UPDATE: Code BLOSSOM15 is no longer working.  Kohl’s charge card holders can still get 30% off with code SAVE30, but it is no longer possible to get 40.5% off in total.

Until May 22, Kohl’s has two stackable coupons that total to 40.5% off everything (except gift cards) at Kohl’s.  There is both a 30% off coupon (SAVE30) and a 15% off coupon (BLOSSOM15).  The trick is that you do need to have a Kohl’s charge card to qualify for the 30% off coupon.  When you apply both coupons, you’ll get a combined discount of 40.5% off.  The great thing is that this discount is applied to sales & clearance prices as well!  If you spend more than $75 (after discounts), you’ll also qualify for free shipping.

The picture above shows an example of stacking both coupons with a product that is on sale.  The purchase comes with free shipping because the total order (before taxes) is greater than $75.  This is just and example and is not meant to be a recommendation to buy the product shown. 

Kohl’s Cash

In addition to this 40.5% discount, you will qualify for $10 of Kohl’s cash for every $50 spent (after discounts, but before shipping and sales tax).  That sounds like an additional 20% rebate if you buy in multiples of $50, but its not really.  When you pay with Kohl’s cash, the portion of your order paid that way does not qualify for discounts and does not count towards totals needed for free shipping.  Regardless, Kohl’s Cash can be used to buy stuff, so it’s a nice extra perk!  Plus, Kohl’s Cash is deducted before sales tax is calculated, so you do get a small discount by not having to pay tax on that portion of your purchase.

Shopping Portals

When shopping online, it’s always a good idea to start with a portal that offers points or cash back for your purchases.  I’ve always had great luck with Chase’s Ultimate Rewards Mall, and they offer an amazing 10 points per dollar for Kohl’s purchases!  In my experience, the points are earned regardless of what coupons have been applied.

Gift Cards

You can save even more (or earn more points) by buying Kohl’s gift cards before making your purchases.  If you want to get the gift cards quickly, the simplest approach is to go to a store where your credit card earns bonus points and buy Kohl’s gift cards there.  One great example is to use a Chase Ink card at an office supply store to get 5 points per dollar.  Another similar option is to double dip at Staples.com.  Start at a cash back portal such as uPromise and click through to Staples.com.  Buy Kohl’s e-gift cards and pay with a Chase Ink card (5X).  The e-gift cards should arrive overnight or early the next day.  Note that Kohl’s only allows up to 4 gift cards to be used per order.  Finally, if you’d rather save money than earn points, consider gift card resellers.  Search GiftCardGranny.com for deals on Kohl’s gift cards.  If you’re in a hurry, opt for electronic gift cards rather than paper ones.

Happy shopping!

Thanks goes to this SlickDeals thread for finding this deal!

This week, the Aadvantage eShopping portal is running a few exciting bonus offers.  To take advantage of these offers, simply browse to the Aadvantage eShopping portal and then click through to the merchant where you want to shop.  Purchases will earn American Airlines miles in addition to any miles you earn automatically from your credit card. 

Let’s take a look at each of these offers…

eBags 16X

16 miles per dollar is an excellent return.  The next best option for eBags is 8X at the Ultimate Rewards Mall or 10% back via BankOfAmerica.  Previous reader experiments have shown that double dipping (buying and then using eBags gift cards to get double points) does not work with eBags.

Kohl’s 2X

2 miles per dollar is an awful return for Kohl’s.  Go to the Ultimate Rewards Mall instead in order to earn 10 points per dollar.

Sears 8X

8 miles per dollar at Sears is excellent.  Sure, it used to be common to see Sears offer 10X at various portals, but in recent months they’ve topped out at 5X or 6X.  If you prefer cash, another great option is 10% cash back via ShopDiscover.  With the latter, you do need to own a Discover card to get access to the portal, but past experiments have shown that you will get cash back even if you pay with a different card.

With Sears, you won’t get points for buying e-gift cards, but many recent experiments and experiences have shown that points are awarded for buying physical gift cards.  Points have also been awarded when using gift cards.  So, if you hurry, it’s possible to get 16X at Sears by buying and then using gift cards through the AA portal (or get 20% back via ShopDiscover).  Disclaimer: the ability to get points when buying or using gift cards may be taken away at any time, so shop at your own risk!

