The triple mile promotion is just the beginning of the story.  Read on for ways to maximize points and savings…

This week, the AAdvantage eShopping portal is offering triple miles for a few merchants: 

• LivingSocial 9X (was 3X)
• JC Penney 12X (was 4X)
• Charles Tyrwhitt 12X (was 4X)

And a couple of double mile deals:

• Nordstrom 8X (was 4X)
• Bose 6X (was 3X)

How to maximize points and savings

Here’s a 5 part guide to maximizing points and savings for shopping at these or any merchants:

1. Compare portals to find the best rates
2. Look for discount gift cards
3. Look for the best online coupons
4. See whether purchases made with gift cards earn points (or cash back)
5. Shop!

1. Compare Portals

There is no single best portal finder, but I find it is a good idea to check both cashbackholic.com (for cash back rates) and evreward.com (for miles & points) to find the best options for any particular merchant.  For example, with JC Penney, I checked both portal finders and discovered that the AA portal at 12X was in fact the best option for earning points.  For cash back, the ShopDiscover portal currently offers 10% back.

2. Look for discount gift cards

Go to GiftCardGranny.com to search for gift cards for the merchant where you want to shop.  For example, I looked up JC Penney and found gift cards discounted as much as 20%:

If you’re in a hurry to buy something, then look for e-gift cards which are typically delivered in a few hours or overnight:

Once you find a vendor to buy gift cards from, check cashbackholic again to see if you can get extra cash back for buying from that vendor.  For example, here I searched for the gift card vendor “Raise”:

You can find sign up links for most cash back sites in my “Sign-Up Links” page.  In some cases you’ll get a $5 bonus for using my links.

3. Look for the best online coupons

Normally I would simply do a Google search for something like “JCP coupons”.  In this case, the site EvReward automatically showed some decent coupons:

Typically coupons found on sites like Ev’Reward will work fine with shopping portals.

4. See whether purchases made with gift cards earn points (or cash back)

In some rare cases, merchants won’t give you points (or cash back) for going through a portal if you make your purchase with gift cards.  Visit the Frequent Miler Laboratory to see if data exists one way or another.  For example, I went to the Laboratory and searched for “JCP”:

As you can see, attempts to use gift cards to buy merchandise and to get portal points or cash back were all successful.  The only failures were the attempts to use JCP gift cards to buy other gift cards.

5. Shop!

Given the work done above, here is how I would maximize points and savings when shopping at JC Penney:

1. Go through BeFrugal or TopCashBack to Raise to buy JCP e-gift cards for 18% off.  By doing this, you would get an additional 2% back from BeFrugal or TopCashBack.
2. Go through the AAdvantage eShopping portal to JC Penney and pick out merchandise.
3. Apply coupons (e.g. 10% off).
4. Pay with gift cards.

Through the above techniques you could save approximately 30% off anything at JC Penney and earn 12 miles per dollar! 

Note that by using gift cards you do not get automatic warranties or price protection that are often automatically provided by your credit card company so in some cases you might do better to pay directly.

In February, I tried to double-dip at DrugStore.com by buying gift cards through Beauty.com and then using them at DrugStore.com.  My hope was to earn portal points or cash back with each transaction.  Well, buying gift cards resulted in points, but using gift cards did not.  Along the way, though, I did discover a surprising triple dip.  Anyway, last week I received the following email from Aadvantage eShopping:

Subject: You Have Earned Miles through the AAdvantage eShopping Mall

Wow, did the double dip work after all?  I rushed to check my Aadvantage eShopping Mall account and found this:

