looks like the card is issued by Bancorp, while the one you had was Metabank. I think the bank behind the cards is the one who shuts people down, but it’s up to you, maybe you can call PayPal and ask about that hypothetical scenario. Btw, there’s plenty of places that sell Mio cards near Detroit, also issued by Bancorp so you should be able to get it.
191. Frequent Miler says:

     July 29, 2012 at 6:44 pm

     atxtravel: that is good if it’s not from Metabank. I’ve been using a Mio for the past three weeks or so. So far, so good!
192. atxtravel says:

     July 29, 2012 at 6:57 pm

     FM: great, I’ve been considering that card too so I can offload all my OD churning on it. I think its $5/mo fee and all transactions are free, so it might be good for general spending. Do you know if it has an ACH bill payment feature, where you get a routing and acct # to do debits from it?
193. FrequentMiler says:

     July 30, 2012 at 6:12 am

     atxtravel: the Mio has a new fee structure in which all credit charges are free. Debit transactions are 50 cents each. I haven’t looked into ACH yet. I’m simply using the MIo as my primary card for regular spend.
194. Steve says:

     July 30, 2012 at 7:08 pm

     anyone have success getting a moneypak at Walgreens with a credit card?
195. Joshua says:

     August 1, 2012 at 9:58 am

     Miler-Just FYI I just used lowes gift cards and my ink bold in a combined purchase and chase didn’t give me any points. I had to send a message and they only gave me points on the part of the order that I used the ink bold on. So you may need to change that. Maybe they caught on…
196. Fred says:

     August 3, 2012 at 12:28 pm

     I went to 2 separate OfficeMax stores yesterday try to buy other gift cards with OfficeMax gift card. and I was told it’s the corporate policy, they’re not allowing that.
197. Steve says:

     August 6, 2012 at 10:38 am

     PetcareRx – I missed the 40x delta skmiles, but I needed something. Went through Topcashback.
     Had petcarerx rewards points (in store-cash).
     Total price, $17, price after rewards redemption $5.61. Topcashback gave me 12% on $5.61.
     yay for 60 cents!
198. Kevin says:

     August 7, 2012 at 9:47 pm

     I went to 2 Kmarts in NY and PA. Store Managers said he saw Ebay GC last week, but suddenly not available this week. He said the parent company may pull them off from Shelves this week.

     I went to 2 Sears in NY and PA. Both stores do not sell third party GC. Can anyone tell me where to look for third party GCs in case I missed it? Thank you!
199. Steve says:

     August 10, 2012 at 8:33 am

     Per kevin and fm on 7/25. I purchased Marriott gc from staples through Ur mall. Got all the points I was hoping for (9x Ur using bold)
200. Sergey says:

     August 11, 2012 at 5:10 am

     FrequentMiler, I am wondering if purchasing Marriott gift cards on Marriott.com using AMEX Business Card (with Open savings program) will result in 5% credit? I did it and credit didn’t post automatically, so I had to send a message to AMEX and CSR posted credit manually. So, my concern is purchasing gift cards is eligible purchase for 5% credit or not.
201. FrequentMiler says:

     August 11, 2012 at 9:28 am

     Sergey: OPEN Savings is only supposed to give 5% back on spend at particular Marriott properties (Courtyard, Fairfield, Springhill Suites, Residence Inn, and TownePlace Suites) so it doesn’t surprise me that you didn’t get 5% credit automatically. It’s great that Amex posted the credit for you when you called.
202. Gabriel says:

     August 15, 2012 at 8:10 am

     You can get 10% cash back on Groupon purchases through a Topcashback double dip. 5% back for gift card purchases and then 5% back when using the gift card. I have done this a few times recently and both amounts have been confirmed by TCB (but still waiting to be payable). Seems to be the way to go for Groupon if you don’t have a Discover card (giving 15% cash back).
203. Kevin says:

     August 15, 2012 at 7:29 pm

     Staples.com is now charging $1.99 secured shipping fee for each gift card purchases. If I order 10 $100 Staples GC, it will charge $19.9. Such a rip off!
204. FrequentMiler says:

     August 20, 2012 at 6:43 pm

     Gabriel: Thanks! I updated the table.

     Kevin: Rats! Bad news.
205. kathy says:

     August 21, 2012 at 9:37 am

     If I order prepaid gift cards through the UR Mall with my CSP will I be able to get the UR Mall bonus points? If so, where can I get them?
206. FrequentMiler says:

     August 21, 2012 at 10:28 am

     kathy: you can get Visa gift cards from Staples through the UR Mall, but they now charge hefty fees that take away a lot of the advantage.
207. JT says:

     August 21, 2012 at 4:35 pm

     Have you tried double dipping by going through ShopDiscover then click thru one of their participating merchants but use a different card (instead of Discover) to get cash back from Discover and another credit card?
208. FrequentMiler says:

     August 21, 2012 at 5:35 pm

     JT: I haven’t tried it, but I’ve heard that it does work
209. Steve says:

     August 27, 2012 at 1:25 pm

     shoes.com is offerings 15x skymiles through skymiles shopping portal.
210. Moshe says:

     August 28, 2012 at 6:28 am

     How about buying a starbucks e gift card using UR Portal (4X), and then using that same starbucks e gift card to refill a rewards card through the UR Portal, and then using the starbucks rewards card to buy k cups also through the UR Portal (total 13X, if using a chase credit card to make original purchase?
211. FrequentMiler says:

     August 28, 2012 at 7:10 am

     Moshe: interesting idea! Will you try it?
212. Moshe says:

     August 28, 2012 at 8:41 pm

     Step one in progress…..
213. Dave Op says:

     August 29, 2012 at 6:25 am

     Any chance in Costco.com double dip or something?
214. FrequentMiler says:

     August 30, 2012 at 11:03 am

     Dave Op: I don’t know
215. alan says:

     September 2, 2012 at 12:58 am

     The $1.99 fee at Staples for GCs is a shame, but assuming you were going to be spending the money at whichever place you buy the gift card for anyway, it’s still a good buy. Even at 4 points/dollar, buying a $100 GC for $101.99, you get 407 UR points for $1.99. That’s getting them for less that $0.005 each, and they’re worth a minimum of $0.01 if you just use them for a statement credit. And that doesn’t count the 5 points/dollar for using an Ink Bold, if you’re buying a GC for somewhere other than Staples that doesn’t earn as much for normal credit card usage.

     This depends on continuing to get UR points for buying GCs, though the terms now say they don’t qualify. It still works on software, so we’ll see. I ordered a $100 Staples GC to try it. I do wish they had larger amounts, so the $1.99 fee could be a smaller percentage.
216. FrequentMiler says:

     September 2, 2012 at 11:52 am

     alan: Yes, you’re right that buying merchant gift cards at Staples is still a good deal. However, Visa gift cards aren’t as good any more. They recently raised the fee for $100 cards AND tacked on the shipping charge.
217. Stu says:

     September 4, 2012 at 10:28 am

     I just came across this site, so apologies if this has been asked and answered, or just not a good question to ask:

     Has anyone tried using the Delta Skymiles shopping portal to buy GCs at GiftCertificates.com, then turning around and using those gift certificates to pay for other items purchased through the portal (e.g. buy a GC to REI through portal, then go to REI through portal and pay with GCs)? It seems like you’d get miles for both the GC purchase and the regular merchandise purchase – I don’t know how the retailer would know you’re using GCs purchased via the portal – but I wanted to see if anyone has confirmed this. Thanks!

     Stu
218. FrequentMiler says:

     September 4, 2012 at 11:52 am

     Stu: Great idea. I don’t know if anyone has tried it yet, but it would be great if it works. I suspect that when you use the supercertificate to buy another one you won’t get the points, but that’s really just a guess.
219. Kushal says:

     September 4, 2012 at 1:20 pm

     Another datapoint on BedBathBeyond the system allows buying a gift card with a gift card as mentioned in the laboratory above. YMMV if you run into a clerk who is not ready to process it. 8/10 this should work. Best option throw in some extra stuff from the store with the MC/Visa gift card.
220. FrequentMiler says:

     September 4, 2012 at 1:29 pm

     Kushal: Thanks
221. IrishTiger says:

     September 5, 2012 at 6:21 pm

     Well, goofed on a rebate and now have three $100 Macy’s gift cards. Just purchased an eGift card at macys.com via Freedom portal to see if 5x posts.
222. N says:

     September 10, 2012 at 7:05 pm

     For anyone who’s bought Groupon gift cards and received cash back, did you buy an e-GC or physical GC? Both now seem to be processed through external vendors (not through Groupon), so I think any double-dip possibility won’t work, but I’d love to be wrong.
223. Amee says:

     September 12, 2012 at 11:39 am

     I did one sample run – Amex prepaid cards do have direct deposit facility (As they have the routing # & A/c #). How abt using doing the other way?
     My Credit union allows me to get transfers from other banks. So I did a sample – I put transfer request from AMEX prepaid card to my bank a/c. Unfortunately it FAILED… But it was worth a creative try …
224. FrequentMiler says:

     September 12, 2012 at 1:29 pm

     Amee: Good to know anyway! Thanks for letting us know!
225. Double Dippin’ with Ultimate Reward Points - Mommy Points says:

     September 13, 2012 at 6:02 am

     [...] keep an eye on both the Milepoint gift card thread and the Frequent Miler Laboratory from time to time to see how various “double dips” are going.  When I think about it, [...]
226. Rich says:

     September 13, 2012 at 12:16 pm

     Rite Aid
     I was able to buy a Shell GC with a Rite Aid GC today.
227. FrequentMiler says:

     September 13, 2012 at 6:21 pm

     Rich: Thanks! I’ve added the data to the Lab table
228. Don T says:

     September 16, 2012 at 8:19 pm

     Next quarter use Chase Freedom to buy Best Buy gift card getting 10x, then use gift card through UR to get 10x again to buy something at bestbuy.com?
229. Bob says:

     September 17, 2012 at 8:01 am

     Frequent Miler -
     I’m guessing your URs posted today as well since I believe we did it the same day. I received Ultimate Rewards for buying Buy.com gift certificates. I don’t plan on double dipping right now on it, so keep us up on if you receive points for buying merchandise with the Buy.com gift certificates. It would have been awesome if we could have used them to purchase the merchant gift cards!
230. FrequentMiler says:

     September 17, 2012 at 8:50 am

     Bob: Yes, points posted. I’ll post full details tomorrow.
231. IrishTiger says:

     September 21, 2012 at 4:02 pm

     Petco success! Bought a gift certificate(eBay) at discount. Used through Chase Freedom portal – purchase was mix of dog food/treats and additional physical gift cards. Paid 99% with online gift cards and 1% with Chase Freedom. Apparently received full 7x points on merchandise only…but will go do the same thing with the gift cards I purchased! $50 bags of dog food now costing closer to $20, gonna do this with the meds, too. My dogs are 4…why didn’t I learn this years ago?
232. FrequentMiler says:

     September 22, 2012 at 11:41 am

     IrishTiger: Congrats! Thanks for the info. I’ve updated the Lab table.
233. Frequent Flyer Collector says:

     September 24, 2012 at 11:58 am

     has there ever been an experiment for Banana Republic double dip? I may try one soon if not. it’s not that exciting at 3 pts/$ but I was planning to make some purchases there anyway.
234. FrequentMiler says:

     September 24, 2012 at 2:10 pm

     Frequent Flyer Collector: Not that I can remember
235. Steve says:

     September 25, 2012 at 11:14 am

     anyone tried using an OM coupon when upgrading GCs?
     I just completed an experiment to make sure my OM allowed gc upgrading (they do). The receipt had a survey – upon filling it out, I will receive $5 off $25 in-store only coupon. The fine print does say not good for GCs. Just wondering if anyone had tried and had success counter to what the coupon says.
     Since I know I can upgrade GCs, I will give it a try on my next round.
236. FrequentMiler says:

     September 25, 2012 at 2:47 pm

     Steve: I can’t wait to hear how that turns out!
237. james says:

     September 25, 2012 at 5:28 pm

     Any update on “Amex Prepaid College Edition” experiment ?
238. FrequentMiler says:

     September 25, 2012 at 7:31 pm

     James: I had trouble getting a card, but now they say one is in the mail so I should be able to test it soon
239. Allen says:

     October 5, 2012 at 9:28 am

     I’d like to ask if anyone’s had any experience with either buying Nordstrom gift cards and/or using them, through any shopping portal. I want to buy some stuff from there, but would like to hear any ideas on how to get better than 5x, which seems to be the best available now.
240. Will says:

     October 7, 2012 at 10:41 pm

     IrishTiger, did your test of using Macy’s gift cards to buy something from Macy’s.com give you any UR points?
241. Greek2me says:

     October 11, 2012 at 8:16 pm

     Another Data point confirming FAIL on using Lowes GC to buy any merchant GC. Register gave message that cannot do it.
242. Maximizing Mileage Earning for Halloween - Mommy Points says:

     October 12, 2012 at 7:01 am

     [...] your Freedom card when you check-out for an extra 5x due to the 4th quarter bonus at Kohl’s. The Frequent Miler’s Lab also reports some partial success with being able to double-dip with Kohl’s (ie buy gift [...]
243. Will says:

     October 18, 2012 at 8:46 am

     Data Point for Macys.
     I bought something going through the UR Portal at Macy’s and paid over 90% of it using gift cards and the rest with my Freedom. Points posted for the whole transaction cost so I think you would get points if you paid for the whole purchase using gift cards.
244. FrequentMiler says:

     October 18, 2012 at 11:33 am

     Will: Thanks! I’ll update the Lab table. Some merchants will give points for the full purchase if you pay any small amount with your credit card, but won’t do the same if you pay entirely with a gift card. Someone will have to experiment to see if Macy’s gives points on an order made entirely by gift card.
245. donna pfau says:

     October 18, 2012 at 3:20 pm

     I purchased a Lowe’s gift card at local grocery store with hilton amex for 6 points per dollar plus fuel points. I then used it to purchase merchandise at Lowe’s through UR portal for instore pickup. None of the purchase was on my sapphire card. I received full UR points.
246. FrequentMiler says:

     October 18, 2012 at 4:47 pm

     donna pfau: I understand that you didn’t use your Sapphire card, but was any portion of your Lowe’s purchase made with a different credit card or was 100% of the order paid for with gift cards?
247. donna pfau says:

     October 19, 2012 at 8:11 am

     100% gift card.
248. Y. Jiang says:

     October 20, 2012 at 12:41 am

     Kohl’s double dipping did not work for me.
     Bought 103 dollar worth of gift cards, no points.
     But using the gift card did give me points.
249. FrequentMiler says:

     October 20, 2012 at 9:33 am

     Y. Jiang: Thanks for the info. I’ll post this info through the blog. Given your finding, the best double dip at Kohls may be to buy the gift cards at a steep discount via PlasticJungle and then go through the UR mall to use them.
250. joed says:

     October 23, 2012 at 12:52 pm

     Has anybody tried clicking through multiple malls before purchasing? Like loading up discover mall -> click merchant, load aadvantage mall -> click merchant, load chase mall -> click merchant then finally buy?
251. FrequentMiler says:

     October 23, 2012 at 6:51 pm

     joed: the way the shopping portals work is that the shopping portal passes along a tracking ID to the merchant and then the merchant reports the sale back to the shopping portal. If you went through several portals only 1 would get notified of the sale.
252. Mason says:

     October 23, 2012 at 7:13 pm

     I tried to buy a vanilla reload card with a credit card at my local Kum and Go gas station in Little Rock, AR. Result: Fail.
253. FrequentMiler says:

     October 23, 2012 at 7:44 pm

     Mason: Rats! Thanks for sharing the results
254. Dmechanic says:

     October 29, 2012 at 9:37 pm

     Purchased $450.00 worth of gifts cards thru the online rewards mall at Sears. My statement shows them as being fulfilled by K-Mart.com. Points were given as activity thru Sears but I guess because the transaction posted to my statement as a K-mart sale, points were not given.
255. FrequentMiler says:

     October 30, 2012 at 7:32 am

     Dmechanic: The Sears gift cards do show up on statements as k-mart, but the points do usually post anyway. Give it lots of time.
256. JG says:

     November 2, 2012 at 6:05 pm

     I think the party’s over: most of the Office Depots in SF bay area are out of stock on Vanilla Reloads. One location (out of 10!) has them but accepts only cash/debit to purchase. I’ve been told some are discontinuing due to “issues” with them. I was, however, able to use Ink Bold to purchase oneVanilla prepaid (but no reloads to be found).
257. FrequentMiler says:

     November 5, 2012 at 8:06 am

     JG: The party goes on elsewhere. If you’re stuck in an area without Vanilla Reloads, try this: The 5X everywhere backup plan
258. Kushal says:

     November 6, 2012 at 10:22 am

     FM: Datapoint. JCPenney points using gift cards + credit card for merchandise posts on UR Mall. I did another purchase of merchandise by using ONLY gift cards and that did not post to my UR Mall.
259. FrequentMiler says:

     November 6, 2012 at 5:19 pm

     Kushal: Thanks! I’ll update the Lab table shortly
260. Kushal says:

     November 7, 2012 at 11:48 am

     FM: Sorry to raise the false alarm. The merchandise bought using JCP gift cards posted after 10 days. So in short both transactions with GCs+CC and GCs alone posted.
     In later case it took almost 10 days for it to post.
261. FrequentMiler says:

     November 7, 2012 at 2:40 pm

     Kushal: No problem. I’ll fix the Lab. Thanks for notifying me again!
262. Chris L says:

     November 8, 2012 at 9:13 am

     Small item that may be of use to someone. Going through the Hawaiian Airlines mall to Franklin Covey, I was able to double dip (bought online gift card, then used gift card to get product, got full points on both)
263. Alexandre says:

     November 8, 2012 at 9:21 am

     Success buying Vanilla Reloads at CVS with CC in Chicago.
264. Travel Lover says:

     November 8, 2012 at 5:23 pm

     Alexandre:
     Which CVS?? I’ve been going to CVS’s all day and none had ‘em
265. Alexandre says:

     November 8, 2012 at 9:35 pm

     CVS in Oak Lawn to be exact. 103rd and Kedzie. They just got them and I think most CVS will have them soon.
266. Travel Lover says:

     November 9, 2012 at 9:00 am

     Aw I don’t live near there, but i’ll check my neighborhood cvs’s again
267. WishyAnand says:

     November 9, 2012 at 3:41 pm

     No CVS’s in the Seattle area it seems. 3 OD’s I checked all out too, and one OD worker said that they sell fast because local taxicab drivers buy them!!
268. Akira says:

     November 10, 2012 at 4:09 pm

     I was wondering if anyone has tried buying Office Depot gift cards through Ultimate Rewards shopping portal w/ Chase INK card. Possibility of double dipping the 5x office supply store category and 5x shopping portal bonus. I don’t think I saw this combo in the list. Thanks!
269. jason says:

     November 10, 2012 at 9:14 pm

     Might want to test this for yourself, but it seems Staples GC and Upromise is dead. Received cash back in September but not on two purchases this month.
270. Steve says:

     November 13, 2012 at 8:21 am

     Ran a test at Diapers.com.
     Topcashback.com, buy diapers.com GC, use diapers.com giftcard.

     No CB awarded for GC purchase. Received full CB on final transaction, so no double dip there.
271. FrequentMiler says:

     November 14, 2012 at 3:48 pm

     Akira: I’ve been told it doesn’t work.
     .
     jason: Thanks. I’ve added it as a proposed experiment.
272. Jason says:

     November 15, 2012 at 12:08 pm

     I rescind my comment in post 270. It still works. Upromise has been slow and disorderly since the Barclay takeover in September. Sorry for confusion…
273. jer says:

     November 15, 2012 at 4:20 pm

     FYI – buying gift cards for Sur La Table via Chase UR Mall yields points through the UR Mall even though it says not valid on GC purchases. Haven’t verified a double dip, but it looks probable (assuming you purchase slightly more than the GC value on the double).
274. FrequentMiler says:

     November 16, 2012 at 6:55 am

     jer: Thanks for the info. Let me know once you get the double dip and I’ll update the lab table.

     Jason: Thanks for following up! I removed the proposed experiment.
275. Maximizing Your Points and Credit Card Spend This Holiday Shopping Season | The Points Guy says:

     November 19, 2012 at 6:30 am

     [...] setup to try buying different gift cards through portals to see what works and doesn’t, so check out his reports for more [...]
276. Earn Lots of Points for Black Friday Shopping - Mommy Points says:

     November 21, 2012 at 6:01 am

     [...] but many do.  Some even give you bonus points for the gift card purchase (AkA the double dip).  Head to Frequent Miler’s lab to see what retailers may function in this [...]
277. Matt says:

     November 25, 2012 at 7:55 am

     I just noticed that there is now a disclaimer for Sears using the Rapid Rewards portal – it says that as of Nov. 1, 2012, gift cards are not eligible. Has anybody verified that this is indeed the case?
278. FrequentMiler says:

     November 26, 2012 at 2:01 pm

     Matt: Great question. It sounds like we need to run some new experiments!
279. AJH says:

     November 27, 2012 at 9:03 pm

     I bought a gift certificate from Nikestore.com through the UR Portal and the 8X points posted within 3 days. However, about 3 weeks later the points were reversed as an “online return.” I used the gift certificate through the UR portal to buy merchandise and received points for that purchase. Has anybody run into the same issue with Nikestore or any other merchant? Maybe Chase is cracking down on rewarding points for purchases of gift cards. Thanks.
280. FrequentMiler says:

     November 28, 2012 at 6:19 am

     AJH: That’s scary. You might want to contact Chase and ask them why your points were revoked. Tell them that you bought something from Nikestore, but didn’t return it.
281. Kyle says:

     November 29, 2012 at 8:28 am

     Just went thru the UR Mall to buy Victoria’s Secret using a gift card only. Points posted with no problem.
282. Chris D. says:

     November 30, 2012 at 4:22 pm

     Experiment: The North Face – double dip
     Result: Success

     Went through UR portal and purchased North Face GC (8x). When through again and purchased item but also paid a bit more on CC due to taxes so not pure GC payment(8x). Both the GC purchase and actual purchase posted in rewards mall activity. So 16x! The amount paid for tax did not post. This all worked despite The North Face t&c “Not eligible on gift cards.” Hopefully no reversals will show up.
283. Ed says:

     December 2, 2012 at 4:47 pm

     FM reports success buying a Visa GC at Walmart.com using a Walmart GC. Cool.

     Does anyone have experience buying a Visa GC from Walmart in the store by using a Walmart GC?
284. FrequentMiler says:

     December 4, 2012 at 12:08 pm

     Kyle: Thanks! I’m working on updating the lab now with that info.

