A reader named Colin passed this one along to me.  Until Feb 26, 2013, American Express is offering a $25 statement credit when you use a synced American Express card to spend $100 or more at Sony.com.  The trick to getting free money and points is to go through an online portal to Sony, buy a physical gift card, and then sell the card via a reseller.

It’s possible to do this once for each American Express card you own (see details near the end of this post).  For each $100 card you buy, you can earn some cash back, plus 100 points from American Express (depends which card you use as to what kind of points you get), plus 400 Ultimate Rewards points or additional cash back.  Below are the steps to follow.  Make sure to read through them before deciding whether this is worth the effort for you.

Step 1: Sync your Amex card

Go to sync.americanexpress.com and register each of your American Express cards with one of these services (Facebook, FourSquare, or Twitter).  In general, you can only sync one Amex card to each service, but you could have multiple Twitter, FourSquare, or Facebook accounts.  For more details on syncing multiple cards, please see “Free Money 101” from Deals We Like.

No, you cannot sync American Express prepaid cards or Bluebird cards.

Step 2: Register each Amex card for the promotion

Depending on which social media site you synced with, there will be a different way to register your Amex card.  Quoting from Deals We Like:

1. Twitter: You must “tweet” the promotion code, with the hash tag included (in this case the promo code is #AmexSonyOffer)
2. Foursquare: You must “check in” at the participating merchant (Sony).
3. Facebook: You must “like” the promotion in the “Link, Like, Love” app.

Alternatively, when you log into your American Express account, click on “My Offers” and see if the Sony deal is available.  If so, you can register right there.

Step 3: Go through an online portal to the Sony store and buy a $100 gift card

At the time of this writing, one of the best points earning opportunity I know of is via the Ultimate Rewards Mall, which currently offers 4 points per dollar at Sony.

Despite Terms & Conditions that say “Not eligible on gift cards,” I have found in the past that you will earn points through the Ultimate Rewards Mall as long as you buy a physical gift card.  e-gift cards do not work. 

Make sure to pay with your synced American Express card.  Yes, you can get points when you pay with a non-Chase credit card, but there is a risk because you won’t get much help from Chase if anything goes wrong.

An even better option is to take advantage of the current AAdvantage eShopping promotion in which you can earn up to 1000 bonus miles. Read details here: Up to 1,000 Bonus Miles for Joining American Airlines Shopping Mall.  Even though the AAdvantage portal only offers 2 points per dollar right now for Sony, the promo miles more than make up for that.

Alternatively, if you prefer cash, you can go through TopCashBack for 6% cash back.

Even though TopCashBack explicitly lists cash back for gift card purchases, I still would not recommend ordering an e-gift card since prior experiments have shown that e-gift cards do not result in cash back or points.

Make sure to pay with your synced American Express card!

Step 4: Sell the gift card

GiftCardGranny is a good site to go to for finding the best ways to sell gift cards.  At the time of this writing, here is what GiftCardGranny finds as options for selling Sony gift cards:

Note that there are a number of sites that will give you 75% or more of the value of the gift card.  Since you will have received a $25 statement credit (25%) from American Express, this means that you should come out even or even make a small profit on the deal.  If you sell to Plastic Jungle or Cardpool, go through TopCashBack first to earn a little bit extra.

For example, assuming the numbers above are correct, you can go through TopCashBack to PlasticJungle and sell your $100 gift card for $78.  Through TopCashBack you will earn 2.5% of $78, which is $1.95.  Your total profit then will be $78 + $1.95 – $75 = $4.95.  This does not count the points or cash back you get from buying the gift card in step 3.

Rinse and repeat

All of the above can be done once for each American Express card you own as long as you are careful to sync and register each card with a different social network / account.

Add it up

Here is an example of what you can earn each time through (assuming the GiftCardGranny numbers are correct):

• 100 SPG points by paying with your Starwood American Express
• 400 Ultimate Rewards points by going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall
• $4.95 profit

Clearly this isn’t a big score.  In fact, I’m not going to bother with it myself, but it could be a good way to dip your toe into gift card churning to get the hang of it. 

This is a reminder that several big Ultimate Rewards opportunities end with the close of this month (Sunday):

Sears 20X: Freedom cardholders

If you have a Chase Freedom Visa or MasterCard, you can get 10 points per dollar at Sears this month by shopping through the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  With a simple double-dip trick, you can double your earnings.  See “Sears 20X” for details.