Another angle worth pursuing is to buy Sears gift cards and then use them to buy $100 Visa or MasterCard gift cards at Sears if you can find the the mysterious gift card rack.  Now that many gift cards have become very easy to liquidate (see “Gift card PINs“), this could be a great option for some.  Note, though, that I haven’t yet verified that Sears’ Visa/MasterCard gift cards work in this way.

You can take the above Sears’ opportunities even further by starting with a Home Improvement gift card (for details, see “The Home Improvement gift card“).

Restaurant.com 10X

Personally, I wouldn’t bother with this offer.  TopCashBack offers 35% cash back for Restaurant.com and the Ultimate Rewards Mall offers 15X.

H&R Block 9X

Seems a bit late for this to me, but you can do better anyway.  ShopDiscover offers 20% back.  The Ultimate Rewards Mall offers 10X.

HP 6X

This is a pretty good return for HP.  You can also go to uPromise for 7% cash back.  The best way to double dip here is to pay with an American Express business card that offers OPEN Savings.  With HP, Amex will credit your account with 5% back if you spend between $200 and $1000 in a calendar year at HP; or 10% back if you spend more (up to $50K in spend).

Lowe’s 6X

This is only marginally better than some other offers (Ultimate Rewards Mall 5X; ShopDiscover 5%; uPromise 5%), but its still nice to see!  For ideas on how to maximize this offer, see “Maximizing Home Improvement Spend”

and “Million Mile Madness: Banking on Lowe’s“.

860,000 points earned. 140,000 left to go.

Background: Million Mile Madness is the fun painful and foolish quest to earn a million points in one month. Throughout March, I’m doing everything I can to earn as many points as I can while keeping within my ethical boundaries. I don’t expect that a million points will have been credited to my account by March 31st: points often take quite a while to get credited. Instead, I’ll track all of the points that I expect, and I’ll declare victory if the expected total is over a million. To keep things challenging, I will try to keep my net costs below $1,000.

All points earned and expenses incurred are tracked via this Google Docs spreadsheet.  See all Million Mile Madness posts (in reverse order), by clicking here.

Overview

Last week I reported that my crazy quest for a million miles in one month was going well (see “Million Mile Madness: Pending Success“).  Then, towards the end of last week I suffered some setbacks.  Here’s the story…

Kohl’s

Kohl’s seems to want me to succeed.  They were nice enough to have a second in one month 30% off sale for Kohl’s charge card holders (use code JELLYBEAN)!  The sale started last Thursday and continues until the 30th.  So, on Thursday, I jumped online and spent the day buying stuff in sub $400 increments.  Kohl’s limits customers to 4 gift cards per order so I couldn’t spend more than $400 at a time with my many $100 Kohl’s gift cards (see “Million Mile Madness: buying, selling Kohl’s“).  After each purchase, I chucked the empty gift cards into my recycle bin.

All was going well until I started receiving emails from Kohl’s saying “We’re sorry, but your order could not be processed.”  Over $1000 worth of orders had been canceled.  One of the items I had purchased (many times) had a 3 per person limit.  Oops.  Then the real fun began.  First I had to find my discarded gift cards.  After a frantic search I found them all.  Then I discovered that only a few had their balance re-credited.  After many emails, phone calls, and enjoyable hold music I learned that they were going to mail new gift cards to me for the remaining amounts.  I can only hope that they get the amounts correct.  I have no idea if I’ll get them in time to use with the current sale, or to help with Million Mile Madness.

Lowe’s

In the post “Million Mile Madness: Banking on Lowe’s” I reported how I had been successfully buying Lowe’s gift cards and paying with Home Improvement gift cards.  In that post, I said that I had bought $3500 worth of gift cards so far, but that I still wanted another $1500 worth.  The same day in which that post was published, I drove to a couple of Office Depot stores and found one with Home Improvement cards in stock.  I decided to go big and bought out all $3500 worth.

When I returned home, I used three of those cards to buy $1500 worth of Lowe’s gift cards online.  Everything appeared to work well.

A few days later, I tried to buy more Lowe’s gift cards online.  I went all the way through the checkout process to the very end before receiving error code 237 and a message saying to call.  I called and was told that it was a computer glitch and that I should try again the next day.