The mall giveth and taketh away…

Aadvantage eShopping Mall

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

Nordstrom

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

Amex Platinum 100K Offer

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

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

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

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

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

Step 2: Buy Gift Cards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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• My double dip experiment with the Aadvantage eShopping mall worked!  I received 10 points per dollar for making a Sears.com purchase using gift cards.  I had bought those gift cards for 10 points per dollar through the Ultimate Rewards Mall on December 9th, so I earned a combined 20 points per dollar.  Even with the UR Mall at only 4 or 5 points, I think this is the best current Sears double-dip option (e.g. buy gift cards through the UR Mall, use gift cards through the Aadvantage mall).
• The Magazines.com double dip through the UR mall seems to be a bust.  Whereas I reported earlier receiving half credit for purchases of 2 year magazine subscriptions, I haven’t received any credit (yet) for a few purchases of 1 year subscriptions.  I’m beginning to think that someone at magazines.com spotted the error and closed the loophole.  Next experiment: buy gift cards through the Ultimate Rewards Mall, but redeem them through a different portal.
• This is just a reminder that MileagePlus shopping is running a promotion until the end of the month where you can get 500 bonus miles for a purchase of $75 or more.  If you make one purchase of about $100, this is like an extra 5 miles per dollar on top of the bonus points you would get anyway through this shopping portal.

Once again Sears is offering 10 Aadvatage miles per dollar through the Aadvantage eShopping Mall. Read on to find out why I’m staying away.

Several readers have pointed out that the Aadvantage eShopping Mall is now offering 10 points per dollar for Sears’ purchases. The mall also has a special where you can earn up to 1,000 bonus miles by spending $1000. The question that people have asked is whether the “double dip” I’ve written so much about would work here as it does with the Ultimate Rewards Mall. That is, could you go through the Aadvantage eShopping Mall to buy Sears’ gift cards and then go back through the mall to purchase items in order to effectively get 20 points per dollar and get the bonus 1000 miles? Read below for three answers (yes, I’m feeling generous tonight so I’ll give you three answers for the price of one!):

Answer 1: Yes, the terms and conditions allow it.

If you read the terms and conditions, it looks like the purchase of Sears gift cards would work. It says (in a backwards way) that items with the “Add to Cart” button are eligible. And, I can tell you (from lots of experience) that gift cards do have an “add to cart” button. Here are the listed terms:

“Not eligible on Sears auctions, Landsend.com, PartsDirect, Craftsman, Kenmore or Outlet purchases. Sears Marketplace products with “Go to Site” button and services are not eligible. Only products with “Add to Cart” button are eligible. Great Indoors & Kmart products are eligible. Kmart orders will be listed as a Kmart.com purchase with a Kmart.com reward.”

Also, note that there is no text to exclude the use of gift cards. So, technically, the double dip should work.

Please read on, though, if you’re thinking of doing it!

Answer 2: No, history tells us it won’t work.

Back in September, the Aadvantage eShopping Mall offered the same 10 points per dollar for Sears and so I wrote a post saying that you can “Buy American Airlines Miles for less than 1.6 cents each. No limit.” In that post I suggested buying Sears gift cards through the Aadvantage mall and then reselling them at a loss. In return, you would get enough AA miles that the result would be that you would have paid 1.6 cents per mile. Well, it sounded good, but no-one who tried it reported receiving any miles… including me. Some of us are still fighting that battle, so I don’t know how it will turn out in the long run, but I’m pretty sure that you don’t want to join the battle by buying gift cards in this way!

Another thing to point out is that the mall is specifically setup to send you to GiftCertificates.com if you want to buy gift cards. Take a look at the tab shown below. If you click on “Online” you see the 10 points per dollar offer, but if you click on “Gift Cards” you see a 3 point per dollar offer. If you then click on “Shop Now” you are taken not to Sears, but to GiftCertificates.com.

Click “Online” and you see this:

Click “Gift Cards” and you see this. Click on “Shop Now” and you are taken to GiftCertificates.com

Answer 3: Yes, you can double dip, but not the way you thought

I’m pretty sure that the Aadvantage eShopping Mall will give you points for purchases made for things other than gift cards at Sears. You should be able to use gift cards to make those purchases. If I’m right, then you can double dip by buying gift cards not in the Aadvantage mall, but in the Ultimate Rewards mall at 6 points per dollar and then use them in the Aadvantage Shopping Mall at 10 miles per dollar. In that way, you’ll effectively get 16 miles per dollar. If you make $1000 of purchases, you’ll get another 1000 miles thanks to the current promotion. And, don’t forget that you’ll also get miles from using your credit card to buy the gift cards. So, in total, you can get about 18 miles per dollar for $1000 in purchases. A potential downside to this is that your miles will be in two different programs and Ultimate Rewards points don’t transfer to AA miles.