Buy.com 20X: Ink cardholders

If you have a Chase Ink Bold, Ink Plus, Ink Cash, or Ink Classic card you can get 10 points per dollar at Buy.com this month by shopping through the Ultimate Rewards Mall. If you’re feeling lucky, you can double your earnings. See “Buy.com 20X!” for details.  Please read the comments of that post to see other readers’ experiences before jumping into this deal.

Sony 10X: Ink cardholders

If you have an Ink card you can get 10 points per dollar at Sony this month by shopping through the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  Previous experiments have shown that you can double dip by buying physical gift cards and then using them, but its too late in the month to count on getting those cards in time (e-gift cards don’t work).  See “Sony 30X success” for details.  Also, make sure to avoid products excluded via the T&C:

Not eligible on Sony outlet, refurbished, clearance items, and Sony Ericsson locked phones, or Employee Purchase Programs.

Bloomingdale’s 10X: Sapphire Cardholders

If you have the Chase Sapphire or Sapphire Preferred card you can get 10 points per dollar at Bloomingdale’s when shopping through the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  Unfortunately, double dips do not work (see “Bloomingdale’s Only 10X”).  However, Deals We Like outlined how to maximize savings with this opportunity.  See “Use Chase for 40% off at Bloomingdales.”

In my post “Ultimate Rewards Mall September Edition” I noted that this month Sony is offering 10 points per dollar to Chase Ink cardholders for shopping through the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  In that post, I stated the following:

Note that past experiments have shown that it is possible to double-dip here to get a total of 20X…

Larry’s Question

This morning, a reader named Larry posted the following comment:

The ur link to sony.com now says gift cards are excluded. Is this new and does it signal the end of double dip?

Uh oh

I checked the Ultimate Rewards Mall and found that Larry is right.  There is a new statement in the T&C that was not there when I tested the double dip back in May.  It now says “Not eligible on gift cards, gift certificates or any other similar cash equivalents.”

By itself, that wouldn’t be too troubling.  A couple of months ago, Staples added similar wording, but they continue to pay points for gift card purchases.  What troubles me even more is that Sony used to show up in the Ultimate Rewards Mall under “Gift Cards,” but it doesn’t anymore.  Still, that doesn’t prove that they won’t give points for gift card purchases, but it doesn’t look good.

Reader experiences

Has anyone tried the double dip recently?  Please let us know if/when you see points from your efforts.

As a reminder, when I tested the double dip in May 2012, I found that only the purchase of physical gift cards gave points and that purchases of clearance items did not give points (see “Sony 30X success”).

What has your recent experience been?

Sears brings 10X to Freedom holders, but drops Ink and Sapphire to 4X.   

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

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 to 4X for Ink and Sapphire cardholders
• Staples dropped from 5X to 4X
• Office Depot dropped from 5X to 3X
• HSN dropped from 10X to 4X
• Shoebuy dropped from 15X to 10X
• JCPenney dropped from 10X to 6X
• Drugstore.com dropped from 10X to 8X

September Goodies

Now on to the good stuff!

Sears 10X (Freedom 10X. Ink & Sapphire 4X)
A couple of days ago I predicted that Sears would extend 10X through September.  I was hoping that would mean that I would get 10X from either my Sapphire Preferred or Ink Bold card.  However, Sears’ bonus earnings for both of those cards has dropped down to only 4X.  For Freedom cardholders, though, there’s great news: Sears now offers 10X bonus points if you log into the Ultimate Rewards Mall with your Freedom account!  For information about how to leverage this deal, see “Sears 10X: Leveraging the Deal.”  Also, please see “Sears 10X final days?” for additional information.

Sony 10X (Ink Bold 10X, Freedom & Sapphire 2X)
Note that past experiments have shown that it is possible to double-dip here to get a total of 20X, but you need to be very careful.  Buy only physical gift cards (not e-cards).  Then, when using the gift cards, make sure to avoid products excluded via the T&C:

Not eligible on Sony outlet, refurbished, clearance items, and Sony Ericsson locked phones, or Employee Purchase Programs. 

See “Sony 30X success” for more information.

Buy.com 10X (Ink 10X, Freedom & Sapphire 4X)
From an old Frequent Miler post, I found the following about buy.com:

A reader has reported success in getting 5 points per dollar by going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Buy.com to purchase merchant gift cards (Home Depot was his example).  They do charge a small shipping fee ($2.99 for the first card, $.99 for each subsequent card), but they also give you 1% back in the form of “Super Points” which can be used for future purchases.

