Why can’t I see Ink online? 

When I first signed up for the Chase Ink Bold card (back in the pre 5X for office supplies days) I ran into a little issue when the card arrived.

At the time, I already had several personal Chase credit cards and an online account for managing them.  Each time I signed up for a new personal card it would automatically appear in my online account once I was approved for the card.  The Ink, however, played coy.  It didn’t show up in my online account and I couldn’t figure out any way within my account to add it in.  Finally, I called Chase to get things straightened out.  In case you’re in a similar situation, here is what I learned:

You can add personal cards to a business online account, but you cannot add business cards to a personal account.

I don’t know why Chase has this rule, but there it is.  As a result, you can either maintain two separate online identities: one for business and one for personal use; or you can setup a business account as your primary account and add all of your personal cards to that.

In my case, I wanted all of my cards in one place AND I wanted to keep my usual ID and password.  Chase was able to help me as follows:

STEP 1: Chase changed my personal ID to something else

STEP 2: Chase created my business account and used my original personal ID

STEP 3: Chase added my personal cards to my business account

STEP 4: I changed the temporary password on my new business account to the password I know and love

Now I have my original log-in ID and password, but can see and manage all cards on one account.  Excellent!  I listed the steps above because I’ve heard from a few people who have struggled with this.  Give Chase a call and tell them what you want to do.  If the Chase rep you speak too can’t figure out how to do this you may need to call back again until you find someone who can help.  Good luck!

Related Posts

• How to sign up for the Ink Bold
• How to increase the Ink Bold bonus by 27K
• One card to rule them all
• Let’s just be friends
• What’s my X?

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On Friday morning after walking the dog, I saw I had received a voicemail from Chase.  They were calling in regards to some recent online activity.  That didn’t sound good.  I tried to log into my account and found this:

Uh oh.

I’ve written before about Chase shutting down accounts.  If you’re a bad credit risk, or you get too greedy with their perks, you could be in danger.  For details, see: “Why Chase cancels accounts (and how to protect yourself).” Did this happen to me?

I know I’m not a bad credit risk.  I pay my bills in full every month.  I have an excellent credit score and a long spotless credit history.  Sure I’ve taken advantage of quite a few credit card sign-up offers, but not nearly as many as many others have, and my credit score has actually increased since I started.

What about “perk abuse”?  Have I been hitting Office Depot too hard with my Ink Bold?  I wrote recently about how to earn 5 points per dollar everywhere through an easy trick that involves buying reload cards at Office Depot (see “One card to rule them all”).  In that post, I also warned people not to go too far with this.  “You could get shut down,” I said…  Had that happened to me?  Had I gone too far?  I thought I was staying within limits that would keep me in Chase’s good graces.  I even wrote a love letter to the Ink Bold, for goodness sake!

I called Chase.  The first person I talked to didn’t see flags on any of my accounts, but she then transferred me to security.  My heart pounded like crazy.  “Please don’t shut me down, I promise I’ll be good!” I begged silently. 

Security made me prove my identity.  What year was your father born?  Which company in this list have you been affiliated with?  What was the first name of your first girlfriend?

I passed the tests.  They believed I was me.

It turns out that I had made a large transfer of funds from my new Chase checking account to my money market.  Oh yeah…  In my fear, I had forgotten about that….  They simply needed verify that it was me, and that I intended to do that.  YES! 

And, just like that, my account was restored.

I asked: Why had my account been frozen?  Three things: 1) This was the first transfer out of my checking account; 2) This was a large transfer; and 3) The request was made from a different IP address than I normally log-in with.  The first two reasons made sense to me.  The 3rd is strange since I had used the same laptop from the same home network that I almost always use.  Ah well, all is fine now.  My heartbeat rate is finally settling down from its all time high.

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On May 1st, I described some great new bonus opportunities in the post “Ultimate Rewards Awesomeness.”  Among other opportunities listed in that post, I wrote:

Sephora at 20X!  Holy cow, that’s a big number.  Someone with a Freedom card, please do a double dip experiment right away!!!