The next day, and the day after that, I received the same error.  A reader reported the same thing, but said that they were getting the error for all purchases (not just gift cards and not just when paying with a Home Improvement card).  So, several days later, I tried buying a small item and paying with a regular credit card.  The same error message came up.

I called again, and was again told that it was a computer error and that they would have it fixed by the next day.  They confirmed with me that they had no problem with my paying for gift cards with the Home Improvement cards.  Then they asked if there was anything else they could help me with.  Yes…  I told them that I had ordered three gift cards over a week ago, but hadn’t received them yet.  Could they check the status?  After checking into it, they reported to me that the orders had been canceled due to the same computer error.  OK, I said, here’s the problem: the Home Improvement cards I paid with have long since been recycled.  Uh oh.  The Lowe’s purchase receipts showed only the last 4 digits of the card numbers.  They said that there was nothing they could do, but they assured me that the Home Improvement card’s customer support team would be able to help…

Home Improvement Card

After failing to find $1500 worth of Home Improvement cards (see above), I searched for and failed to find my purchase receipt for those cards.  I then called the number that the Home Improvement Card’s website says to call when you have lost your card.  Ironically, the only way to get past the automated prompts is to enter a valid card number.  Luckily, I still had other cards around to use for that purpose.  I finally got a person on the phone who told me that my only hope was to go back to the store where I made my purchase and get a copy of the receipt there. 

I won’t bore you (any more than I already have) with the Office Depot story, but it ended well.  An incredibly nice store manager eventually tracked down the receipt and emailed it to me.  The receipt contained tracking information, but not enough information for me to figure out which of the seven purchased cards were the 3 missing ones.  I called the Home Improvement people again and was told to email or fax not just the receipt, but also photos (front and back) of the cards that were not missing so that they could figure out which ones were the missing ones.  So I did.

Now I wait.  I discovered that they have put all of my Home Improvement cards “on hold” until this is worked out.  Super. 

Small Successes

Prior to my Home Improvement cards being put on hold, I successfully ordered a $100 Lowes gift card (proof that they did fix the problem this time!).  I also successfully ordered a $400 Sears gift card (physical) at 6X via the United MileagePlus Shopping portal (past experiments have shown that I should get points for buying physical gift cards, but not e-gift cards from Sears).  I also successfully placed some orders at Kohls.com using my remaining gift cards.

Going Forward

While I wait for my Kohl’s and Home Improvement gift card fiascos to resolve themselves, I’ll work on meeting my Million Mile Madness target without those resources.  I’m close enough that I’m sure I can do it, but its going to be a bit harder than expected.  And, most likely, I’ll have to continue buying and selling in April in order to liquidate the gift cards once I get them.  Going forward, I’ll file all used gift cards away rather than tossing them out.

I often write about tricks for earning points and cash back through gift card churning techniques.  But, just because I write about a technique does not mean that I recommend it.  Let’s face it: gift cards are a pain to deal with.  There are very few gift card churning techniques that I’d be likely to do myself if I wasn’t a blogger who writes about this stuff!  So, read about my adventures and learn from them (both the good and the bad), but only do what you are comfortable with. 

Learn about Million Mile Madness:

• A crazy million mile idea. Should I do it?
• Million Mile Madness, it’s on
• Million Mile Madness: Strategy
• Million Mile Madness: Preparing to buy & sell
• Million Mile Madness: Tracking points and expenses
• Million Mile Madness: The big churn story
• Million Mile Madness: buying, selling Kohl’s
• Million Mile Madness: Banking on Lowe’s
• Million Mile Madness: A setback from Sears
• Million Mile Madness: Pending Success

For my wife’s last round of credit card sign-ups, I picked up a Kohl’s charge card in her name (see “My wife’s 305K churn“).  The reason for getting the card was simply to get access to the 30% off coupon codes that Kohl’s frequently offers only to charge card account holders.  And now, a 30% off code is available: Until Feb 20th, charge card holders can use the code CUPID30 for 30% off their entire order.  Here’s how to take maximum advantage of this discount…

Step 1: Buy Kohl’s gift cards

There are many ways to get extra points or cash back when buying Kohl’s gift cards.  Here are a few of the best options:

Credit Card Category Bonus

This is not the most lucrative of all options, but it’s probably the easiest.  Many stores, such as office supply stores, drug stores, grocery stores, etc. sell Kohl’s gift cards.  Use a card that offers extra points or cash back at such stores to buy Kohl’s gift cards (see “Best Category Bonuses“).  If you buy the gift cards at a grocery store, you may qualify for extra fuel points as well (see “What is a fuel point worth?“). 

