Happy New Year! I am excited to have a fresh start at all things miles, points, travel, etc! I know 2013 has a bunch of exciting trips and such in store for my family, and I hope it does for yours as well! Enough reminiscing about 2012, time to look forward and start some earning for 2013. Here are some updates on the January Ultimate Rewards shopping portal bonuses. In case you aren’t overly familiar with how the Chase Ultimate Rewards shopping portal works, then head to this post for detailed instructions.
The payouts can vary based on the type of Ultimate Rewards card you log-in with (Chase Freedom , Chase Sapphire Preferred, Ink Plus Business Card, etc), but this month doesn’t see many substantial differences between the different cards, so I will just list the payouts all together. As expected, some of the payouts that increased for Christmas (such as FAO Schwartz) have dropped back down. There overall weren’t a ton of changes this month, but here are some example payouts at some popular retailers:
Improved:
Anthropologie 7x
Best Buy 2x
HR Block at Home 15x
Office Max 5x
Sears 6x
StarbucksStore.com 5x
Stayed the Same:
J. Crew 5x
Magazines.com 30x
Target 2x
The North Face 8x
Apple 1x
Kohls 10x
Staples 2z
Lowes 5x
Macy’s 5x
Gap 3x
Decreased:
Home Depot fell from 5x to 3x
Holiday Inn fell from 8x to 3x
Office Depot fell from 5x to 3x
Pottery Barn from 3x to 1x (and was 5x in mid December)
Pottery Barn Kids feel from 5x to 3x
I’m sad there isn’t a killer payout from a retailer, but there still are a few that I know will help my family out over the course of the month (like for stocking up on some ski gear for a quickly approach family ski trip!). Remember to compare these rates to other portals to make sure you are getting the best payout possible. You can use evreward.com to quickly compare different portal payout rates for a given retailer. However, especially for a large purchase, I would manually compare the portals myself to make sure I am getting 100% accurate info on the payouts and any possible bonuses.
As always, an easy way to view all the changes for the Ultimate Reward payouts for the month is to head to Hiker T’s site. Did I leave out any good payouts you spotted? Anything look interesting to you this month? Happy New Year!
Disclosure: I do receive a commission if you are approved for a credit card using one of my affiliate links. As always, thanks for your support.
Thank you for this information. As a “newbie” I look forward to learning lots of strategies by following your blog and being able to use them for at least one vacation
Happy New Year…
Can i get points if i buy gift card from starbucks store?
Thank you for the info. I have a same question as David. I usually reload my starbucks card at the store. If I reload on the starbucksstore.com, will I get x5?
I saw on HikerT’s website that drugstore.com is 7x. Coupled with the current 5x promotion for Chase Freedom drugstores and you should be able to get 12x right?
Same thing with Starbucks store for 10x?
[...] Home › Frequent Flyer › What are the January Chase Ultimate Rewards Bonuses? [...]
On the UR page I am now indicating where the UA mall offers a higher payout. Here is the summary of all merchants at the UA mall (note some merchants don’t appear at the UR mall, not sure why):
https://www.mileageplusshopping.com/shopping/b____alpha.htm
I suspect offers showing with a strikeout followed by a higher payout at the UA mall are for UA credit card holders only, so I show them with an asterix on the UR page.
In most cases the UR mall offers a higher payout, but there are some cases where the UA mall is higher. For example, this month the UA mall offers 8x at drugstore.com. That said, you can probably do better via a cash back portal. For example, evreward.com indicates ShopDiscover offers 15% CB at drugstore.com.
http://www.evreward.com/store/go/721
Sadly, I have personally never been successful getting points for sending Starbucks e-gift cards or reloading my Starbucks gift card via the UR portal.
I would assume drugstore.com would stack with the Freedom 5x, but have not tested it myself yet.
HikerT, I like that addition to your site. Well done!
Thanks, I don’t plan to re-invent the wheel and compare to all portals like evreward.com and cashbackholic.com do, but adding UA will be useful since evreward doesn’t show the bonuses for UA cardholders (or differences by UR portal). I plan to add the other UA merchants that aren’t on the UR portal.
HikerT, makes sense to me and I agree that is a hole that hadn’t been filled elsewhere.
[...] a list of all the increases and decreases for the Ultimate Rewards mall for January! Of note is that Office Max is now [...]
@mommypoints
Small correction; Looks like Sears is only 3X as opposed to 3X.
*as opposed to 6X
Okay, so, since we are talking about shopping portals and earning points, this bit if information kind of goes along with the discussion!
Anyway, i know some retailers don’t give you points if you go through the portal and use a gift card to purchase the item. Well, i used a gift card at sephora via ultimate rewards, and my points just posted today! Yay! I know people, including myself, are always wondering which merchants you can user gift cards with to get points, so here ya go! Sorry if you could all care less! It’s my one contribution, though!
[...] Mommy Points and The Frequent Miler discuss the changes to the bonus rewards malls! [...]
Thanks Toni!
@Brad and @Mommypoints, purchases made on drugstore.com have in the past being classified under the “Drugstores” merchant category by Chase/Visa and thus should be eligible for the additional extra 5x Freedom quarterly bonus…
Thanks propaganda. I was also successful in purchasing a Vanilla Reload on my Chase Freedom from CVS today. Plan on doing one of these once a month to hit the 1500.
[...] to Mommy Points for putting together a quick update on Ultimate Rewards shopping portal bonuses. It still shocks me how high some of these bonuses can be for purchases you intend to make from [...]
I looked over HikerT’s site and evreward.com but I am unable to find any reward site that rewards for purchases at B & H photo. My son is getting ready to purchase a $2000 camera. Am i missing a rebate or reward? This is the best price/package on this camera but I hate not getting points, miles or cash back. UGH! Hope someone here sees something i missed!
@Kathy,
Have you priced your camera at Adorama? They often have good coupons, prices and sales, and appear on most cash back sites.
I checked with them and they are about $100 higher. Amazon lists the camera for the same price as b& h photo but is out of stock. If they restock soon, I will buy amazon gift cards with my ink bold at an office supply store and earn 5x points. Someone else suggested this and I thought that was pretty cool. Pretty sure staples has them.
Oh my, what would I have done with out your site and tweets, they make me smarter,laff and give me hope for travel.
Thank you
If you only had one airline to focus on collecting points for european trip what would that airline be? Seems BA-has huge fees and hard to get seats.
Maybe should stay domesticly?
Have any advice on car rental using points?
Thank you ever ever so much
Vicki