One reader reported that the experiment didn’t work, but another named Matthew reported complete success.  He wrote:

Update: I got an email late last night saying the my UR points for the Sephora purchases has posted. Sure enough, I got 200 pts for a $10 eGift card purchase and then another 200 pts for redemption of that gift card

Great news, right?  This means that Matthew earned 40 points per dollar at Sephora!  Unfortunately (and unbeknownst to me), the 40X deal only lasted until May 8th.  Matthew went on to write the following:

Unfortunately, the email came so late that I was unable to capitalize on the deal bonus before it was reduced to 5x points this morning. It would have been simply amazing to get 10,000 pts for a $250 eGift card purchase and redemption. Well played, Chase. Well played.

Oh well.  Easy come, easy go.

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Last Saturday I teased readers with the post titled “Found! The perfect perpetual point machine.”  I followed up that post with “One card to rule them all” in which I showed how to use American Express prepaid cards to earn nearly 5 points per dollar everywhere. 

I detailed the idea behind Perpetual Point Machines in the post “The Perfect Perpetual Point Machine, Part 1.”  There, I defined a Perpetual Point Machine (PPM) as 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.  I also laid out a few rules of what makes a perfect PPM:

1. It may take effort and money to setup initially, but must not take much effort or money to keep it going.
2. It must be able to generate hundreds of thousands of points per year.
3. It must do no harm.
4. Ideally (but optionally) it would also do some good for the world.

The idea of a scheme like this going forever is obviously ridiculous, but it would be great to find one that lasts a few years at least.  The Amex prepaid card meets the basic requirements of a PPM.  It takes a little work to order and register your card.  After that, it takes just a little effort to fill it up regularly.  The points are earned, indirectly, through regular everyday spend. 

How long will it last?

If you read the comments of my previous posts on this subject, you’ll see a healthy debate about this.  Some argue with conviction that this deal will be dead within hours.  Others argue that it can last quite a while.  The truth is, we simply don’t know.  Earning points through credit card sign-up bonuses is currently the best PPM that exists, and while it has changed drastically over the years, it still lives on.  In this case, the deal can be shut down instantly if Office Depot stops allowing credit card purchases of reload packs.  Or, it can be shut down later by Chase if they change the bonus rules for the Ink Bold.  Feel free to make your predictions in the comments below (but please keep the debate civil!).

Judging Perfection

Let’s see how this PPM stacks up against the rules I laid out for “perfection”:

Not much effort: For people who live or work near an Office Depot that carries reload cards, this condition is met.  Simply walk in once a week, or once a month, and buy a few cards.  No problem.

Hundreds of thousands of points: Since the Amex Prepaid card is limited to $2500 per month, this PPM is capable of generating 150,000 points per year (2500 X 5 X 12).  Does that count as “hundreds of thousands”?  Close enough in my book.

It must do no harm: Uh, well…  OK, that’s where this falls down a bit.  Chase loses money on 5X transactions.  Just like big credit card sign-up bonuses, they do this in order to attract and keep customers.  So, if we abuse this perk, then yes you can argue we are harming Chase.  American Express does very well with this scheme unless people abuse the ATM option.  However, anyone who does that will get shut down by Amex, so Amex is fine.  As to Office Depot, I truly don’t know.  I’ve been told by an industry expert that they do make money with the sale of these reload packs.  So, until I learn otherwise, I’ll assume Office Depot earns a profit from these sales.

Do good in the world:  That really depends on how you use your prepaid card.  If you use it to make charitable contributions (and add a little bit to cover the charity’s credit card transaction fee), or you use it to make Kiva loans, then we’re doing good!  OK, that’s a stretch.  This was an optional requirement anyway.

Overall, I’d say this is a really good, but not perfect PPM.  What do you think?