A simple example is to use a Chase Ink card at Staples to buy the gift card.  Since the Chase Ink card offers 5 points per dollar at office supply stores, you will benefit immediately by buying Kohl’s gift cards there.

OfficeMax.com & Amex business cards

American Express business cards are automatically part of Amex’s OPEN Savings program.  One of the current offers in this program is that if you use your Amex business card online at OfficeMax.com you’ll automatically get 5% back for orders $250 and lower or 10% back for orders above $250.  OfficeMax.com now sells third party gift cards including Kohl’s gift cards, but with a 99 cent fee for each one.  The best deal here is to buy at least 3 $100 Kohl’s gift cards using an American Express business card.  That will cost you $302.97, but you’ll automatically get back $30.30.  So, your total cost will be $272.67 which is a 9.11% discount.

GiftCardGranny

GiftCardGranny.com is a site that aggregates data from a number of gift card resellers.  At the time of this writing, GiftCardGranny shows a number of resellers offering Kohl’s gift cards for 12% off.  Many of these are small denomination cards though.  It’s important to note that Kohl’s will only allow you to apply up to 4 gift cards to a single order.

You can sometimes bump up this discount a bit more by starting in a cash back portal.  For example, if GiftCardGranny identifies PlasticJungle as having the best price for Kohl’s gift cards, then you can go to TopCashBack and click through to PlasticJungle in order to get 2.5% back from the gift card purchase price which is, itself, sold at a discount.

Staples

Staples.com offers $50 and $100 Kohl’s gift cards via email with no extra fee.  I’ve had success buying these by going through TopCashBack to Staples for 5.5% cash back and then paying with my Chase Ink card to get 5 points per dollar.  Gift cards are usually delivered by email the next day after ordering.

Ultimate Rewards Mall

The Ultimate Rewards Mall usually offers 10 points per dollar for purchases made at Kohl’s.  The Terms and Conditions exclude gift card purchases, but some people have had luck getting points when buying gift cards anyway.  Different readers have had different results with this.  I’ve launched an experiment in which I bought a Kohl’s e-gift card and a Kohl’s physical gift card in separate transactions to see if either results in points from the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  I’ll report back once those results are in.

Bottom Line

If you you have a Chase Ink card, and you’re wiling to risk using TopCashBack (lots of people have reported frustration working with them), then I think 5.5% back plus 5X points is a great deal, especially since you can get the gift card by the next day via email.  Otherwise, look to GiftCardGranny for about 12% off the purchase price.

Step 2: Click through the Ultimate Rewards Mall

The Ultimate Rewards Mall currently offers 10 bonus points per dollar when shopping at Kohl’s.  You need a Chase credit card that earns Ultimate Rewards points to access this site (Chase Sapphire, Freedom, and Ink cards all qualify). 

• Go to ultimaterewards.com/mall and log in with your Chase account.  If you have a Sapphire Preferred card, log into that account since points earned will qualify for the annual 7% dividend bonus.
• Find Kohl’s and click through to shop.

The terms & conditions say “Not eligible on Kohl’s credit card sales made with coupon codes that are higher than 15%.”  However, many past experiments have shown that points are awarded even when using 20% and 30% off codes.  Of course, this could change at any time, so there’s always a risk of not earning points. 

Step 3: Buy stuff

Load up your cart with whatever you want to buy.  You can get free shipping by spending $75 or more, after discounts.  So, if you plan to use the 30% off coupon, you’ll have to load the cart with $107.15 or more worth of stuff in order to qualify for free shipping.

• When you go to checkout, you need to first put in your Kohl’s charge card as the credit card for payment even though you don’t plan to use it.
• Next, put in the coupon code (currently, CUPID30) for 30% off.
• Then, enter up to four gift card codes and PINs to pay for the total.