     Chris D: Thanks! Again, I’m working now to update the lab.
285. Serion says:

     December 6, 2012 at 5:15 pm

     Anyone have success buying Saks GC through UR and getting points?
286. Frequent Miler says:

     December 11, 2012 at 6:01 pm

     Here’s a Sears update. It does appear that Sears has stopped paying out to portals for e-gift card purchases, but buying physical gift cards still results in points or cash back. As always, using gift cards is fine and results in points or cash back.
287. gottoloveInk says:

     December 12, 2012 at 1:10 pm

     Walgreens update – was able to buy $500 Vanilla Reloads at the Photo counter with Visa gift cards bought at staples.
288. Chris L says:

     December 13, 2012 at 4:37 pm

     The North Face update – I can confirm I had the same positive results with the North Face double dip that Chris D. had in post #283 (thanks for trailblazing Chris D!). Additionally, each purchase (both the e-gift card and the physical product) generated a $30 coupon that TNF emailed to me. Coupon expires 12/29/12.
289. The Sears double dip is alive but hobbled | Xinxin's private blog says:

     December 13, 2012 at 5:59 pm

     [...] need more Sears gift cards like I need a hole in my head. However, Laboratoryexperiments must go on so I’ve recently bought no less than 5 new gift [...]
290. FrequentMiler says:

     December 14, 2012 at 1:47 pm

     gotoloveInk: Thanks for the update
     .
     Chris L: Thanks for the info!
291. Redbull3 says:

     December 16, 2012 at 8:55 am

     Does sears sell visa gift cards? Are there fees?

     I’m trying a long chain so far I did:
     SPG -> 3K Amex GC via Bigcrumbs ->

     I am thinking of buying a Sears GC from sears.com via Chase.com (6 UR/$) but would only do so if I can then buy a Visa gift card – eventually ending with a Vanilla Reload loaded to Bluebird.
292. Don T says:

     December 16, 2012 at 10:26 am

     I bought a Best Buy gift card today through the UR mall. Will update results.
293. Steve says:

     December 17, 2012 at 8:37 am

     halfoffdepot.com
     shopathome.com
     Had $10 credit (could have been a gift card).
     made an $11 purchase. Received shopathome CB on entire purchase (used 110% cashback guarantee to get 11% CB).
     Need to see if I can double dip – purchase gift card, use GC.
294. IrishTiger says:

     December 27, 2012 at 11:28 am

     Purchased Vanilla at CVS with credit card! Woo for Freedom 5x!
295. Ins and Outs of the Ultimate Rewards Shopping Portal - Mommy Points says:

     December 28, 2012 at 7:48 am

     [...] be a 10x purchase and turn it into a 20x purchase since you basically earn the points twice.  Frequent Miler keeps some good stats on this, but it is a dynamic thing as more and more stores close the opportunity on double [...]
296. Hsin says:

     December 28, 2012 at 8:41 am

     Does anyone try to buy the visa gift card in sears store with their sears GC?
297. Chimmy says:

     December 28, 2012 at 11:00 am

     @Hsin, I have successfully done that multiple times. It works.
298. Hsin says:

     December 28, 2012 at 11:21 am

     Thanks for your reply Chimmy.

     Did you try using the ecode gift card in store?
299. Chimmy says:

     December 29, 2012 at 11:39 am

     @Hsin, I’ve not tried using an e-code GC in store on a Visa GC, but I don’t see how it would be any different from a regular GC.
300. Ed says:

     December 29, 2012 at 2:55 pm

     EGift card works in-store for Visa GC at Walmart … for what that’s worth. (I realize that wasn’t the question.)
301. Hsin says:

     December 29, 2012 at 8:17 pm

     Did anyone try buying walgreens GC through Ultimate Rewards or ShopDiscover and get points?
302. Ed says:

     January 1, 2013 at 12:20 pm

     Anyone have luck upgrading GCs at Home Depot?
303. Dina says:

     January 1, 2013 at 4:30 pm

     I tried ebags. I purchased an egift card through the ultimate rewards portal and then I used the gift card to purchase luggage through the ultimate rewards portal. The gift card did not give points but buying the luggage with the gift card did give points.
304. Hsin says:

     January 1, 2013 at 6:48 pm

     Did anybody try buying best buy GC through ShopDiscover or UR and get points with US Bank Cash+, and try using best buy GC through ShopDiscover or UR to buy merchandise and get points?
305. Hsin says:

     January 1, 2013 at 6:50 pm

     I just figured out Walgreens.com doesn’t sell their GC.
306. Hsin says:

     January 1, 2013 at 6:51 pm

     I am thinking if we can use triple dips to buy merchandise in best buy. (with US Bank Cash+ and double dips from portal).
307. mike says:

     January 2, 2013 at 5:04 pm

     I bought an e-gift card, then a physical gift card through UR in early december, and haven’t received any bonus points from either purchase.
308. mike says:

     January 2, 2013 at 5:04 pm

     ^^^ for nike.
309. AJH says:

     January 2, 2013 at 5:28 pm

     @ Mike – I bought a Nike e-gift card through UR back in November and initially received point for it, but the points were later reversed (showed up as “online return”). However, I did earn UR points for making a purchase from Nike using the e-gift card. No double dip for Nike.
310. VISA MCC Code Rob says:

     January 3, 2013 at 5:18 am

     Purchasing a Physical Home Depot Gift Card through shop discover did not get cash back.
311. FrequentMiler says:

     January 4, 2013 at 4:45 am

     Redbull3: I just found your question in the comments of this post. Sorry for taking so long to answer! Yes, many Sears stores sell Visa gift cards ($100 gift card has a $5.95 fee). In my experience, yes, they will let you pay with a gift card. The hard part is finding the Visa gift cards. See: The mysterious case of the secret gift card rack
312. FrequentMiler says:

     January 4, 2013 at 4:48 am

     Hsin: Yes, it works
313. FrequentMiler says:

     January 4, 2013 at 4:50 am

     Ed: I haven’t heard any reports of people using Home Depot gift cards to upgrade to other gift cards. Also, my local Home Depot doesn’t seem to carry any gift cards except their own. Is yours different?
314. FrequentMiler says:

     January 4, 2013 at 4:58 am

     Hsin: Great idea for the Best Buy triple dip. I’ll add it to the proposed experiments.
315. FrequentMiler says:

     January 4, 2013 at 4:59 am

     Steve/Ed/Dina/Mike/AJH/Visa MCC: Thanks for the updates. I’ll update the lab table soon with your results
316. Adnan says:

     January 4, 2013 at 8:22 am

     Bought Khols plastic GC through UR Portal…UR Point failed

     Bought Khols GC from Staples with INK, then used UR Portal for purchase with GC ….. Successful (UR point for purchase not for tax)

     Bought items using Target Amex (loaded with GC from Office depot with ink plus) to buy items from UR portal Office Office depot… Success (no UR point for tax amount)

     Same as Khols as Home depot bought GC with INK from staples then bought from UR portal for home depot.. success.

     I buy GC with INK and use the portal in Sapphire..

     Bought
317. Hsin says:

     January 4, 2013 at 8:51 am

     shopDiscover part:
     Does anybody check the shopDiscover restriction about buying things from Sears and Groupon? Can we still get CB if we buy GC from Groupon or Sears? Can we get CB if we buy Groupon goods?

     TopCashback part:
     I just check the TopCashback about the Groupon part, I saw we can get 5% CB if we made purchase with GC. How about buying Groupon GC? Does anyone know how much CB can we get?

     Thanks,
318. Hsin says:

     January 4, 2013 at 9:04 am

     I am thining if we can buy Groupon GC through shopDiscover to get 15% CB and use them through TopCashback to get 5% CB so total will be 20% CB? Anybody try it before?
319. Greg Z says:

     January 4, 2013 at 1:01 pm

     Hey everyone. I didn’t see quite this experiment so I wanted to report here:

     1. Buy $75 Beauty.com e-giftcard through TCB for 10% back
     2. Buy stuff at Drugstore.com with above gc (paid like $4 with Amex PP) through UR Mall

     TCB payment has shown up as pending as have the Ultimate Rewards points.
320. Jai says:

     January 4, 2013 at 8:47 pm

     Reporting a successful run. I purchased a washer/dryer from homedepot. Had GC’s already for most of the order total. Used the UR mall (chase sapphire) to link to homedepot.com, and paid about 10% of the total bill using the chase card. I see the 5x points on the entire order total pending in my UR mall account.
321. DaninSTL says:

     January 5, 2013 at 7:27 am

     This may seem obvious but one trick I use is booking hotels through topcashback. They give the % back and I get the hotel points. I haven’t tried it but I would assume you could pay for the room with a gift card or hotel points credit card and earn the 3x or 4x dip depending on how or where you bought the gift card.
322. FrequentMiler says:

     January 6, 2013 at 1:31 pm

     Adnan: Thanks! Great info.

     HSin: I’m in the middle of trying the Groupon experiment. So far I have not received an email from ShopDiscover saying that I earned points, so I think that this double dip is a fail. For Sears, yes, if you buy the physical gift cards you do get cash back from ShopDiscover (in my experience).
323. FrequentMiler says:

     January 6, 2013 at 1:33 pm

     Greg Z: Great info! I’ve tried many portals, but have never received points or cash back when using gift cards at drugstore.com. However, I’ve never tried paying a part of the total with a credit card. That might be the difference. I’ll have to test that!

     Jai: Great!
324. FrequentMiler says:

     January 6, 2013 at 1:35 pm

     DaninSTL: Yes, that works. In the past, I’ve bought gift cards through portals for points or cashback, then I’ve booked the hotels through portals and paid (at checkout) with the gift cards. This is a great way to double dip.
325. Chimmy says:

     January 6, 2013 at 8:47 pm

     Is there a list anywhere of which merchants sell Visa GCs cards through Gift Card Mall and which sell them through Vanilla? (Google was not my friend this time). I ask only because it appears as if only Gift Card Mall Visa GCs load properly to Serve as debit cards. Vanilla ones will not load as either debit nor credit. For example, I know K-Mart, Sears and Stop & Shop (NE Grocer) is GiftCardMall. Meanwhile, CVS and Walgreens are Vanilla. TIA!
326. FrequentMiler says:

     January 7, 2013 at 9:45 am

     Chimmy: Great question. I’m not aware of a list of places that sell via Gift Card Mall.
327. Chris L says:

     January 7, 2013 at 10:12 am

     Performance Bike UR Double Dip Success – on 1/2/13 purchased a $30 e-gift card through the UR mall. On 1/3/13 used the $30 e-gift card + credit card to purchase $40 of merchandise. Full points were awarded for both the $30 purchase and $40 purchase.
328. Vinh says:

     January 8, 2013 at 12:14 am

     Merchant: Sears.com
     Portal: ShopDiscover
     Experiment: Buy item with GC
     Paid with: GC
     SUCCESS

     Merchant: Sears.com
     Portal: AAdvantage, United, Southwest
     Experiment: Buy physical GC
     Paid with: credit card
     SUCCESS

     Merchant: Eddiebauer.com
     Portal: ShopDiscover
     Experiment: Buy item
     Paid with: gift card
     FAIL
329. WishyAnand says:

     January 8, 2013 at 2:05 pm

     I bought a 30 percent off discounted JC Penney (printable paper) gift card from Plasticjungle recently. Reason being that I read about one item that was in high demand for retail price on ebay and which JC Penney sold online. Unfortunately, JC Penney no longer has the item in stock, and I am guessing the blogs might have killed this deal:-( Could not think of other products to buy and sell on ebay and make a profit after ebay + Paypal fees.