If you really want to earn just AA miles, you might want to double dip by buying gift cards at GiftCertificates.com for 3 miles per dollar and then use the gift certificates for 10 miles per dollar. However, GiftCertificates.com charges a $2.95 service fee for gift cards! So, the extra 3 miles you would get here come at a cost. To me, the added cost plus complexity of the double dip is not worth the extra 3 miles.

Analysis

The double dip I describe above in Answer 3 is untested. I would only recommend trying it if you have Sears’ purchases to make anyway and you highly value AA miles. Otherwise, stick with the Ultimate Rewards double dip which is pretty well proven (I’ve done it several times). Right now you can get 12 points per dollar in the Ultimate Rewards mall by double dipping. Or, better yet, wait until the 10 point offer comes back so that you can get 20 points per dollar with the double dip. I’ll be surprised if we don’t see that offer again in early 2012.

THIS DEAL IS NOW DEAD: As reported by DealsWeLike (see comments), the Aadvantage shopping mall is no longer offering 10 points per dollar for Sears’ purchases. However, for those with Chase rewards cards, the Chase Ultimate Rewards shopping portal currently offers 10 extra points per dollar for Sears, Macy’s, and Kohl’s. Ultimate Rewards points cannot be transferred directly to Aadvantage miles, but if you’re shopping for Continental Airlines miles, Hyatt points, or several others, this might be a great opportunity. For more see my prior post 30,000 Continental Airlines miles for $2,000 Sears spend!

Since American Airlines announced an end to their previously very generous Million Miler program, people have been scrambling to find ways to bump up their Aadvantage miles before the rules change at the end of November.  For those not familiar with this, I’ll summarize:  Prior to the new rules taking effect, all Aadvantage miles a person earns through flying, credit card purchases, bonus awards, etc. count towards the person’s million mile status.  Once a person reaches a million miles, they are awarded Aadvantage elite status for life.  After November 30, achieving this milestone will become much harder because, at that time, only miles flown will count (with one specific credit card exception, but I digress). So, back to the rush for Aadvantage miles.  People can buy miles directly from the airline, but the airline charges a hefty 2.95 cents per mile and limits purchased miles to 40,000 per year. In this post, I’ll propose an alternative. As I’ve posted before, the Aadvantage shopping mall, until the end of September, is offering 10 points per dollar for all Sears purchases. Even better, there does not appear to be any restriction against buying Sears’ gift cards. And, there is no limit to miles earned through the shopping mall. Here is an excerpt from their FAQ:

Q: Is there a limit to the number of AAdvantage® miles that I can earn through the AAdvantage® eShopping mall? A: No. The more you shop – the more you can earn! As a reminder, you cannot earn miles for taxes, special handling charges, freight or shipping costs, and any unshipped or returned products. In addition, please refer to the retailer offer page for complete information regarding eligible purchases for each retailer.

So, how can a person take advantage of this and buy miles for less than 1.6 cents each? Follow these two steps: STEP 1: Using an Aadvantage branded credit card, go through the Aadvantage shopping mall to Sears and buy as many gift cards as you would need to reach your mile target. You will earn 11 miles for each dollar spent (1 mile from the credit card and one from the shopping mall).  So, if you want to earn 50,000 miles, simply calculate 50,000 / 11 = 4545.  Round that up to $4600 and that’s the amount you need.
STEP 2: Sell the credit cards at PlasticJungle.  PlaticJungle will pay 83 cents on the dollar for Sears cards. With the steps above, you will have effectively purchased Aadvantage miles for only 1.55 cents each! Let’s walk through an extreme example. Suppose I want to earn 1 Million Miles right away. I calculate that 1 Million miles divided by 11 miles per dollar equals $90,909. Let’s round that up to $91K. So I log into the Aadvantage Shopping Mall, click through to Sears, and put 182 $500 gift cards into my shopping cart. Of course I would have to have an insanely high credit limit and a lot of patience with Sears’ fraud department to pull this off, but hey, this is just an example. Once that is all done, I go to plasticjungle.com and sell $91K worth of Sears’ gift cards. I receive in return $91K * .83 = $75,530. That means I have spent, in total $91K – $75,530 = $15,470. In return, I am now a lifetime elite on American Airlines and I have over 1 million airline miles in my pocket. Not bad!