Kohl’s Cash

Kohl’s is currently offering $10 in Kohl’s Cash for every $50 spent.  This is a nice bonus, but you shouldn’t think of it as being worth $10.  Kohl’s cash is only valid for about two weeks.  Plus, it is always applied before discounts.  So, you cannot get 30% off the portion of your purchase paid for with Kohl’s cash.  Further, using Kohl’s cash can reduce the total to below the free shipping mark which would further reduce your savings.  People have also reported various issues with dealing with returns of items purchased with Kohl’s cash.  Overall, I think its best to think of Kohl’s cash as a nice bonus, but don’t factor it in to your overall savings.

Add it Up

Let’s assume that you successfully buy Kohl’s gift cards for 12% off, and that you successfully earn 10 points per dollar through the Ultimate Rewards Mall, and that you get 30% off your entire order.  The gift card discount comes after the 30% off discount so they combine to equal 38.4% off.  The 10X points from the Ultimate Rewards Mall are also based on the amount paid after the 30% discount, so if we treat Ultimate Rewards points as being worth just a penny each, this is like a 7% rebate.  So, in all, you can get 45.4% off everything at Kohl’s!  Personally, I value Ultimate Rewards points much higher than 1 cent each, though, so this deal is even better!

Every 3 months, the Chase Freedom card offers 5X on spend within different categories of merchants.  This quarter (October through December), the 5X categories are hotels, airlines, Best Buy and Kohl’s. 

Here are some terrific ways to spend within those 5X categories:

Buy miles for .8 cents (Wyndham)

Loyalty Traveler summarizes the current bonus opportunities from Wyndham.  The gist is that its possible to book cheap hotel rooms (without showing up to check-in) and earn bonus points, then transfer the points to airline miles.  I really enjoyed this part of Loyalty Traveler’s post:

I found it interesting that Deals We Like linked to View from the Wing today who linked to Deals We Like  August post where she linked Travel by Points and Hack My Trip who linked Travel by Points who in his August post linked Loyalty Traveler for a blog post about the 16,000 points Wyndham Rewards promotion. It is like a genealogy chart of credits.

Maybe now I get get into his next genealogy chart?

Regarding the Freedom card:  Use it to pay for these stays. This way you’ll earn 5 points per dollar while buying miles (or hotel points) very cheaply!  Also, go through BigCrumbs to Wyndham to book your stay for a (possible) additional 2.1% cash back.

UPDATE: According to a post on FlyerTalk, Wyndham may not honor this deal after all.  For details, please see this post from View from the Wing.

Marriott & Southwest

Marriott has a terrific ongoing promotion in which you can earn 12 Southwest points per dollar when buying Marriott gift cards.  Go to www.marriottvacationcardoffer.com/southwest to purchase up to $1000 worth of Marriott gift cards.  If you use those Southwest points for “Wanna Get Away?” fares, then each point is worth 1.67 cents.  In other words, this is like a 20% rebate on Marriott gift cards.  Alternatively, you can trade in those points to get more Marriot gift cards (at a value of 1 cent per point).

Use your Freedom card to buy the Marriott gift cards and you’ll earn 5X on the purchase this quarter!  Thanks goes to Greek2Me who has confirmed that this purchase shows up on the Freedom statement as a hotel 5X purchase.

You can take this further by using your Marriott gift cards to qualify for Marriott’s Megabonus promotion.  Go to Marriott.com to sign up.  Different people are offered different promotions, but most people are offered a free category 1 to 4 night after every two Marriott stays.  You can take it even further by doing a Marriott Platinum Challenge at the same time!  See “Pursuing Platinum @ Marriott” for details.

Radisson Buy One Get One

Radisson has been running yet another great promotion (not as good as their incredible point-earning promotions, but still…) where one stay at any Radisson hotel will result in a voucher for a free night at any Radisson in the US, Canada, or Caribbean.  Unlike the Wyndham promotion, you do need to show up and check in.  Read “Hotel Promo Worthy of a Mattress Run: Radisson Buy One Night, Get One Night” for details.  Pay with your Freedom card for 5X!