     So, I went to a physical JC Penny store and tried to use the paper (with codes on it) gift card to purchase Starbucks, iTunes etc… gift cards from the front desk. No luck. They will not let you do that.
330. FrequentMiler says:

     January 10, 2013 at 10:10 am

     Chris L, Vinh, WishyAnand: Thanks for the updates!
331. FrequentMiler says:

     January 10, 2013 at 10:11 am

     Experiment(s) update:
     I tried to get a cash advance with my Target Amex. It didn’t work.
     I successfully got a cash advance with my Mio card. $4 fee appeared.
     I tried to use my Staples gift card to buy an Amazon gift card in-store. Success! YMMV.
332. Greg Z says:

     January 10, 2013 at 7:39 pm

     Wanted to report success:

     1. Used Sears gift cards through Discover portal
     2. Paid for $90 via gc and $12 via Discover card
     3. Got pending email – 10% back on whole order
333. FrequentMiler says:

     January 11, 2013 at 10:42 am

     Greg Z: thanks for the update. Lab table has been updated
334. FrequentMiler says:

     January 11, 2013 at 11:09 am

     New success: I ordered items from OpenSky and paid with my Cash+ card. This quarter I set my Cash+ card to Home Improvement (and electronics). I see on my US Bank awards center that I got 5% cash back from the OpenSky purchase! It counts as Home Improvement. This is a nice double dip in addition to 50X from MyPoints
335. Piecerte says:

     January 11, 2013 at 12:56 pm

     FM, do you have any idea if the Home Improvement card which can be purchase at OD with no fee and at 5x can be used to pay for transactions at Open Sky? Perhaps I’ll give it a try and report back.
336. Frequent Miler says:

     January 11, 2013 at 1:04 pm

     Piecerate: Ha! We’re on the same page here. Yes, OpenSky is listed as one of the places that works with that card!
337. FrequentMiler says:

     January 14, 2013 at 6:32 am

     Update: I just received confirmation of cash back from ShopDiscover for buying a physical BestBuy gift card. Currently 5% cash back. I tried the same experiment through TopCashBack but don’t have cash back pending yet from there.
338. Cam says:

     January 14, 2013 at 9:30 am

     FM (#338), for ‘confirmation’ are you referring to the shopdiscover cashback pending email, or that you have now seen the cashback awarded on your Discover statement? I have had similar results getting emails, but cautiously waiting to see if the cashback really shows up on my next Discover statement (esp. since I used a Cash+ card)…
339. FrequentMiler says:

     January 14, 2013 at 9:33 am

     Cam: I mean that I received the email of cashback pending. In the past when I’ve received those emails, the cash back did show up on my next statement even when I used non-Discover cards.
340. Justin says:

     January 17, 2013 at 11:54 am

     FM, or anyone, as reported above you can use a BestBuy giftcard in store to purchase an Amazon Kindle giftcard. Are Amazon Kindle giftcards limited on Amazon.com to only kindle book purchases, or can it be used to buy anything on Amazon? Been trying to find a way to get cashback or % off at Amazon.com for a while now.
341. Rich says:

     January 17, 2013 at 11:58 am

     Justin: They can be used for anything on Amazon.
342. Vinh says:

     January 17, 2013 at 12:01 pm

     Merchant: Kohls.com
     Portal: Chase UR
     Experiment: Buy physical GC
     Paid with: CC
     SUCCESS

     Merchant: Drugstore.com
     Portal: Chase UR
     Experiment: Buy merchandise
     Paid with: Mix of GC and CC
     SUCCESS
343. Adnan says:

     January 17, 2013 at 12:04 pm

     Buying Physical Gift car from UR didnt work for me…
344. Justin says:

     January 17, 2013 at 12:43 pm

     Thanks Rich!
345. Kadim says:

     January 18, 2013 at 3:20 pm

     I want to share an experiment:

     Went to J&R.com using ShopDiscover , then paid with VISA Credit card. Cashback(5%) was reported.
346. Skippy says:

     January 19, 2013 at 8:48 pm

     JCPenney through Ebates
     Paid 100% with Gift Card
     Earned cash back
347. AdamH says:

     January 20, 2013 at 8:27 pm

     I can report a big failure in using a Beauty.com GC on Drugstore.com to double dip. I got the point for the GC on Beauty.com and only got the points for the additional portion of the transaction that i put on my CC at Drugstore.com
348. FrequentMiler says:

     January 21, 2013 at 9:43 am

     Vinh: Thanks for the new data point! It’s weird how buying Kohl’s gift cards to get points works for some people, but not for others.

     Kadim: Thanks for the info. I’ll update the Lab table soon

     Skippy: Thanks! I’ll update the Lab table soon.

     AdamH: Thanks for the update. Sorry to hear about that double dip not working! Again, I’ll update the table soon.
349. Vinh says:

     January 21, 2013 at 11:39 am

     AdamH, can you explain further on your experiment because it worked for me. I went through TopCashBack and got 10% off on my Beauty.com GC. Then used that Beauty.com GC on $100 worth of Drustore.com items (I did not mix and match items from Beauty and Drugstore.) I got the full 7X on my order. I have a feeling you mixed items from Beauty and Drugstore?
350. Liz says:

     January 21, 2013 at 3:03 pm

     Not sure if this is the type of thing you add, but hopefully helpful. I’ve gotten Ultimate Rewards credit for buying gift cards a few times, even when it was noted that GCs didn’t count; Barnes & Noble is the one that comes to mind. I tried it with Starbucks, hoping to combine the 5pt/$ on the Freedom with the 5pt/$ on the UR mall, but didn’t receive the mall credit. I will be trying again buying both an item and a GC, and let you know how it goes.
351. FrequentMiler says:

     January 21, 2013 at 8:23 pm

     Vinh/AdamH: I hope we can figure out why the drugstore.com double dip works for some people, but not for others. I don’t have any good theories though.

     Liz: Great info, thanks! How recently did you get points for buying the Barnes & Noble gift card?
352. vstanley says:

     January 23, 2013 at 6:58 pm

     @Vinh Do you remember how long does it take for the cashback from sears GC to post? I bought some last week and already received the physical cards. But still no cb shown up yet. kind of worried..
353. Vinh says:

     January 23, 2013 at 7:40 pm

     @vstanley, which portal did you use? Chase usually takes 3-4 days to appear in the “UR Mall Activity” page so make sure you’re looking there and not in the main “Activities” page. All of the other portals, I never got emails and so I didn’t periodically check on when they would show up. A rule of thumb though is if it hasn’t showed up in over a week, you probably didn’t get it. If you used a Chase card and went through the UR portal, you can all them up and they’ll manually give you the points. If you used a different card in the Chase portal, you’re SOL. I don’t know about the other portals, but you can try to call them as well. Doesn’t hurt to call in this instance.
354. Jessica says:

     January 24, 2013 at 7:49 am

     Staples.com now sales merchant e-giftcards without the $1.99 fee. Has anybody tried buying an e-giftcard through UR Mall to get extra points?
355. FrequentMiler says:

     January 24, 2013 at 2:50 pm

     vstanley: while it usually takes less than a week for the activity to show up (as Vinh stated), my recent experiences have been much longer. Sometimes it has taken as long as 3 weeks for a purchase to show up.

     Jessica: I just tried this yesterday with TopCashBack (not UR Mall). I’ll report back once I get (or don’t get) cash back
356. Larry says:

     January 24, 2013 at 9:30 pm

     Portal: Rapid Reawrds Shopping. Merchant: Magazines.com. Fail.

     I tried to double dip to get last 700 points or so toward a companion pass. I needed a subscription to give as a gift that cost $20. First, I bought a $15 gift card. I did NOT get 20x points for purchasing the gift card. The transaction does not show up at all. Perhaps it was a cookie/tracking error. I purchased the subscription using the gift card for $15 and a credit card for $5. I only received 20x points for the $5 portion.
357. FrequentMiler says:

     January 27, 2013 at 4:54 am

     Larry: That’s a shame. I still expect that buying Magazines.com gift certificates should work, but I’m not surprised about what happened when you used it.
358. Duc says:

     January 28, 2013 at 6:21 pm

     GregZ said that he bough $75 beauty.com e-gift card however when I went to the site, I don’t see any option to buy e-gift card.

     Frequent Miler, do you happen to know how to get e-gift card?
     Thanks
359. Vinh says:

     January 29, 2013 at 12:41 pm

     Merchant: Staples.com
     Portal: Upromise
     Experiment: Buy merchant e-gc
     Paid with: CC
     FAIL

     Not sure why I didn’t choose TopCashBack since FM said that worked for him.
360. Randall says:

     January 30, 2013 at 2:35 pm

     Beauty.com e-gift card & drugstore.com purchase with that gift card worked for a double-dip with UR.
361. FrequentMiler says:

     January 30, 2013 at 6:33 pm

     Duc: Go to beauty.com and scroll to the very bottom of the page. There is a link to e-gift certificates under the heading “shopping services”.
     Vinh: Interesting.
     Randall: Are you sure you received full points for the purchase in which you used a gift card? Also, did you pay part of the total with a credit card?
362. Duc says:

     January 30, 2013 at 9:30 pm

     FM, do you know if you can use Beauty.com E-giftcard to buy merchant’s giftcard at Drugstore.com?
363. FrequentMiler says:

     January 31, 2013 at 7:56 am

     Duc: No, the website won’t let you buy merchant gift cards using drugstore/beauty.com gift cards.
364. Randall says:

     February 1, 2013 at 8:13 am

     Good question, after reviewing, no I didn’t receive the full points. I purchased two products one for 14.99 and the other for $33.99 and only used the gift card. I got the 2nd bonus points for the $14.99 item only (105 points). That was the first product in my cart.

     However, this was a messed-up order. There was a 3rd item which they cancelled, so I was initially using a CC for the balance. After that part was cancelled I was only charged to my gift charge. I think this test is inconclusive. I’ll try again in a few weeks and post the results.
365. FrequentMiler says:

     February 1, 2013 at 8:22 am

     Randall: Thanks for the update
366. harvson3 says:

     February 1, 2013 at 2:16 pm

     This isn’t double-dipping, but I think it’s useful data.

     I just went through the UR mall and bought some clothes for my wife at Athleta. I used Old Navy/Gap gift cards for ~$50 of the purchase, and my CSP for the rest (also ~$50). I got 2x points credit for ~$100, the entire purchase price. It made me smile.