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I was just working on yet another post about more ways to leverage the Chase Ink cards when I realized that I haven’t been giving attention to other cards.  So, before I go back to writing about the awesomeness of the Ink Bold (and the Ink Cash and Ink Classic), let’s look at a few other cards that can be leveraged for their bonus categories.

Note that this is not about cards with great sign-up bonuses, that information can be found here.  And, it’s not about cards that have great built-in perks (but that would be a good future post…).  Instead, this is a quick look at cards that are, like the Ink cards, amenable to creative spend strategies for earning extra points, cash, or perks.

You can learn more about the following cards on my Preparing for Miles page (which can be found at the top of every page on my site when viewed through a non-mobile browser).

Chase Freedom

The Freedom card has terrific rotating categories that give 5X for spend. The only down side is that you’re limited to $1500 of 5X spend each quarter.  Here are this year’s categories:

• Grocery stores: In addition to earning 5X through regular grocery store spend, earn 5X on other purchases by buying gift cards at the grocery store
• Other categories: Double dip by enrolling in other rewards programs (iDine, airline programs, etc.).  At department stores such as Best Buy and Kohl’s you should be able to buy gift cards as well.

Chase Sapphire Preferred

The Sapphire Preferred gives an annual 7% bonus on top of all Ultimate Rewards points earned that year. This is particularly lucrative when there are very large Ultimate Rewards Mall bonus opportunities. For example, it was briefly possible to double dip at Magazines.com (buy a gift card and then use the gift card) to earn 60 points per dollar. By logging into the mall each time with my Sapphire Preferred account, I earned more than 4X extra thanks to the annual dividend!

American Express Business cards

Most American Express cards come in two versions: a personal version and a small business version.  When you opt for the small business version, you usually get the exact same card benefits, but with the addition of OPEN Savings:

My favorite use of OPEN Savings is to visit my local OfficeMax and purchase at least $100 worth of gift cards with an Amex business card.  This way, I get 5% back posted to my account.  I’ve also made good use of the Barnes & Noble 5% back in the past when I was able to stack that with 10X bonus points from the Ultimate Rewards Mall (it has since dropped to 2X).

Amex Hilton HHonors and Hilton HHonors Surpass cards

Both give 6X for grocery, drug store, and other categories.  Grocery stores and drug stores tend to have great gift card selections.  6X everywhere!

Amex Blue Cash Preferred

6% cash back at grocery stores!  You know what to do!

Discover

In addition to rotating 5X categories, Discover has one of the best available cash back portals.

PerkStreet

The PerkStreet Financial Debit MasterCard gives 1% back on all purchases, 2% back at Walmart and Amazon, and 5% back in rotating categories.  The interesting thing here is that it is a debit card which sometimes has lower fees (for paying taxes, for example).

What else?

I’m sure I’m just scratching the surface here.  Do you have other favorite cards for creative spending?

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For people interested in earning miles and points, Chase credit cards are awesome.  Chase has many of the best signup bonuses available, and with their Ultimate Rewards they have the best flexible points program bar none.  Ultimate Rewards points can be freely moved from one person’s account to another, and can be freely and instantly transferred to airline miles and hotel points at any time (using either the Sapphire Preferred or the Ink Bold). 

I frequently post tips on how to earn huge numbers of Ultimate Rewards points beyond those given as credit card sign up bonuses.  Many thousands of extra points can be earned when shopping for items you intend to buy anyway, buying free after rebate items, buying and selling merchant gift cards, and even through buying and using Visa gift cards.

Overall, Chase has made free travel almost ridiculously easy.  The last thing you would ever want to do is to get cut off from this gravy train.  But it does happen….

When searching the web, you can easily find dozens of stories of people who were cut off by Chase.  The stories have a common theme:  They discovered, without warning, all of their Chase accounts closed.  In almost all of these stories, pleas to Chase were unheeded, and questions about why were unanswered. 