Kohl’s 25X triple dip

While this has worked for me in the past, there is no guarantee that this will work every time, but it’s worth a shot.  Here’s how to get 25 points per dollar at Kohl’s:

1. Go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Kohl’s.  Kohl’s currently offers 10 bonus points per dollar through the mall.  Buy Kohl’s gift cards for yourself.  Pay for the gift cards with your Freedom card.
2. Go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall again to Kohl’s to buy merchandise.  Use the Kohl’s gift card to pay.

If points post for all of the above, you should get 25 points per dollar!  To save even more (potentially, a lot more), check out the tips in this old (but still relevant) post: “Fantastic points and savings at Kohl’s.”

UPDATE: A reader has reported that the double-dip did not work.  They got points for using a Kohl’s gift card, but not for buying one.  You can still get 15X simply by going through the UR mall to Kohl’s to buy items and pay with your Freedom card (10X from the Ultimate Rewards Mall + 5X from the Freedom card this quarter)

Best Buy / Kohl’s gift cards

Both Best Buy and Kohl’s sell gift cards to other merchants (in-store only).  Merchant gift cards come with no taxes or fees, so using your Freedom card to buy gift cards to restaurants, department stores, etc. is a great way to max out your $1500 quarterly 5X spend.  At Best Buy, you can get Amazon Kindle gift cards which can be used for all Amazon purchases (but not for the Amazon Payments service).  Best Buy also sells Visa gift cards, but they charge $5.95 for $200 cards.  This amounts to a 3% fee.  If you don’t think you can otherwise max out your Freedom 5X category, this can be worthwhile (since 5X is worth more than 3%), but I wouldn’t recommend it otherwise.  (Hat Tip to GrahamCC)

Notes

In order to receive 5X for Freedom purchases, you do need to activate the 5X bonus before the end of the quarter. And, don’t forget that the 5X bonus is limited to $1500 of spend per quarter.

JCP returns to 10X for Ink and Freedom cardholders. Freedom cardholders can get 15X at Kohl’s. 

Every month, the Ultimate Rewards Mall has new month-long specials. Last month, I wrote about the September specials in the post “Ultimate Rewards Mall September Edition.” Today, I’ll show you how things look for October.

As always, thanks goes to HikerT for updating his website that shows the Ultimate Rewards Mall payouts for different Chase cards. You can find his website here: lakebagger.com/ur/.

First the bad news

Here are some of the goodies from last month that went away:

• Sears dropped from 10X (Freedom) to 5X for all cardholders
• Sony dropped from 10X to 2X
• Buy.com dropped from 10X (Ink) to 5X (Sapphire) 
• Bloomingdale’s dropped from 10X to 6X
• Home Depot dropped from 5X to 3X
• Tiger Direct dropped from 5X to 2X

October Goodies

Now on to the good stuff.  Sadly, I’m not seeing any killer deals like we’ve seen the past couple of months, but there are a few decent ones:

JCPenney 10X (Ink & Freedom 10X. Sapphire 4X)
JC Penney gift cards often sell for 25% off or more through resellers (search giftcardgranny.com).  A nice double-dip is to buy gift cards at a large discount and then go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to JC Penney to use them.  Several readers have reported success with this in the past.

Kohl’s 10X (Ink & Freedom 10X, Sapphire 2X)
Yes, Kohl’s has repeated 10X every month for over a year, but it is more interesting how.  This quarter, Freedom cardholders get 5X for shopping at Kohl’s (up to $1500 spend in bonus categories), and so will get 15X by shopping through the Ultimate Rewards Mall and paying with the Freedom card!  Checkout this old post of mine to see how to stack multiple discounts and rebates at Kohl’s: Fantastic points and savings at Kohl’s.

Shari’s Berries 15X
15X is a very nice return, but note that shipping and delivery charges are usually not included in the amount that is given 15 points per dollar.  Since shops like these tend to have very high delivery charges, your actual return will be lower than 15X.

Sephora 10X (Sapphire 10X, Ink & Freedom 5X)
Note that in May we saw Sephora at 20X so this isn’t very big in comparison.  Readers have tried to double-dip in the past (buy gift cards through the Ultimate Rewards Mall and then use the gift cards to buy merchandise to get double points).  Two readers reported success, but one reader reported not getting points for the gift card purchase.

Paul Frederick 12X
Men’s clothing.

UGG Australia 10X
Ugh.

Saks.com 7X
Saks was 10X in June.