For some reason, this info never made it into the Frequent Miler Laboratory (I probably simply forgot about it).  I plan to redo this experiment this month before putting it in.

Bloomingdale’s 10X (Sapphire 10X, Ink & Freedom 6X)
Time for a new double-dip experiment!

OfficeMax 5X (Ink 5X, Freedom & Sapphire 3X)
Note that in a previous Frequent Miler Laboratory experiment, buying OfficeMax gift cards through the mall did not result in points.

Home Depot 5X (Ink & Freedom 5X, Sapphire 3X)
In past experiments, buying gift cards from Home Depot did not result in points, but using gift cards did results in points as long as part of the payment was made with a credit card. See “Is the Home Depot double dip alive?” for details.

A few more:

• Macy’s 5X (Freedom 5X, Sapphire & Ink 3X)
• Ralph Lauren 5X (Sapphire 5X, Ink & Freedom 4X)
• Pottery Barn 5X (Sapphire 5X, Ink & Freedom 3X)
• Lord & Taylor 5X
• Dell Home 5X (Sapphire 5X, Ink & Freedom 2X)
• L.L. Bean 5X (Freedom 5X, Ink & Sapphire 2X)
• Tiger Direct 5X (Ink Bold 5X, Freedom & Sapphire 2X)
• KMart 4X
• Living Social 3X
• New Balance 3X

Predictions

Near the end of most months I write up a post with my predictions for how the mall will change.  I didn’t do so at the end of August other than to predict that Sears 10X might stay around longer (partial success!).  Sorry if you were expecting a more complete set of predictions!  I’ll plan to do the usual prediction posts at the end of each month going forward.

Three weeks ago I wrote about my Sony gift card experiment in which I bought a Sony gift card through the Ultimate Rewards Mall and then used the gift card through the same mall with the hopes of earning 10X for each purchase.  To make things even more interesting, I used a Visa card that can be bought for 10X through the Ultimate Rewards Mall at Staples.com (if using a Chase Ink card).  In total, I hoped to earn 30X overall.  You can read the details in the post  “Experiment in progress: Sony 30X.”

First try: failure

Last week, I revealed that the experiment was a failure.  I had bought an eGift card which was sold by CashStar.com instead of Sony.  And, I had bought a clearance item with the gift card (which is against the T&C for Sony giving points in the Ultimate Rewards Mall).  Neither purchase resulted in any points.  You can read details in the post “Sony 30X only mostly dead.”

Take 2

Due to the mistakes I made with the original experiment, I re-ran the experiment.  This time I bought a physical gift card (sold by Sony) and I used a gift card to buy an item that doesn’t violate the terms & conditions.

As a reminder, here are the Terms & Conditions for Sony in the Ultimate Rewards Mall:

Not eligible on Sony outlet, refurbished, clearance items, and Sony Ericsson locked phones, or Employee Purchase Programs.

Results

All of the results are now in for the second experiment.  Success! I received 10X for both the purchase of the physical gift card and the use of a gift card!  30X is possible after all!

Too Late

Unfortunately, it is very likely that Sony will drop down to a much lower bonus rate on June 1.  Currently, the offer reads “Special increased earnings now through 5/31/2011.”  See the red print at the bottom:

If you still want to earn at least 10X, you can go ahead and buy physical gift cards before the offer ends.  Unfortunately, they won’t arrive in time to double dip for 20X.

On May 1st, I published “Ultimate Rewards Mall Awesomeness!” where I showed a number of great deals in the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  This post is simply a reminder of those deals.  You only have a few days left.  Most of the deals are scheduled to end May 31st (this Thursday).