Why does Chase do this?  Unfortunately, I don’t have any hard and fast answers.  I’ve read through countless threads on Flyertalk, FatWallet, and elsewhere and the best I’ve been able to do is piece together a pattern…

My best guess from what I’ve read is that Chase has two primary reasons for cutting people off: 1) bad credit risk; and 2) “perk abuse” (I made up that term, but it fits).

Bad Credit Risk

There are several scary stories in which a person signing up for his sixth or seventh (or whatever) credit card from Chase suddenly had all accounts closed.  The common thread here appears to be that, right or wrong, Chase came to the conclusion that their customer was a bad credit risk.  Sometimes this happens to people with very few years of credit history and/or a pattern of very high credit utilization.  When you combine these factors with a large number of credit card applications, it makes sense for Chase to fear that the individual is desperately seeking more credit (and therefore may not be able to pay it off in the future).  What I don’t understand is why Chase’s reaction is to cut people off completely!  Why not discuss the situation with the customer and perhaps lower their credit limits?  Wouldn’t it be better business to keep customers, than to foster such ill will?

Perk Abuse

Chase has an AARP Visa card that gives 5% cash back on all purchases for the first 6 months.  There are many reports on FatWallet from people who have taken advantage of this perk to the limit: they use the card for 6 months to pay taxes, make mortgage payments, buy gift cards, fund investments, you name it.  The goal they have is to get as much money back in those 6 months as possible.  Not surprisingly, Chase doesn’t appreciate this.  5% cash back is an intentional money loser for Chase.  Just like signup bonuses, Chase is willing to lose some money in the short term in order to get valuable customers for the long term.  What they don’t want are people who abuse this perk and then ditch the card after 6 months.  So, when Chase sees people maxing out their AARP cards as described above, they cancel their accounts. 

Another example of “perk abuse” is with the Chase Freedom card.  When combined with a Chase checking account one of the perks of the Freedom is an extra 10 Ultimate Rewards points per transaction.  For example, if you buy something for 2 dollars with your Freedom card, you get the usual points you would earn anyway, plus an extra 10 points for the transaction.  For large purchases, 10 points is such a small extra perk as to be almost irrelevant.  For very small purchases, though, 10 points can be huge.  For example, if you buy an item for 50 cents, 10 points is a 20% rebate.  If you buy something for 1 cent, 10 points is a 1000% rebate!  So, not surprisingly, people found ways to make many many very small purchases.  One guy, for example, reported that he wrote a script that helped him buy and redeem 1 cent Amazon gift cards.  For every one of these transactions, he earned 10 cents from Chase!  He reportedly got away with thousands of dollars before Chase shut him down.

I hate to say this, but my Inking Money posts can be a form of perk abuse as well.  The idea I described in those posts is to maximize the Ink card’s 5X office supply category bonus by buying Visa gift cards at office supply stores.  That way, you can effectively get almost 5X for all of your credit card purchases not just those made at office supply stores.  Unlike the two exploits I described above, though, the Ink cards do have built in limits.  With the Ink Bold, you can get 5X for up to $50K in purchases per year.  With the Ink Classic and Ink Cash, the limit is $25K per year.  These limits help protect Chase from extreme abuse, but I’m sure they do not want everyone with an Ink Bold to maximize their annual 5X bonus!  I don’t think Chase has cut off anyone yet for making too many purchases at Staples, but it will happen if too many people push the game too far.

How to protect yourself

I don’t have a magic formula for what will work and what won’t.  Instead I’ve jotted down some “dos” and “don’ts” that might help.  I’ll add to these as I get feedback from readers or other sources of information.