Brookstone 9X
Maybe you can use those Brookstone Groupons you bought recently and double dip?

Prediction Results

Over the weekend I made 10 Ultimate Rewards Mall predictions.  Let’s see how well I did:

1. InterContinental Hotels Group (Holiday Inn, etc.) will increase from 4X to 10X.  Wrong.  IHG stayed at 4X.
2. JCPenney will increase from 6X to 10X.  Correct!
3. Buy.com will repeat at 10X. Wrong.  Buy.com dropped to 5X.
4. Sears will take a break from 10X and stick to 4X or 5X.  Correct!
5. Kmart, which dropped from 4X to 2X sometime during the month will pop back up to 4X. Half right. Kmart increased from 2X to 3X.
6. Macy’s will drop from 5X to 3X.  Wrong. Macy’s stayed at 5X.
7. L.L. Bean will drop from 5X to 2X. Half right. L.L. Bean dropped from 5X to 3X.
8. Best Buy will try to grab some iPhone 5 orders by jumping from 1X to 2X or 3X.  Wrong. BestBuy stayed at 1X.
9. OfficeMax, OfficeDepot, Staples: 2 out of 3 will go to 5X (currently they are 5X, 3X, and 4X).  Wrong. Only OfficeDepot went to 5X.  Staples dropped to 2X.  OfficeMax dropped to 3X.
10. Groupon will increase from 5X to 12X.  Wrong. Groupon stayed at 5X (Sapphire).

Total score: 30% correct.  That should teach you better than to believe any of my predictions in the future!

April 1st kicks off with a cruel joke from Chase.  Many of the big bonus point offers in the Ultimate Rewards Mall have dropped precipitously.  Below are some of my findings this morning when logged in with my old Ink Bold and my Sapphire Preferred (note that you may see different results with a Chase Freedom).

First, the good news:

• Office Depot: 10X Ink Bold; only 4X Sapphire Preferred
• Kohl’s: Still at 10X for both cards
• Nordstrom: 10X Sapphire Preferred (only for 3 days)
• Drugstore.com: 10X Sapphire Preferred; only 5X with Ink Bold

The exciting news here is the Office Depot 10X opportunity.  Since the New Ink Bold offers 5X automatically when used in office supply stores, you will get a total of 15X when making Office Depot purchases with your Ink card through the UR mall!  Last I checked, though, there were no merchant or bank gift cards available online (also the T&C says “not eligible on purchases of gift cards”).  If they begin to offer free after rebate products, though, this could be a big win.  It might even be worth filling out rebate cards for 15X!

And now the bad news (very bad):

• Staples: down to 2X (from 4X).  Noooooooo!!!!!  The perfect PPM may still be perfect, but for fewer points.  And for those of you who have been buying gift cards with your Ink card for a total of 9X, the total is now down to 7X.  Nooooooo!!!!
• Barnes & Noble: down to 2X (from 10X).  No longer can you buy ultimate rewards points for less than a penny.  Nooooooo!!!!
• Home Depot: down to 4X (from 10X).
• Magazines.com: down to 25X (from 40X).
• Sears: down to 4X (from 5X on the Ink).
• Lands End: down to 2X (from 5 or 6X)

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I called the Chase Sapphire customer service desk twice this week.  The first call was a disaster.  The second was awesome.  Read on.

Background:

Recently I posted how to get huge savings at Kohl’s by buying discount gift cards, going through Ultimate Rewards Mall, and applying a 20% off coupon.  There was some speculation in the comments of that post that you won’t get Ultimate Rewards points unless you pay at least part of the transaction with your Chase card.  So, I made 4 Kohl’s purchases in March.  Two were exclusively paid for with gift cards and two were paid partially with my Chase Sapphire card.  3 out of 4 purchases posted to my UR account correctly, but the one that didn’t post was one in which I had used my Sapphire Preferred.  So I called Chase to inquire about the missing transaction.  The transaction was for about $150, but only 80 cents was on my credit card.

Call 1:

After I explained the situation 3 or 4 times, the Chase rep told me that there was nothing she could do.  I pointed out that she could see that I made a transaction, but she told me that I must not have gone through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to make that purchase.  I told her that I use the mall frequently and I was 100% sure I had done everything correctly.  She replied that she had never seen the mall lose a transaction.  What?!!  Now paraphrasing:

Me: Could you give me a courtesy adjustment?