     Enjoy your trip.
367. leftpinky says:

     February 5, 2013 at 1:48 am

     Any word on buying the e-gift cards via staples without the fee? Need to buy a few hundred S0uthwest ones soon. thanks
368. leftpinky says:

     February 5, 2013 at 2:07 am

     a few “$100″ gift cards, woops!
369. Kane says:

     February 5, 2013 at 6:25 pm

     So, I want to buy a Microsoft Surface Pro that is coming out later this week and my thought was to purchase Staples gift cards through a shopping portal with my Ink Bold. But I’m reading this thread and getting mixed messages. If I buy a Staples GC through TopCashBack, will I actually get the 5.5% they are claiming? I assume that I would not be able to double dip here…meaning I get the gift cards…then go back through a portal and use the gift cards to purchase the Surface.
370. Kane says:

     February 5, 2013 at 6:41 pm

     Also, does anyone have any experience buying a Staples e-gift card through a shopping portal on Staples.com and getting points. You can get up to a $250 gift card and avoid the $1.99 fee.
371. Vinh says:

     February 5, 2013 at 7:04 pm

     @Kane, yes, FM said he went through topcashback and got credit for an egiftcard at staples.com. And if you’re going to buy a computer, use an AMEX so you get the extra year of warranty as well as more consumer protection than paying with a gift card would get you.
372. Kane says:

     February 5, 2013 at 7:30 pm

     @Vinh, literally right after I wrote that question, I said to myself…”I should just pay with my Amex…extra UR points aren’t worth a broken computer.” Thanks anyway!
373. Vinh says:

     February 5, 2013 at 7:32 pm

     Merchant: Staples.com
     Portal: Upromise
     Experiment: Buy merchant e-gc
     Paid with: CC
     SUCCESS

     It took Upromise almost 10 days to post it, but I did get 5% off of the egiftcard order.
374. FrequentMiler says:

     February 5, 2013 at 7:38 pm

     Kane: Good decision
     Vinh: Thanks for the update. Has anyone tried yet with UR Mall? I meant to do so before leaving for Bangkok, but ran out of time.
375. FrequentMiler says:

     February 5, 2013 at 7:39 pm

     Merchant: OpenSky
     Portal: AadvantageeShopping
     Experiment: Buy item with Home Improvement card
     Paid with: Home Improvement card bought at Office Depot
     SUCCESS
     Earned 7X points from AA & 5X points from buying Home Improvement card
376. Vinh says:

     February 7, 2013 at 12:51 pm

     Merchant: LandsEnd.com
     Portal: Chase UR
     Experiment: Buy LandsEnd e-gc
     Paid with: CC
     SUCCESS

     It took LandsEnd almost 36 hours to send out the egiftcard, but I did get 4X for doing it. It’s probably better to go through TopCashBack -> Cardpool to get ~12% off the e-gc instead of getting the 4X UR.
377. FrequentMiler says:

     February 7, 2013 at 3:00 pm

     Vinh: Thanks! I agree that right now UR isn’t the best option for Lands End, but its great to know it works in case they run a special
378. Vinh says:

     February 9, 2013 at 1:46 am

     FM, I just realized tonight that UR is giving 5X at OfficeMax.com. OM sells quite a number of merchant gift cards. While using your Ink Bold to get an additional 5X is nice, it might be worth it to buy $250 worth of gift cards and use your AMEX OPEN business card (SPG perhaps) for a 10% discount. So you’re getting 5% UR + 10% OPEN + 2%+ value due to SPG points.
379. FrequentMiler says:

     February 9, 2013 at 12:59 pm

     Vinh: A while ago I did a bunch of experiments in buying OfficeMax gift cards through various portals, but I never received any points or cash back (they exclude gift cards). It’s possible that they treat other merchant gift cards differently though. It would be awesome if you could get both the OPEN Savings and portal points or cash back!
380. vstanley says:

     February 12, 2013 at 10:40 am

     @Vinh, Thanks. I did get cb from sears gc now. I did not call since on the website it excludes gift certificate now. I do not want to bring any attention to this issue. It took ~3 WEEKS to post it. Much longer than I expected.
     @FM, Thanks. Indeed, that’s 3 weeks… The process is much longer than before.
381. Homer says:

     February 14, 2013 at 7:12 am

     The only variable (to $500) GC at OD is the Home Improvement Discover card.

     Can this card be used anywhere besides home improvement stores?

     A zip code can be attached online to the card for online shopping.
382. Cyclotron says:

     February 14, 2013 at 8:16 am

     I have not been able to find the Home Improvement card at officedepot. What does it look like? IS it int he same gift card rack or kept seperately?
383. Adnan says:

     February 14, 2013 at 8:19 am

     they have HD card at staples..
384. FrequentMiler says:

     February 14, 2013 at 9:14 am

     Cyclotron: I’ve found it in the same rack as the regular gift cards at Office Depot. Speedway has a photo here: http://www.speedway.com/SpeedyRewards/Pages/Sweepstakes.aspx?sid=1349. It can be used at stores like Home Depot, Lowes, Sears
385. Ken says:

     February 14, 2013 at 9:53 am

     If you go to their website (Home Improvement card) there’s a laundry list of merchants. I have a feeling it will work anywhere Discover is accepted. Has anyone tried using it at Target to load the Target Amex?
386. Homer says:

     February 14, 2013 at 11:16 am

     Cyclotron, have a look at that photo FM posted. It’s right with the gift cards and looks like similar packaging to the Vanilla Visa gift card with the zip to open strip on the back.

     Ken, I have the feeling it’s just another Discover gift card too, but am looking for proof
387. Cam says:

     February 14, 2013 at 2:04 pm

     The website of the HI card does indicate at bottom of home page

     “This card may be used in the U.S. and District of Columbia wherever Discover cards are accepted”
388. FrequentMiler says:

     February 14, 2013 at 2:49 pm

     In my experience so far, the Home Improvement card only works with the merchants listed. I haven’t tried many non-listed ones yet though
389. Homer says:

     February 14, 2013 at 5:35 pm

     Thanks, Cam, I see at the bottom of their website it says it can be used anywhere Discover is accepted. It should work as well as a Visa gift card then.
390. Homer says:

     February 14, 2013 at 5:38 pm

     Hmm, from their site: “If your Gift Card is declined, it may be that…it is not an identified home improvement retailer.”
391. cyclotron says:

     February 14, 2013 at 6:27 pm

     The terms and conditions do say that it is restricted to home improvement stores. I think they mean it is valid at any home improvement store where Discover cards are accepted
392. aegt123 says:

     February 14, 2013 at 8:43 pm

     Swiped the Home Improvement card at Albertson, got a pop asking if I wanted a cashback , selected $40. Transaction failed

     Swiped the card again, said no to the cash back, transaction failed again

     Doesn’t work at all of the stores.
393. Homer says:

     February 14, 2013 at 9:22 pm

     Thanks for TOFTT, aegt123.

     Maybe a home improvement store sells Visa cards that can be bought with a HI card, but that’s a bit circuitous.

     I don’t know what’s going on with OD’s empty racks, but hope to see decent cards back soon.
394. aegt123 says:

     February 14, 2013 at 9:44 pm

     @Homer

     Spent more than an hour trying to figure out a way to create a perpetual machine using the home improvement card. Didn’t get any where.

     According to my local OD manager they will bring back Visa/Amex GCs. He didn’t know the time frame though.
395. Ken says:

     February 14, 2013 at 9:47 pm

     @aegt123 – Any word on increased load fees for the Visa/Amex cards coming back?
396. aegt123 says:

     February 14, 2013 at 10:27 pm

     @Ken I specifically asked him about that and he speculated that it makes sense knowing that those products were super popular
397. Homer says:

     February 15, 2013 at 8:42 am

     If the Visa GCs are coming back, maybe VR cards will too? One can hope.
398. Ken says:

     February 15, 2013 at 9:21 am

     @aegt123 – Thanks
399. FrequentMiler says:

     February 15, 2013 at 10:58 am

     New results!
     Merchant: Kohls
     Portal: Ultimate Rewards Mall
     Experiment: Buy physical gift card
     Paid with: Ink Bold
     SUCCESS! Earned 10X points
     —————————————-
     Merchant: Lands End
     Portal: Ultimate Rewards Mall
     Experiment: Buy e-gift card
     Paid with: Ink Bold
     SUCCESS! Earned 4X points
     —————————————-
     Merchant: Sears
     Portal: Ultimate Rewards Mall
     Experiment: Buy physical Sears gift card
     Paid with: Home Improvement card
     SUCCESS! Earned 3X points UR Mall + 5X points from buying Home Improvement card at Office Depot with Ink Bold
400. Ken says:

     February 15, 2013 at 11:06 am

     @FM – Great! Now how will you liquidate those store gift cards now? Or will you just use them for spend you’d normally do?
401. aegt123 says:

     February 15, 2013 at 11:09 am

     @Ken I was about to bring up the same question. How do you liquidate the Sears card after earning 8X? One of the idea would be to buy stuff and sell it later, but that’s too much work for me for 8X.

     Will have to make a trip to Sears and Kmart to see what can be done.
402. Ken says:

     February 15, 2013 at 11:13 am

     @aegt123 – My day job is already reselling online so it’s not a big deal. Just have to find things worth selling for profit.
403. aegt123 says:

     February 15, 2013 at 11:18 am

     @Ken What is your FT handle. Mine is aegt123. Would like to keep in touch with you out side of boarding area comments.
404. Ken says:

     February 15, 2013 at 11:23 am

     @aegt123 – Handle is Superorb. PM me anytime.
405. FrequentMiler says:

     February 15, 2013 at 11:25 am

     Ken: Sears usually has higher returns than 3X. This was just an experiment to see what works. Once Sears jumps up to 5X or higher, things get more interesting.
406. Vinh says:

     February 15, 2013 at 11:45 am

     FM, Sears back up to 5X UR as of this morning. I remember when United shopping portal boosted it up to 6X at end of month last month, so it may move up closer to month end. I’ll bank 5X for now though.
407. Vinh says:

     February 15, 2013 at 11:47 am

     Oh and I found this handy link so you don’t have to log in every time to view what UR is currently offering (this is more useful than the Lakebagger link since UR seems to be actively changing rates mid month and Lakebagger isn’t refreshing mid-month.

     https://ultimaterewardsearn.chase.com/shopping
408. Ken says:

     February 15, 2013 at 11:49 am

     Thanks Vinh!

     Now just to find out what to resell from Sears
409. Vinh says:

     February 15, 2013 at 12:03 pm

     I’ve found that there’s usually 1-2 items that pop up once a month on Sears that you could buy and resell at a slight profit on Ebay, and I usually clean Sears out. =)
410. FrequentMiler says:

     February 15, 2013 at 12:13 pm

     Vinh: Awesome, thanks for that link! That’s great!
     All: With Sears at 5X, you can get 15X by buying a Home Improvement gift card with a Chase Ink card at Office Depot; then go through UR mall to Sears to buy physical gift card & pay with Home Improvement card; then go through UR mall again to buy merchandise with the Sears gift cards.
411. Chris D. says:

     February 15, 2013 at 12:31 pm

     Experiment: Purchase from Williams-Sonoma via portal using gift cards
     Result: Success

     Received a WS gift card as a gift and purchased another electronic gift card via Topcashback > Cardpool. Went through the Ultimate Rewards portal for 3x and made the purchase using the gift cards plus a few dollars on the credit card. Points took a full week to post. Not a huge bonus, but better than 1x. Plus there is potential here if someone wants to try a double dip.
412. Yo says:

     February 15, 2013 at 12:35 pm

     @FM: What about double dip with Kohls, is the 20x possible? Although, kohls less lucrative given no upgraded gift cards available.

     Are home improvement cards available at most ODs? I checked one and didn’t see.
413. FrequentMiler says:

     February 15, 2013 at 12:51 pm

     Chis D: Thanks!
     Yo: Kohl’s double dip used to work, I’m waiting to see if it still does. I just made some purchases yesterday.
414. Larry Ordway says:

     February 15, 2013 at 1:10 pm

     FM, how did you use the Home Improvement card at Sears? As a Discover card? I tried to and it wouldn’t go thru. But I got 3 $1 pre-authorizations on my HI card.
415. Larry Ordway says:

     February 15, 2013 at 1:17 pm

     Never mind…it had to do with those pre-auths. I just did $495 and it worked.
416. Yo says:

     February 15, 2013 at 4:11 pm

     How long does it take for purchases to show up in UR mall history (i.e Office max purchase)? I have already received my GCs, but nothing in chase’s UR history. Granted I didn’t pay for it with chase.

     Also, can one purchase sears GC using a sears GC?
417. GMiles says:

     February 15, 2013 at 6:56 pm

     Hi,
     What would you find as an acceptable price range for these manufactured miles? I know that everybody’s situation is unique in terms of why, how many miles, and how much money, but some of these exercises yield relatively high priced UR miles. I love the creativity but I’m also looking for cost effectiveness.