Do:

• Pay off your credit bill in full every month.
• Monitor your credit score (here are a couple of free services that can help).
• Take steps to improve your credit score if it is low.
• Keep a low credit card utilization ratio. Ideally the total amount charged to all of your cards in a given month is about 10% (or less) of your total available credit limit (across your credit cards).
• Use tricks that maximize credit card perks in moderation.  For example, buying Visa gift cards at Staples to help meet the Ink Bold’s $5K spend requirement (for the signup bonus) should be fine if you spread out the purchases over several months.  If you suddenly start spending $10K per month at Staples, though, I expect you’ll get noticed (in a bad way).
• Maximize use of the Ultimate Rewards Mall for earning extra points.  Unlike the Ink and Freedom perks I described earlier (in which Chase loses money), Chase gets paid for points earned via the mall.  I’ll go out on a limb and say that Chase would never ban someone for too much Ultimate Rewards Mall activity.
• Spread out your purchases.  Don’t buy exclusively from one merchant (Staples, for example).  Use the card occasionally for regular expenses such as meals, grocery, etc.

Don’t

• Don’t signup for many credit cards unless you have a very good credit score.
• Don’t max out your credit cards.  See “keep a low utilization ratio” above.
• Don’t use your Ink Bold exclusively for $50K worth of office supply purchases!  Mix in other non-category purchases.
• Don’t scheme up ways to spend 1 cent at a time with your Freedom card.
• Don’t make large purchases that can look like cash advances.  For example, one guy on FatWallet claims to have found an investment broker that accepts credit card payments.  I don’t know if that’s true, but I do think that it would look suspicious to Chase.
• Don’t buy expensive refundable tickets for the purpose of increasing credit card spend and getting your money back later.

Do you have any knowledge that will help us stay on Chase’s good side?  Do you have any other “dos and don’ts” to share?  Please comment below.

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When shopping through the Ultimate Rewards Mall, do you have to use your Chase credit card?

I get this question all of the time in response to my posts.  I frequently write about ways to leverage the Ultimate Rewards Mall to meet minimum spend (on any card), and to double-dip (by buying and then using gift cards).  These schemes are dependent on the answer to the above question.

The answer is NO.

You do not have to use a Chase credit card in order to earn points in the Ultimate Rewards Mall. 

I have used American Express credit cards and gift cards many times to purchase items when going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall and I’ve always received the points I expected. In fact, I’ve earned over 100,000 points from the Ultimate Rewards mall and very few of those points came from purchases made with Chase credit cards.

One point of confusion is that the Ultimate Rewards Mall suggests that you need to use your card. When you click through to a store, the mall shows a message saying “Check out with your Chase card and your extra points will automatically appear on your statement.” Note that it does not say that you must check out with your Chase card.

Another point of confusion comes from Chase itself. When people contact Chase with issues regarding the UR Mall, it is common for the Chase reps to say that using a Chase credit card is required. Not all reps have this understanding, however. Recently, for example, one reader succeeded in getting a Chase rep to award him bonus points for a purchase that wasn’t automatically posted. He had used a gift card, not a Chase card, for that purchase.

CAUTION: The risk with using a card other than your Chase card is in trying to get help when something goes wrong. If you are not awarded points or are awarded too few points you may be out of luck when contacting Chase for help.  In other words, shop at your own risk.

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The New Ink Bold credit card from Chase is quickly becoming my favorite points earning credit card.  Yes, you read that right:  I’m beginning to favor it over the Sapphire Preferred!  The reason?  The Ink Bold gives 5 points per dollar at office supply stores.  And, as I’ve written about before, you can go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Staples and buy gift cards to effectively get 9 points per dollar for almost all of your purchases!  4 points per dollar come from the Ultimate Rewards Mall and 5 points per dollar come from the Ink Bold category bonus.

Does it really work?  Yes!

There are a few reasons why this double dip might not have worked: 1) often purchases of gift cards do not count for bonus points when shopping through an online portal; and 2) gift cards from Staples are actually shipped from GiftCardMall.com so there was some question as to whether you would even get the 5X category bonus from the Ink Bold.

Several readers have assured me that they have received the full 9 points per dollar with this trick, but I felt that I had to try it myself.  Going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Staples, I bought a Lands End gift card and a Visa gift card.  It took over a week, but the points for both purchases posted!  Unfortunately, I don’t have the new Ink Bold (I have the older one without the category bonus), but I do see that the purchases show up on my account as coming from Staples, so I feel safe in saying that this trick will work!