Ink Bold

If you log in with your Ink Bold account, you’ll find the following:

• Staples.com at 5X! If you want to get 10X for buying gift cards online, now is the time!  (5X from the mall, plus 5X from the Ink Bold’s category bonus).  Staples carries a number of gift cards including Starbucks, Marriott, Southwest Airlines, and even Visa.
• Sony at 10X! While my double-dip experiment didn’t pan out (see “Sony 30X only mostly dead”), I have since verified that buying physical gift cards (but not eGift cards) does result in points.  So, if you know you have a Sony purchase coming up, but you’re not yet ready to pull the trigger, consider stocking up on gift cards.  Beware, though, that when you buy things will gift cards you don’t get automatic extended warranties or purchase protections given by some credit cards.
• Overstock.com at 10X A reader double-dip experiment didn’t pan out, but 10X is pretty good by itself!
• Lenovo at 5X

Freedom

If you log in with your Freedom card, you’ll find the following:

• Sephora at 20X! This 20X deal only lasted about a week.
• QVC at 10X!  A reader who goes by carwag25 tried a double dip experiment with QVC, but it didn’t work.  No points were given for buying an e-gift card (which was sold by CashStar), but points were given for using the gift card.  It is likely that the double dip would work for a physical gift card, but we don’t yet have proof of this.

Sapphire Preferred

If you log in with your Sapphire or Sapphire Preferred, you’ll find the following:

• J. Crew at 10X! Mommy Points, you were going to re-test the double-dip on this one.  Any luck?
• Ann Taylor at 5X

Comparison Shopping

Since Ultimate Rewards Mall has different deals depending on which card you log in with, Hiker T has been maintaining a web page that makes it easy to see the current rates and to see which card you should log in with.  You can see his page here: lakebagger.com/ur/

Stay informed:
Follow me on Twitter / Like me on Facebook / Join the Club

If you’re new to Frequent Miler, please start here

On May 9th, in the post “Experiment in progress: Sony 30X,” I described how I used a combination of techniques to attempt to earn 30 points per dollar from a Sony.com purchase.  I had hoped to report success by now, but I can’t.  Not a single bonus point has shown up in my account in the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  However, the experiment is not completely dead…

Background

As a reminder, the experiment went like this:

• I started with a Visa gift card that was bought at Staples.com.  Currently, the Ultimate Rewards Mall offers 5X bonus points at Staples, and the Ink Bold offers 5X for office supply purchases.  So, by buying Visa gift cards at Stapes through the Ultimate Rewards Mall and paying with an Ink Bold, one can earn 10 points per dollar.  This part of the experiment is pretty safe: it has been proven before.  I didn’t even really test this part – I just used a Visa I had lying around from a previous experiment.
• I logged into the Ultimate Rewards Mall with my Ink Bold account and clicked through to Sony.  For Ink Bold owners, Sony is currently at 10X AND is listed under “gift cards”.  So I bought myself an e-gift card using my Visa gift card to pay.  If things worked, I would have earned 10X for this part of the experiment.
• Once I received the gift card, I went back through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Sony, and bought an iPhone dock using the gift card to pay.  The total purchase amount was $1.49 more than the gift card value so I used my Ink Bold to pay the remainder.  Ideally I would have earned another 10X for this final part of the experiment.

Results

Every day I’ve checked “Ultimate Rewards Mall & Travel Earnings” to see if any points have posted.  So far, not a single point has posted.  Is it time to declare the experiment dead?  Yes, and no…

What went wrong?

Buying the gift card: I was worried when I bought the e-gift card because I was routed to a different URL for the purchase.  It’s very likely that the failure to get points from this purchase was due to the fact that the purchase was made at cashstar.com instead of sony.com. 

Using the gift card: The Terms and Conditions for Sony in the Ultimate Rewards Mall do not say anything about gift cards so it should be OK.  However, it’s possible that the written terms & conditions are not complete.  So, it may be the case that I didn’t get points because purchases made with gift cards are not eligible for points.  That doesn’t make sense, though, because I did pay $1.49 with the Ink Bold.  Worst case is that I should have received points for 10X of $1.49, but I didn’t even get that.

Terms & Conditions:  I think this is the real reason I didn’t get points for the purchase.  The Terms & Conditions state:

Not eligible on Sony outlet, refurbished, clearance items, and Sony Ericsson locked phones, or Employee Purchase Programs.

Remember that iPod dock I bought?  It was on clearance.  The T&C clearly state that my purchase was not eligible.  In other words, I messed up big time!

Only mostly dead

The Sony experiment was a failure, but it didn’t prove anything other than my ability to make mistakes.  It’s still possible and even likely that the experiment would work under the following circumstances:

1. Buy physical gift cards which are sold by sony.com.  Don’t buy e-gift cards which are sold by cashstar.com.
2. Using physical gift cards, buy items that meet the T&C.  Don’t buy Sony outlet items.  Don’t buy refurbished items.  Don’t buy clearance items.  Don’t buy Sony Ericsson locked phones (that’s a weird one).  And, don’t use employee purchase programs.