Rep: No, there is no way I can do that.

Me: Can I talk to your manager?

Rep: He can’t help you either.

Me: Really, let me talk to your manager.

Rep: Sir, he can’t help you, I can do more than he can.  He just manages people.  I work with your account.

Me: Really, you won’t let me speak to your manager?

Rep: He can’t help you sir.

Argggg!!!!  I hung up.

Call 2:

Paraphrasing:

Rep: Oh, wow, you’ve earned a lot of points

Me: Yep, I love the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  This is the first time I haven’t received points when buying something.

Rep: This is strange.  I see more Kohl’s transactions from the mall than I see on your credit card.

Me: Yep, the mall gives points even when you pay with gift cards.  So some of those transactions were paid entirely with gift cards and don’t show up on my credit card

Rep: Wow, I didn’t know that, that’s great!  I like to shop at Kohl’s too!  Hey did you know that you can get a 10% off coupon at Kohl’s and get points too?  I discovered that recently and I like to tell everyone.

Me: You can do even better!  I’ve blogged about this.  Go to cardpool.com to buy Kohl’s gift cards for 15% off, then google for a 20% off Kohls coupon AND go through the UR mall.

Rep: But then you won’t get points for the part of the order you made with gift cards.

Me: No, actually you do.  That’s what’s going on with all of the transactions that did post to my account.

Rep: Wow, that’s great!  Cardpool.com?  I’m writing that down.  How much was the total for the missing transaction?

Me: $148.29, but we should subtract taxes…

Rep: No, that’s fine.  I’ll credit your account for $150 X 10.  1500 points.

Me: That’s great!  Thanks!

I know some readers have struggled with points not showing up when they should.  My only advice: keep calling until you get rep #2

Kohl’s doesn’t always have the best prices, but if you stack readily available discounts, it’s hard to beat.  Here’s how to save 32% and get 10 points per dollar on everything at Kohl’s (even clearance items):

Step 1: Estimate your total cost

Find what you want to buy at Kohl’s and note the total price.  This technique will work even for clearance items so look for big markdowns!  When you’re ready, make sure your shopping cart is empty because, later, you’ll want to add the items after going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall.

Step 2: Calculate 20% off from coupon

In a later step, you’ll apply a 20% off coupon to your order.  For now, simply calculate the discounted total:  To do so, take the total from step 1 and multiply by .8.

Step 3: Buy Kohl’s e-gift card for 15% off

Go to Cardpool.com and buy a Kohl’s e-gift card.  They sell Kohl’s gift cards for 15% off.  Ideally you will find a card with a face value close to the 20% off amount you calculated in step 2.  If you plan to make future purchases at Kohl’s you could go ahead and buy a gift card for a larger amount.  Note that it may take several hours for Cardpool to email the gift card.

Optional: you can get an extra .8% cash back by starting at ShopAtHome before clicking through to Cardpool.com.  This will only work for your first $1000 in transactions at Cardpool.com.

Step 4: Go through Ultimate Rewards Mall for 10X

Once you receive your gift card from step 3, go to the Ultimate Rewards Mall, find Kohl’s, and click through to shop at Kohl’s.  Now any purchases you make will return 10 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent!

Step 5: Shop Kohl’s, apply coupon and gift card

Load up your Kohl’s shopping cart.  When you go to check out, make sure to apply a 20% off coupon code.  These are readily available through Google searches.  One that I used successfully recently was SMS6532 (with free shipping too).  Also make sure to apply your gift card to the order.

Add up the savings

Let’s say your total purchase before savings is $100.  The 20% off coupon will reduce the price to $80.  At Cardpool, you can buy a $80 gift card for $68.  So, your total savings on $100 worth of items is $32 or 32%.  Plus, you will get 10 points per dollar based on the $80 spent at Kohl’s, or 800 total points.  The fair trading price of 800 Ultimate Rewards points is $10.48. 

Additional savings:  Kohl’s frequently runs special deals where you can earn $10 in Kohl’s bucks for every $50 spent.  If you spend very close to a multiple of $50, then this becomes nearly a 20% rebate that stacks on top of all of the savings shown above!

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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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