     For example:
     Opportunity to purchase Sears GC for -12% discount @ Gift Card Rescue : $1000 Sears GC = $880 + 880 UR miles earned on INK (ignore TCB and similar cash back portals as success there is not consistent, if not ignored the cost per mile in the comparisons below is even higher)

     1. $1000 HI card on INK @ OD = 5000 UR miles earned (ignore fee if any, if not ignored the cost per mile is even higher)
     >> So far paid $120 more for the privilege to earn 4120 more UR miles => $120.00/4120 = 2.91 cpm

     2. $1000 HI card spent on Sears GC @ UR mall for 5x = 5000 UR miles
     >> So far paid $120 more for the privilege to earn (4120+5000) more UR miles => $120.00/9120 = 1.32 cpm

     3. Can use either the discounted or the HI-purchased $1000 Sears GC to purchase products @ UR mall for 5x = 5000 UR miles
     >> Discounted GC: paid $880, earned 5880 UR miles
     >> HI route: paid $1000, earned 15000 UR miles

     Alternative: 5 * $200 Visa GC = $1000 + $34.75 to earn (5 *1034.75)=5174 UR miles => $34.75/5174 = 0.67 cpm

     0.67 cpm is worse than the sweet deals we had just a couple of weeks ago, but it still seems quite a bit better than the HI-Sears miles above. Is there anything I could be missing?

     Thanks!
418. Larry Ordway says:

     February 16, 2013 at 4:49 am

     GMiles, you missed a last step. You sell the item you bought on Amazon or Ebay to recoup as much of the $1000 that you can. If you buy correctly, you can either sell the item for about equal, a little less or for more. That final number will be your basis for figuring cpm.

     A side note to this, I have been doing this method(not just with Sears) for years and always have made money.
419. Homer says:

     February 16, 2013 at 11:14 am

     What to buy at Sears for a profit? A Craftsman tool set? Hello Kitty pillows?
420. FrequentMiler says:

     February 16, 2013 at 1:26 pm

     Yo: it varies from a few days to several weeks before the UR mall transactions show up
421. FrequentMiler says:

     February 16, 2013 at 1:30 pm

     GMiles: That’s an interesting way to think about it. When choosing to buy gift cards through the UR mall (or any point earning portal) instead of buying at a discount, you are effectively buying points. Thanks, I like that way of thinking about it! Regarding your alternative: don’t forget that you still need to spend those Visa gift cards. If your thought is to use them for regular spend, then you need to account for the fact that you are then not earning points from your credit card at that point. If you want to use them to buy discount gift cards, keep in mind that it can be hard to spend exactly $200 on discount gift cards since they tend to be in odd left-over amounts.
422. GMiles says:

     February 16, 2013 at 2:28 pm

     @ Larry, FM:
     Thanks for your feedback. In my last step I assumed that everything can be sold the same way (loss, neutral, gain) regardless of the way we obtained the Sears GCs.
     I sometimes struggle to make a call one way or another since on the one hand I’m giving up profit in hard cash but on the other hand I manufacture miles at little or no cost. I usually make a decision based on the cpm price point, which I was curious to validate with the larger audience in case my method of calculating it was flawed.
423. Larry Ordway says:

     February 16, 2013 at 4:19 pm

     Homer, I usually buy electronics especially tablets(on sale). I can usually make a small profit on the sale. When added to cash back from each step I can make good money. I prefer cash back to miles. Just a bit different philosophy.
424. Homer says:

     February 17, 2013 at 5:48 pm

     Larry,

     I like cash back as well. I can’t use all the miles I have already and often I’ll want to do something that for some reason I can’t use the miles, or if I want to use them soon there’s a ridiculous “close-in” fee.

     So yes, I am a cash back fan too

     I’ll try picking up a $500 HI card or two and see how it goes.
425. Yo says:

     February 18, 2013 at 6:30 am

     @FM: A side question: In PJ, what does the wording “up to xx%” suggest? Is it the ACTUAL pecentage, or does the “up to” mean that it depends on the amount and other unbeknownst factors? What has your experience been?
426. Frequent Miler says:

     February 18, 2013 at 6:03 pm

     Yo: it usually means that you’ll be offered that amount, but they do sometimes dynamically change the rate (usually down). So, you can’t count 100% on getting that amount until you get an offer for a specific card.
427. Frequent Miler says:

     February 18, 2013 at 6:05 pm

     All, I now have confirmation both from my own experience and a reader that the UR mall does give points when you go to Staples.com and buy an e-gift card (i bought a lands’ End gift card, for example). the UR mall only offers 2X bonus points right now, but if the rate goes up at some point its handy knowledge to have!
428. Rama says:

     February 18, 2013 at 7:17 pm

     Bought a HI GC from OD. Registered the zip code and went through UR portal to sears.com. Tried buying a physical GC from sears but am seeing the error below.
     Any way to get around this error? Chose discover as method of payment.
     Unfortunately, we can’t authorize your purchase with the card you’ve chosen.Please select another payment type
429. Rama says:

     February 18, 2013 at 7:41 pm

     Tried $5 lower than the GC amount and got the order to go through. Now just need to hope UR shows up. Lucky for the CA state rule to liquidate the remaining $5
430. Vinh says:

     February 19, 2013 at 11:34 am

     Merchant: Kohls
     Portal: Ultimate Rewards Mall
     Experiment: Buy electronic gift card
     Paid with: cc
     FAIL!

     I’ve bought other items after the egc and those points have posted, so this most likely won’t post.

     —————————————-
     Merchant: OfficeMax.com
     Portal: Ultimate Rewards Mall
     Experiment: Buy >$250 merchant physical gift card
     Paid with: AMEX SPG OPEN
     FAIL!

     I bought this the same day as the Kohls egc test, and no UR points have posted yet so not looking good. I did however get the 10% AMEX OPEN rebate though, which is still a good deal, but I could have done that in store. I’ll have to try other portals like TCB to see if they’ll give points.
431. Vinh says:

     February 19, 2013 at 11:35 am

     Oh, and I can also confirm FM’s HI card at OD -> Sears physical gcs via UR portal and gotten 5X on a $499 physical gift card.
432. Robby says:

     February 19, 2013 at 11:45 am

     @ FM, Staples would be great to buy iPads once they start selling it as apple products get the best value of all tablets out there especially if there is a discount in the iPads! And if it increases from 2x to say 5x that would mean 10x back by using ink. Any way to get more than 7x currently or 10x in future that I may be missing?
433. FrequentMiler says:

     February 19, 2013 at 3:05 pm

     Rama: Yeah, Sears must put a temporary hold on the card. That’s a bummer.
434. FrequentMiler says:

     February 19, 2013 at 4:01 pm

     Vinh: Thanks for the update. BTW, I don’t think it is correct that you would get 10% Amex Open rebate in-store. The T&C for OPEN Savings OfficeMax says “online only”.
435. FrequentMiler says:

     February 19, 2013 at 4:02 pm

     Robby: Yes, that is definitely true. The best current option I know of for Staples is to go through TopCashBack for 5.5% back and then pay with your Chase Ink card for 5X.
436. Rama says:

     February 21, 2013 at 12:06 pm

     Actually a better option for staples may be to go through Shopdiscover for 5x on staples and using ink for 5x to get 10x. TCB is 5.5% but I would take shopdiscover 5% any day over TCB 5.5%. Just need to see if discover portal gives 5x for gift cards
437. Robby says:

     February 25, 2013 at 9:05 pm

     @FM Any other options for HI that is lucrative besides the Sears triple dip to buy and sell merchandise for 15x? It would be better if a option to liquidate it some other way if possible? I guess the double dip and using sears GC to buy amazon GC and selling that on eBay for minimal loss is best way to liquidate but not finding amazon or shell GCs in my sears. Lowes is an option but not sure if Lowes GC bought via UR mall earns UR points and whether Lowes GC can be used at Lowes to upgrade GC? I see old reports on not being able to upgrade Lowes GC in store. Not sure if any recent successes on this. I have a $500 HI GC that I need to liquidate and going directly to Lowes seems like the fastest way to liquidate.
438. FrequentMiler says:

     February 26, 2013 at 5:26 am

     Robby: I’m testing the Lowes triple dip now. I’ll report back once I have news. No, you can’t buy gift cards at Lowes with gift cards, but yes buying them with the HI card at Lowes may be your best option.
439. Rama says:

     February 26, 2013 at 5:11 pm

     @FM Is there an option to buy a gift card with HI gift card through a portal that can then be used at Target to say load the Target amex card?
     Right now the best option for Target seems to be to go through BC and then using the Amex GC to load TAmex. But payout is limited to 1.4% + CC points – Tamex costs.
     But if HI can be used creatively to somehow load TAmex then that would get 5x at a minimum. I can try out any proposal you may have about this?
440. Vinh says:

     February 27, 2013 at 1:52 pm

     Merchant: Bestbuy
     Portal: Upromise
     Experiment: Buy physical Best Buy gc
     Paid with: USBank Cash+
     SUCCESS!
     Upromise shows the cashback as pending. DOUBLE DIP ALERT!
441. FrequentMiler says:

     February 28, 2013 at 7:04 am

     Rama: Not that I’m aware of. If you don’t mind a lot of hoops you could use the HI card online to buy physical Sears gift cards (5X), then go to Sears and find the mysterious gift card rack and buy $100 Visa gift cards with your Sears gift cards for a $5.95 fee each. I doubt it is worth the hassle though!
442. FrequentMiler says:

     February 28, 2013 at 7:05 am

     Vinh: Awesome! I’ll update the lab table ASAP
443. Vinh says:

     February 28, 2013 at 10:39 am

     Does anyone know how long Upromise moves Best Buy cashback out of pending? I have transactions back to 11/6, which is 114 days old and it’s still in pending status. I just emailed Upromise, but does anyone have any experience with Upromise/BB? Thanks.
444. FrequentMiler says:

     February 28, 2013 at 12:44 pm

     Great news: 4 days ago I ordered a physical gift card from Lowes after going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall. I paid with my Home Improvement gift card. Success! UR Mall shows 5X points pending!
445. hsinaz says:

     February 28, 2013 at 3:13 pm

     Again We don’t have Office Depot! Has anyone found them HIGCs at Omax/St@ples?
446. Duc says:

     February 28, 2013 at 7:22 pm

     For some reason, I couldn’t buy Sears physical gift card with Home improvement card anymore. Is it just me?
447. SR says:

     February 28, 2013 at 7:50 pm

     Can you use sears gift card to buy gift cards at k mart
448. Marshall says:

     March 1, 2013 at 1:16 am

     @SR I have had mixed success with buying GCs at Kmart with Sears card. One store lets me, one went to mgr who said I couldn’t. When I could, I bought $100 visa cards for 6.95 per card and then loaded on Target Amex to liquidate. Kmart has variety of GCs, but highest value is $100 and $100 GCs all cost 6.95 to purchase, YMMV
449. Marshall says:

     March 1, 2013 at 1:17 am

     BTW, cash registers WILL let you purchase GCs with Sears GC. Not hard wired into software at register to turn down purchase.
450. Marshall says:

     March 1, 2013 at 1:39 am

     All should be aware that the price thru the shopping portals can be HIGHER than the price going direct to the merchant, so need to check BEFORE buying item thru portal. Ex: I just bought some printer cartridges for 5.99 per. UR mall had 6X points for Inkjet, but price thru UR was 8.99 per! So, if went thru UR would have paid $3 for 7 points!
451. Brian says:

     March 1, 2013 at 7:46 am

     Is there any way to convert Amazon GC’s to cash or can an Amazon payments account be loaded with Amazon GC’s? I have successfully used the HI GC to buy gift cards at Lowes. Problem is there just aren’t too many GCs at Lowes that I need. The gas cards are all the same as at Office Depot. Lowes has Amazon gift cards so if I could get those using the HI GC and convert to cash or get into a bank account it would be a pretty good system.
452. Ron says:

     March 1, 2013 at 9:39 am

     For buying Amex GC, Chase works but Citi sees it as a cash advance. Obviously, this is to be avoided. Anyone have experience with Amex GC purchases with US Bank or Barclays?
453. Shon says:

     March 1, 2013 at 8:08 pm

     Can you buy GCs at Lowes with a Lowes GC…
454. FrequentMiler says:

     March 2, 2013 at 5:37 am

     Marshall: interesting. I’ve never seen the price vary whether I went through a shopping portal or not. Very strange!
     Brian: I’m not aware of any good way other than finding someone who would buy them from you at a discount
     Shon: No. lowes won’t let you buy 3rd party gift cards with their gift cards
455. Chris F. says:

     March 2, 2013 at 8:53 pm

     Subscribing
456. greek2me says:

     March 3, 2013 at 3:16 pm

     subscribing
457. Duc says:

     March 4, 2013 at 7:42 pm

     UR mall drops Sears to 3X/$
     Bad news
458. Credit Card Sign Up Bonuses for Free Family Travel says:

     March 6, 2013 at 5:40 pm

     [...] Aside from credit cards, shopping portals can be an excellent way to earn points.  Most of the major frequent/loyalty programs have them, including Chase’s Ultimate Rewards portal for their Sapphire and Ink cards, and most of the major airlines.  The payouts change monthly, but typically offer between 2x and 10x points for purchases made at regular stores, so long as you access the stores through the portals.  Many stores offer specials that can go as high as 20 or 30x points.  Last year I bought a $2,000 television at Sears through the Ultimate Rewards portal and earned 40,000 points!  There are a lot of websites dedicated to analyzying the opportunities available through shopping portals.  My favorite is Frequent Miler and his laboratory of experiments. [...]
459. Ian says:

     March 8, 2013 at 5:13 am

     SUCCESS: Bought physical kohl’s gift cards through UR mall on 3/4. Received UR points for the purchase 3/8
460. FrequentMiler says:

     March 8, 2013 at 8:30 am

     Ian: Great! Me too!
461. Robert M. says:

     March 9, 2013 at 4:40 pm

     This was all through the ultimate rewards mall…I bought a Macy’s gift card through giftcertificates.com then used that gift card for purchase and received UR points for my Macy’s purchase for a total of 9x (3x for GC.com, 5x for Macys.com and 1x for using Sapphire).

     Next time, I’ll try to buy the GC through the Macy’s and see if I can extend that to 11x.

     Thanks for all the help!
462. FrequentMiler says:

     March 11, 2013 at 6:31 am

     Robert M: Great! Thanks for the info.
463. Vinh says:

     March 11, 2013 at 10:22 am

     Merchant: Staples physical store
     Experiment: Buy merchant GC
     Paid with: Staples GC
     SUCCESS!
     I was able to buy Itunes gift cards using a Staples GC. I also had 3 other small items, and this store usually employs younger reps who don’t know the rules or care, and so I’m sure this was YMMV, but the good news is that the computer allows it, so can’t hurt to try. I’m sure it helped that I had other items as well and not a pure GC transaction.
464. Frequent Miler says:

     March 11, 2013 at 11:02 am

     Vinh: that’s great! I had the same experience.
465. Katie says:

     March 13, 2013 at 6:11 pm

     Merchant: Kohl’s
     Experiment: Use Kohl’s GC and UR portal for a purchase *using a 30% off Kohl’s cardholders discount code* and a free shipping code.
     Paid: $97 with GCs and $11 with Kohl’s card.
     SUCCESS – points posted 5 days later

     Since the UR portal says that using a coupon over 15% negates points earning, I wasn’t expecting it to work.
466. Piecerate says:

     March 14, 2013 at 10:19 am

     Used HI card to buy Sears physical gift card through AA mall during 6x promo. Points posted 4 days after purchase.
467. FrequentMiler says:

     March 14, 2013 at 11:09 am

     Katie: Thanks. Good to see another data point on that!
     Piecerate: Great!
468. Million Mile Madness: buying, selling Kohl’s - The Frequent Miler says:

     March 18, 2013 at 1:30 pm

     [...] Laboratory [...]
469. Dave says:

     March 18, 2013 at 8:56 pm

     subscribing. GREAT thread! Thanks.
470. Justin says:

     March 23, 2013 at 1:17 am

     I successfully earned 400 points when purchasing a $100 Sony physical gift card through the Chase Ultimate Rewards Mall. I used an Amex card for the purchase. It states that gift cards are not eligible, but it turns out that that is not true. This works well with the current $25 Amex sync bonus.
471. Jen says:

     March 29, 2013 at 12:59 pm

     Buy physical Lowes GC with HI card @ mileageplus shopping portal:
     Success, eaned MP portal bonus.
472. Ken says:

     March 30, 2013 at 11:07 am

     Has anyone tried using the Home Improvement card to buy anything at Target yet? Target takes Discover I believe.
473. avidtraveler says:

     March 30, 2013 at 11:06 pm

     Great – thread so I’m jumping on the bandwagon and subscribing.
474. Jen says:

     March 31, 2013 at 12:00 am

     Bought JCPenney egift card from Staples.com on AAdvange shopping portal, bonus points posted!! Plus the 5x chase ink points!
475. avidtraveler says:

     April 2, 2013 at 12:57 pm

     FM – have you tried purchasing e-gc through UR and gotten points? Thank you
476. avidtraveler says:

     April 2, 2013 at 12:58 pm

     Sorry – I meant to put e-gc from Lowes.
477. FrequentMiler says:

     April 2, 2013 at 2:11 pm

     Thanks to those who reported portal results. I hope to update the lab table soon.

     Avidtraveler: I haven’t tried Lowes e-gift cards because the option take you to a different site away from lowes,com. I’m pretty sure it won’t work
478. avidtraveler says:

     April 2, 2013 at 6:04 pm

     Thanks FM. I’m wondering if the Lowes movers coupon will void the UR points.
479. Jonathan says:

     April 5, 2013 at 9:00 pm

     Hey Greg, given the length of the comments on this post (and the nature of the page) is it possible to show last comment first (or change the DISQUS settings to give us filters so we can do so ourselves)? Pagination is an idea too.
480. FrequentMiler says:

     April 6, 2013 at 5:07 pm

     avidtraveler: I don’t think so.
     Jonathan: I’ve asked the BoardingArea powers that be. We’ll see!
481. Moses says:

     April 10, 2013 at 12:44 pm

     is amazon a good candidate for double dipping?

     I will buy a GC in Lowes for the 5%, then go buy from amazon through the ultimate rewards shopping portal using the gift card.

     will I get another 5X back?
482. avidtraveler says:

     April 10, 2013 at 12:47 pm

     Can you get 5x on amazon purchases through UR rewards?
483. Ken says:

     April 10, 2013 at 1:35 pm

     @avidtraveler – The only portal that earns points/miles from Amazon shopping is the Hawaiian Airlines portal AFAIK.
484. avidtraveler says:

     April 10, 2013 at 1:37 pm

     Thought so! I’m not entirely sure what Moses is talking about then.
485. Moses says:

     April 10, 2013 at 3:32 pm

     I thought I saw that shopping to amazon was available on UR. I realized soon after though. sorry
486. Ken says:

     April 10, 2013 at 3:55 pm

     @Moses – Amazon will be one of the 5% quarterly bonus merchants for the 4th quarter with the Chase Freedom card this year. Maybe that’s what you were thinking of?
487. Lori says:

     April 12, 2013 at 8:30 pm

     I purchased a Pottery Barn Kids giftcard through Upromise for 7% cash back (I also used my PBCC to get 10% rewards back from PB). I then used a PBCC rewards certificate, a coupon, and the remaining amount on the giftcard to make a Pottery Barn purchase going through UR. Success! Points posted for the entire amount!
488. Travel Bear says:

     April 13, 2013 at 11:32 am

     Has anyone bought Kohl’s physical gift card with Visa gift card for UR successfully? I don’t see this in FMs chart, but I also note he hasn’t been able to update recently. Get on the ball man! Looking forward to FTU in DC and meeting some of you gurus!
489. Travel Bear says:

     April 13, 2013 at 11:54 am

     Just to add a data point. I purchased a physical Kohl’s gc with a Chase card for 10x successfully. I have also purchased a HI card for $100 then purchased a Sears physical gc for $75 (due to the $1 hold) and received UR points. Just now used the remaining $25 on the HI to buy a Lowes physical card, will wait to see if I get UR. I had no issue using the HI card as a Discover card on the Lowe’s site.
490. Frequent Miler says:

     April 13, 2013 at 12:54 pm

     Sorry, I am behind on updating this table! Yes, I’ve had success in buying Kohl’s physical gift cards with Visa gift cards. Yes, I got points through the UR Mall.
491. Lemma says:

     April 15, 2013 at 4:12 pm

     ShopDiscover is having a Mothers Day promo to give 10% cash back on purchases at Sears/Kmart/Lands End. Their T&C say you have to pay with a Discover card, but I wonder if you can use the HI card. If so that would be a really good manufactured spend loop for those with a Chase Ink & Discover card (to get access to the portal). Use Ink to buy HI, then buy Sears GC, then buy Visa/MC GC.
492. FrequentMiler says:

     April 15, 2013 at 5:55 pm

     Lemma: based on past experiments I do believe that would work
493. avidtraveler says:

     April 15, 2013 at 6:30 pm

     FM: Can we load our bluebird at a Walmart Neighborhood Market or Walmart Express? Thanks
494. Frequent Miler says:

     April 16, 2013 at 2:34 pm

     avidtraveler: I think so, but I’ve never tried
495. Bob Vila says:

     April 18, 2013 at 10:17 am

     Re #493, how do we buy a Visa/MC GC with a Sears GC? Do we need to visit Sears?
496. Travel Bear says:

     April 18, 2013 at 3:39 pm

     Update: I used an HI gc to get a Lowe’s GC and thru UR and received points.
497. FrequentMiler says:

     April 19, 2013 at 6:28 pm

     Bob Vila: Yes, you would have to visit Sears and find the secret gift card rack that none of their employees know about (seriously).
498. thewingtipper says:

     April 20, 2013 at 11:36 am

     Not sure if there is a subtle difference, but I was unable to use a “rebate card” from Walgreens on the purchase of a Best Buy gift card; it subtracted the amount of other items in my transaction, but I had to purchase the gift card with my credit card. Oh well, lesson for the lab.
499. Chris says:

     April 21, 2013 at 10:17 am

     I tried purchasing Sears physical gift card through the AAdvantage shopping mall but did not receive any miles. I used the gift cards to purchase items and those did post already.
500. Tianyi says:

     April 22, 2013 at 10:17 am

     To Chris, I also purchased Sears physical gift card through the AAdvantage shopping mall using home improvement cards on 4/18. I made 10 purchases. Only the first transaction was posted in AA mall now.
501. FrequentMiler says:

     April 22, 2013 at 11:58 am

     It’s long overdue, but I finally updated the Lab table with most recent results. I also added gift card PIN experiments to the table.
502. Gift Card Churning Advice – Knowing Your Limitations | Chasing The Points says:

     April 23, 2013 at 2:28 am

     [...] Not quite a limit, but you should always keep in mind and check out Frequent Miler’s Laboratory to see what gift cards can be used online where you would still earn points when you use a portal. [...]
503. Lori says:

     April 25, 2013 at 6:21 am

     Staples FAIL. Went through UR, used Reward certifificate and Ink card. No points!
504. Vinh says:

     April 26, 2013 at 11:28 am

     I’ve been slacking off too Greg. New experiments:

     Merchant: Target.com
     Portal: Shopdiscover
     Experiment: Buy Itunes physical GC
     Paid with: cc
     SUCCESS!
     Funny how you don’t even have Target in the table yet. Got the 5% from ShopDiscover

     Merchant: BestBuy.com
     Portal: Shopdiscover
     Experiment: Buy physical Itunes GC
     Paid with: cc/BB gift cards
     SUCCESS!
     Got the 5% from ShopDiscover as well. Payment type doesn’t matter.