I will redo this experiment, but unfortunately it will be too late to make a big impact.  The 10X promotion is scheduled to end at the end of this month so it’s unlikely I’ll have results in time for anyone to capitalize on them.

If anyone else has been experimenting with a Sony double dip, please let me know how you faired fared!

Related posts

• Experiment in progress: Sony 30X
• Ultimate Rewards Mall Awesomeness!
• Frequent Miler Laboratory
• Ultimate Question
• Ultimate Rewards, Ultimate Confusion: Shopping
• What’s my X?

Stay informed:
Follow me on Twitter / Like me on Facebook / Join the Club

If you’re new to Frequent Miler, please start here

As I reported recently, the Ultimate Rewards Mall is currently offering Ink Bold customers 10 points per dollar at Sony.com until the end of May.  That’s pretty good by itself, but I always like to see how far we can go.  Can we get 20X by buying gift cards for 10X, and then using them for another 10X? 

Examining the Ultimate Rewards Mall leads me to believe that the gift card double dip just might work.  First, notice that Sony is explicitly listed under gift card offers:

Second, notice that there are no explicit restrictions against gift card use:

The Experiment

Of course, I’m not content to settle for only 20X.  So, I started this experiment with a Visa gift card purchased at Staples.com.  Currently, for Ink Bold owners, the Ultimate Rewards Mall gives 5X for Staples.com purchases, and the Ink Bold itself gives another 5X for the office supply category.  So, you get 10 points per dollar when buying Visa gift cards this way at Staples!  There are fees, so the actual bonus is more like 6X overall (see “What’s my X?”), but round numbers like 10X are more fun to write about .

Using the Visa gift card, I logged into the Ultimate Rewards Mall and clicked through to Sony.com.  There I purchased a $25 e-gift card and sent it to myself via a secondary email address.

Once I received the e-gift card (about 20 minutes after purchase), I went back the the Ultimate Rewards Mall, clicked through to Sony again, and bought a $20 iPod dock.  My goal was to keep the entire purchase under $25 so that I could pay entirely with the gift card, but shipping and taxes pushed the total slightly over.  I paid $25 with the gift card and a little over a dollar with my Ink Bold.  In retrospect, I see that I was an idiot because if I had added $5 to my order the $5 shipping would have been free.  Oh well.  They probably don’t sell anything for $5 anyway…

Wait and see

When buying the e-gift card I was routed to a different URL so I’m a little worried about that one.  I’m not sure at all I’ll get points.  I thought about switching to a physical card, but the 10X deal only lasts through May so time is of the essence!

I’m also disappointed that I didn’t pay entirely with a gift card.  If I get points for the iPod dock purchase, I won’t know for certain that points will always be awarded.  Sometimes when paying with a gift card through a shopping portal, you get points only if at least a part of your order is paid by credit card.

It usually takes 4 or 5 days for the Ultimate Rewards Mall to show credit for purchases (via the “Ultimate Rewards Mall & Travel Earnings” menu selection).  I should be able to report back with results next week.

How good would it be?

If all parts of this experiment succeed, let’s look at the bounty:

• Purchase $100 Visa cards through Staples:
• Points earned 10X.  Subtract cost of cards and real benefit = 6X.
• Purchase Sony gift card through Ultimate Rewards Mall:
• Points earned 10X
• Purchase Sony merchandise through Ultimate Rewards Mall:
• Points earned 10X
• Total estimated “rebate”:
• Points earned: 26X
• Value of extra points using Fair Trading Prices = 26X * 1.31 = 34% rebate!

Enough with the Ink Bold already!

People have asked me to find deals and bonuses for other cards.  Not everyone has a Chase Ink card and not everyone can get one.  But the Ink seems to have endless opportunities!  I can’t help myself! 

I will do my best to dig up deals for other cards.  One great one this week requires American Express business cards: see “Up to 14.5% off Amazon and Barnes & Noble.”

Related posts

• Ultimate Rewards Mall Awesomeness!
• Ultimate Question
• Ultimate Rewards, Ultimate Confusion: Shopping
• What’s my X?

Stay informed:
Follow me on Twitter / Like me on Facebook / Join the Club

If you’re new to Frequent Miler, please start here