UPDATE: A post in Deals We Like indicated that the 10X offer may only be valid until September 23rd (so hurry!), and that the miles will post 8 to 10 weeks after October 8th.  If this is true, it means that the miles will post after the Nov 30th cut-off date.  On the other hand, they may be simply giving themselves plenty of “just in case” time to get the miles posted.  If you’re in it just for lifetime status, you might want to pass.  If you’re in it for cheap AA miles, then hurry!

When I was very young I invented a perpetual motion machine (a machine that runs on its own power, forever).  I drew a picture of a little car with a vertical gear that was driven by heavy bricks.  The idea was that the higher up bricks would be pulled down by gravity, forcing the entire wheel to turn.  Of course, this wouldn’t really work, but I didn’t know that at the time.

The gear that drove my perpetual motion machine

The other day, I thought I had discovered something even better:  a perpetual point machine.  A perpetual point machine is a scheme in which, after a little push, points and/or miles are accrued over and over again, forever, with little or no additional work.

The idea hit me when I was online buying a Sears e-gift card, following my own advice from a previous post showing how to earn 40,000 Aadvantage miles from $2000 Sears spend.  So, I was buying the e-gift card and I saw this:

Wow, it looked like I could buy a gift card with a gift card!  Why would I care about that?  Well, with the Aadvantage Shopping Mall offering 10 miles per dollar spent at Sears, I figured I could spend real money just once to buy the first gift card, then go through the portal again to buy another gift card, using the first one to pay, and then go through the portal again and buy another gift card, and so on forever.  Ergo, we would have a perpetual point machine!  Let’s say I bought a $500 gift card each time.  Then, each transaction would result in 5000 Aadvantage miles.  200 transactions later I’d have a million miles!

Of course, just like my perpetual motion machine, the point machine doesn’t work either.   After entering my gift card number (yes, I really tried to pull this off!), the website immediately informed me that “Gift Cards can not be used to purchase Gift Cards at this time.”  Rats!  The wording, “at this time,” does make me wonder, though.  Is there a time in which gift cards can be used to purchase gift cards?  If so, what time?

THIS DEAL IS NOW DEAD: As reported by DealsWeLike and a reader named Joe (see comments), the Aadvantage shopping mall is no longer offering 10 points per dollar for Sears’ purchases. However, for those with Chase rewards cards, the Chase Ultimate Rewards shopping portal currently offers 10 extra points per dollar for Sears, Macy’s, and Kohl’s. Ultimate Rewards points cannot be transferred directly to Aadvantage miles, but if you’re shopping for Continental Airlines miles, Hyatt points, or several others, this might be a great opportunity. For more see my prior post 30,000 Continental Airlines miles for $2,000 Sears spend!

Last week I posted a way to earn 30,000 Continental Airlines miles by spending $2000 at Sears. Now, there’s an even better opportunity.  Through the Aadvantage shopping mall, you can now (for a limited time) get 10 miles per dollar spent at Sears.  On it’s own, that means that a $2000 spend at Sears would get you 20,000 AA miles.  However, if you follow this plan, you can get 40,000 miles! 1. Browse to the Aadvantage Shopping Mall and find Sears.  Currently, purchases from Sears via this portal are rewarded with 10 miles per dollar.  Go to Sears from this portal and buy a e-gift card for $2000 (or whatever amount you need).  Note that it may take an hour or so to receive your e-gift card.  From this step alone, you will have earned 20,000 Aadvantage miles. 2. Return to the Aadvantage shopping mall and click through to Sears again.  Find what you need and add it to your shopping cart.  This step will earn you the additional 20,000 miles giving you a total of 40,000 miles for this purchase!  But, wait, there’s still more bonus available: 3. Make sure you belong to Sears’ Shop Your Way Rewards program.  When checking out of Sears.com, enter your Shop Your Way Rewards number.  For your $2000, you will earn 20,000 Shop Your Way Rewards points!  Don’t get too excited, though.  Each point is only worth 1/10 of a penny.  Still, that comes to $20 worth of points.  You might as well take it.