     Merchant: BestBuy.com
     Portal: Shopdiscover
     Experiment: Buy Best Buy physical GC
     Paid with: cc
     CONFIRMING SUCCESS! Confirming another reader’s success. Got the 5% from ShopDiscover.
505. Ken says:

     April 26, 2013 at 11:39 am

     @Vinh – Do you need a Discover CC to do that? I don’t have one.
506. Vinh says:

     April 26, 2013 at 11:40 am

     I believe so. You can try going to shopdiscover.com and seeing if you can create an account and going through the portal.
507. Ken says:

     April 26, 2013 at 11:47 am

     @Vinh – I tried to register and the first thing it asked for was my Discover CC #.
508. Vinh says:

     April 26, 2013 at 12:11 pm

     @Ken – well now you have your answer.

     @FM – did you notice that the HI card now has a PIN? Was it there before? I don’t think any HI places will give cashback; any ideas to exploit this?
509. Cyclotron says:

     April 26, 2013 at 12:33 pm

     I noticed that the HI card had a PIN sometime ago. I have tried to use it at multiple places without any success: Walmart, Kmart, Grocery store, Coffee shop, CVS. I got frustarted and gave up

     I have not tried at any HI stores such as Sears or Lowes. Do any of them give cashback or do Money Orders?
510. aegt says:

     April 26, 2013 at 2:38 pm

     @Vinh HI always have had a PIN. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work anywhere other than a home improvement store.
511. FrequentMiler says:

     April 30, 2013 at 10:38 am

     Vinh: Great new info, thanks!
512. FrequentMiler says:

     April 30, 2013 at 10:40 am

     A reader reported the following: Used Citi AA visa for $200 J Crew PHYSICAL gift card. Received 5x chase points through UR mall.
513. Vinh says:

     May 1, 2013 at 12:13 pm

     Merchant: Staples.com
     Portal: Shopdiscover
     Experiment: Buy merchant e-gc
     Paid with: cc
     FAIL! Bought on 4/27, no Discover cashback email while a Best Buy.com order on 4/28 received a cashback email. I wonder if ShopDiscover uses a smarter 3rd party vendor to verify these things.

     FM, you also need to update the table about the Staples.com/Upromise merchant e-gc. I did get the cashback email, but it took 10 days (unusually long time. I wonder if this Shopdiscover will take 10 days as well). Will report back.
514. Tim2 says:

     May 1, 2013 at 10:22 pm

     Merchant: Target.com
     Portal: Shopdiscover
     Experiment: Buy Physical Target GC
     Paid with: CC
     FAIL ( No email yet but I received email for purchase made after this one – exp below)

     Merchant: Target.com
     Portal: Shopdiscover
     Experiment: Buy Merch with Target GC
     Paid with: Physical Target Gift Card
     SUCCESS
515. Ken says:

     May 2, 2013 at 10:45 am

     Are there any Discover cards worth having?
516. Kevin G says:

     May 5, 2013 at 7:24 pm

     http://www.topcashback.com/wal-mart/

     it says “Purchases paid for with gift cards are not eligible for cashback.”

     any tried paying using gc and getting cashback from tcb?
517. GC says:

     May 6, 2013 at 11:14 am

     http://www.topcashback.com/wal-mart/

     it says “Purchases paid for with gift cards are not eligible for cashback.”

     Anyone tried using gc and got cashback from tcb?
518. FrequentMiler says:

     May 6, 2013 at 12:50 pm

     Ken: Yes, the Discover It card is good for quarterly 5% cash back categories and for access to the ShopDiscover portal
519. FrequentMiler says:

     May 6, 2013 at 12:57 pm

     Updated table with latest info including some of my own findings:
     1. Staples did not give cash back via uPromise for Visa gift card purchase when I applied a $10 off coupon
     2. GiftCardMall double dip worked!
520. avidtraveler says:

     May 6, 2013 at 1:01 pm

     FM – Do you think Upromise has delayed postings of CB? Looking at the previous comments seem to suggest so.
521. FrequentMiler says:

     May 6, 2013 at 1:05 pm

     avidtraveler: Not necessarily. In my case, uPromise did report the cash back, but when I went online to look at it, I saw that another line had the same order subtracted out (I’ve seen similar things on other cash back portals for gift card purchases).
522. avidtraveler says:

     May 6, 2013 at 1:51 pm

     Thanks for the update, FM!
523. Vinh says:

     May 6, 2013 at 11:47 pm

     Anyone been able to buy a Sears GC with an HI card in May? I tried tonight using 3 different HI cards that I had already registered zip and got errors on submission. I wonder if Sears is beginning to catch on. Hopefully it’s my user error…
524. Anon says:

     May 7, 2013 at 9:23 am

     Successfully purchased a $50 AmEx gift card at Sears with a $50 Sears gift card -> low max value denominations ($100) prevent this from being viable for churning, but wanted to add a data point that it still works.
525. FrequentMiler says:

     May 7, 2013 at 6:06 pm

     Vinh: I’ve heard similar reports from others. Maybe opportunity has been closed on that one?
     Anon: Thanks for the update!
526. FrequentMiler says:

     May 7, 2013 at 6:12 pm

     New uPromise update: It turns out after all that I did get cash back for ordering a Visa gift card with a $10 off coupon. At first it showed $5.35 cash back (which was too much), but that was reversed out. Today, the proper amount ($4.85) showed up.
527. Duc says:

     May 7, 2013 at 10:59 pm

     Frequent Miler: what do you mean by?
     2. GiftCardMall double dip worked!
528. FlyFlyer says:

     May 8, 2013 at 1:08 am

     Successfully purchased $1000 in Sears physical GC at the AAdvantage Mall when Sears was 8x. IME Sears GC -> Visa GC (at KMart) -> VR (at CVS) very easily. Miles posted about 4 weeks after purchase.
529. FrequentMiler says:

     May 8, 2013 at 7:27 am

     Duc: search the table. I don’t think it would be wise for anyone to spell it out
530. Ken says:

     May 8, 2013 at 9:21 am

     @FlyFlyer – What GC did you pickup at Kmart? No problems with the cashier or register beeping? Do you swipe the Sears GC i the Kmart card reader or do you need to tell the cashier you’re using a GC to pay?
531. Vinh says:

     May 8, 2013 at 1:17 pm

     I tried to buy $100 Visa GCs at Kmart and cashier stopped me on the 2nd one, “You know you can only use cash or debit.” Then I walked out.
532. FlyFlyer says:

     May 9, 2013 at 3:03 am

     @Ken – $100 Visa GC, the cashiers at my local Kmart have no problem doing this, I told them I would be using GC to pay
533. Ken says:

     May 9, 2013 at 8:47 am

     @FlyFlyer – What is the process for paying with a Sears/Kmart GC?
534. FlyFlyer says:

     May 10, 2013 at 2:50 am

     @Ken – I went to the cashier with my Sears GC and stack of $100 Visa GC and told them I would be paying with a Sears GC. I told them the smaller denominations are easier to use. As I said, in my area, this is no problem and no cashiers have ever done anything other than inquire about it. Possibly a local thing.
535. Ken says:

     May 10, 2013 at 9:35 am

     @FlyFlyer – Do you swipe the Sears GC like a CC in the card swiper or do they need to swipe it on their register?
536. pbailey19 says:

     May 11, 2013 at 4:39 pm

     Heads up – I have an unfortunate data point to report. I recently attempted to do some buy ‘n’ sell through Kohl’s. I went through the Ultimate Rewards Mall, bought gift cards (expecting 10x), then when the GC’s arrived in the mail, used the GC’s to buy merchandise.

     In the past, this has been good for 20x at Kohl’s. However, this time I got *no* Ultimate Rewards points. After talking with Chase, they recited Kohl’s website chapter and verse, which explains that purchases of, or purchases made with, gift cards were NOT eligible for points.

     Of course, it always said that, even when it was paying out a 20x double-dip. But it looks like they might be closing that loophole.
537. Vinh says:

     May 11, 2013 at 4:42 pm

     When was your purchase of the gift cards? Did you get 10X?

     When did you buy your items? Did you get 10X on that?
538. Tim2 says:

     May 11, 2013 at 8:26 pm

     @vinh I have had problems too with sears and HI. Late April I purchased sears GC on two separate occasions with the HI. Both went through… Both cancelled. Tried again with a new HI card and got the same error message. I think this cow has been taken to market. I put it on flyertalk a week ago
539. pbailey19 says:

     May 12, 2013 at 10:12 am

     I purchased the Kohl’s gift cards on April 7, then used them to make purchases from Kohl’s web site on April 19. In neither case did I earn any Ultimate Rewards points. Note that in both cases, I know that I went through the Ultimate Rewards portal properly – Chase actually confirmed the transactions for me.
540. Tim2 says:

     May 12, 2013 at 11:34 am

     Me thinks they are becoming aware. Darn, I really wanted to hit this deal hard
541. Vinh says:

     May 12, 2013 at 12:07 pm

     @pbailey you must have done something wrong then because I bought GCs and items with the GCs in April and got credited for all of it.
542. harvson3 says:

     May 13, 2013 at 9:00 am

     Bought e-gift card for outdoors store based in Freeport, ME, at substantial discount through GCgranny. Went through UR portal, used Chase card for the remaining <$1. Got full pts. credit for purchase. Don't know if this counts for the Lab.
543. Penn says:

     May 14, 2013 at 11:32 pm

     Has anyone tried loading BB with AFT? I can’t find anything on if this supports debit transactions, but thought it was worth asking. For $3 for $1000, cheaper than most Visa GCs, and since you can get two, you can still use one for additional manufactured spend.
544. Ken says:

     May 15, 2013 at 8:09 am

     @Penn – You cannot use AFT to load Bluebird, you cannot do PIN debit transactions with it.
545. FrequentMiler says:

     May 15, 2013 at 2:18 pm

     harvson3: Sure! I assume I know the store name, but can you confirm it for me?
546. FrequentMiler says:

     May 17, 2013 at 6:56 am

     Now that GCM is back in TopCashBack I’ll retest the GCM double dip. I’m worried they might have (purposely) broken that opportunity.
547. Y. Jiang says:

     May 18, 2013 at 3:57 am

     I have used gift card on best buy through top cash back. I got full cash back credit. I did use a credit card to pay about 3 dollars though.
548. Reader Question: How to Earn Points While Shopping - Mommy Points says:

     May 18, 2013 at 6:01 am

     [...] not e-gift cards.  In other words, this is not an exact science.  That said, you can check out The Frequent Miler’s Lab to see recent reports with various retailers on whether or not this approach will [...]
549. harvson3 says:

     May 18, 2013 at 1:51 pm

     @FM – LLBean