Buying Money for 9X

If you’re planning to shop at a merchant for which Staples.com carries gift cards, then your best bet is to buy those gift cards as described here.  For other purchases, you still have a great option: buy $100 Visa gift cards for $105.95.  By using your Ink Bold through the Ultimate Rewards Mall, you will earn 106 X 9 = 954 points for this purchase.  You can then spend the Visa at any place for which the Ink Bold does not have a category bonus (grocery stores, for example).  For every $100 spent this way, you will earn 854 points more than you would have earned had you simply used your credit card directly.  At the Fair Trading Price of 1.31 cents each, those 854 extra points are worth $11.18: almost twice the fee of the gift card!  Even if you exchanged 600 of the points for cash to pay yourself back for the gift card fee, you would end up with 254 extra points (2.5X bonus in addition to the 1X non-category points).

Both are better

Don’t get me wrong, I still love the Sapphire Preferred!  The best combination, without a doubt, is to get both cards.  With both cards, the trick is to log into the Ultimate Rewards Mall with your Sapphire account, click through to Staples, and then pay with your Ink Bold.  With this combination, the 4 bonus points from the mall will post to your Sapphire account and you will earn a 7% annual bonus on top of those points.  In other words, you will earn 9.28 points per dollar for all Staples.com purchases!

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Buy Hyatt points for 1.59 cents each and get top tier Diamond status in return!

Hyatt’s Q1 Promo and Diamond Challenge

You’ve probably already heard about the upcoming Hyatt promotion in which you can earn up to 55,000 bonus points for staying 16 nights at Hyatt properties between Feb 1 and April 30 2012.  In order to get the full number of points, you need to have the Chase Visa credit card.  I won’t go into the full details, but you can read more about it here and here.  On its own, I don’t find this promo that exciting because I don’t expect to be able to stay at a Hyatt for that many nights.  However, when combined with a Diamond Challenge, it suddenly becomes interesting!

I’ve been eyeing Hyatt’s Diamond status ever since I learned about its incredible benefits: four confirmed suite upgrades per year, free breakfast or club lounge access, late checkouts, and more.  I even contacted Hyatt to see about getting a Diamond Challenge in order to fast track to Diamond.  I received the following response:

Regarding your inquiry, currently a Diamond Trial Offer is available. You will receive trial Diamond membership for 60 days with proof of top tier status with one of our competitors program.  However, you must complete 12 nights in 60 days to maintain Diamond tier through February of 2013.  You will also receive 1000 bonus points on your first six eligible nights within 60 days, up to a maximum of 6000 bonus points.

I haven’t acted on this information yet, though, because I haven’t seen a time in the near future in which I could meet the terms of the challenge.  I don’t want to take the challenge if I can’t meet it!  I could, of course, “mattress run” by booking Hyatt rooms for no reason other than to meet this challenge, but that seems like much too big of an expense in exchange for status that I may or may not make much use of.

Analysis

The latest promotion makes me wonder if a mattress run makes sense after all.  What if I sign up for the Diamond challenge (to get instant Diamond status), then sign up for the Hyatt Visa credit card, and then use the credit card to pay for 16 nights at a local Hyatt?  Is it worth it?   I found a (somewhat) local Hyatt that I can get for $65 per night ($71 after taxes).  What if I book this hotel for 16 nights?  Let’s run the numbers:

• Cost = 16 X $71 = $1,136
• Hyatt Promo points earned = 55,000
• Diamond Challenge bonus points = 6,000
• Base points earned + 30% for Diamond Elites = 16 X $65 X 5 X 1.3 = 6,760
• Credit card points (3X) = 16 X $71 X 3 = 3,408
• Welcome point bonus = 500 (If I made 16 separate bookings I would get 500 X 16 = 8000 points, but I’m not going to do that)
• Total Points earned = 71,668
• Cost per point = $1,136 / 71,668 = 1.59 cents

Compared to the Fair Trading Price of 1.31 cents, paying 1.59 cents per point is a bit high, but it’s not outrageous since Hyatt points can be easily redeemed for much more than that.  Top tier Hyatt hotel rooms can be reserved for only 22,000 points per night so a room that would normally cost, say $600, would give your points a value of 2.7 cents each. 

Other benefits to this scheme come from the credit card itself.  Diamond members who sign up for the card receive two free nights in a suite at any Hyatt hotel!  So, when all is said and done, if I did this, I would end up with enough points for three nights at any Hyatt in the world and two nights in suites and four confirmed suite upgrades for paid stays and free breakfasts, etc.

I don’t know if I’ll really do this, but it is very tempting!  The main argument against it is that I’ve been applying for a lot of Chase credit cards lately and I was planning to take a break for a while.  Plus, I don’t yet have the new Ink Bold or the Freedom, both of which are extremely useful for gift card churning.  Hmmm. 

How about you: are you thinking of doing this?  Or, do you have a better scheme?  Let me know!

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As you probably know, the new Chase Ink Bold business credit card is a great option for credit card churning.  It offers 50,000 valuable Ultimate Rewards points after spending $5000 in three months with no annual fee the first year (For more info, please see Preparing for Miles).  Beyond simply credit card churning, though, the Ink Bold is a great option for gift card churning:

Gift Card Churning

The Ink Bold will give you 5 points for every dollar spent on office supply stores, cable and wireless service, and landline communications.  The office supply store category is especially interesting because you can use your Ink Bold at office supply stores in order to buy gift cards for other types of stores and restaurants.  In that way, you can effectively get 5 points per dollar for virtually all of your purchases!

Double Dip

If you have the Ink Bold then you also have access to the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  Here you can get extra points for clicking through the mall to online retailers.  You can easily double dip with the Ink Bold by clicking through to office supply stores such as Office Depot, OfficeMax, and Staples.  In this way, you will earn 5 points per dollar from the Ink Bold for office supply purchases, and another 3 to 5 points per dollar from the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  Until the end of January, Staples is offering 5 points per dollar through the Ultimate Rewards Mall, so you can get a total of 10 points per dollar for all Staples purchases!

Staples.com

Staples.com is one of the few online merchants I know about that sells gift cards from other merchants.  Many stores have gift card racks in their brick and mortar stores, but not online.  The interesting thing is that not only does Staples sell these cards online, but several readers have reported that they have received Ultimate Rewards Mall points from buying gift cards at Staples.com.  This means that, by buying gift cards at Staples through the Ultimate Rewards Mall using your Chase Ink Bold credit card, you will earn 10 points per dollar for all purchases using those gift cards!  For your convenience, here is the list of cards currently available online:

Ironically, one gift card to be wary of is the Staples gift card itself.  It can only be used in-store and not online.  So, if you buy these, make sure you plan to make purchases in person!

NOTE: I haven’t yet confirmed this double dip on my own, but since Staples is likely to reduce their Ultimate Rewards bonus starting February 1st, I thought it was important to get this information out right away.  I have heard from more than one reader that it works.

Triple Dip

In a future post I’ll show how to take this trick a step further to triple dip for as much as 20 points per dollar!

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The Ultimate Rewards Mall continues to shine with outstanding bonus point offers. 

Reader Jennifer W tipped me off that Groupon has quietly increased their points-back in the Ultimate Rewards Mall from 12 points to 15.  With the fair trading price of Ultimate Rewards points at 1.31 cents each, this amounts to nearly a 20% rebate on already heavily discounted Groupons.  Not bad!  I find myself checking the Groupon Getaways fairly often, just in case…

Below is the current list of online stores that give 10 points or more through the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  For Macy’s shoppers, note that Macy’s is at 10X this month!

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