High Earnings At Chase's Ultimate Rewards Mall - February 2012

I absolutely love Chases Ultimate Rewards Mall. You can get into the Shopping Portal if you have either a Chase Sapphire Credit Card or a Chase Freedom Card. The interesting thing is, is that each card has its own offers. Thankfully, I have both cards so I have access to all Ultimate Rewards offers. I love this mall for various reasons. The UR Mall has one of the highest earnings next to the Discover More and American Airlines Shopping Portals. And one can use any credit card with this portal. So if you need to spend on a specific credit card for minimum spend for a credit card sign up, you can use the credit card of your choice while earning valuable Ultimate Rewards points. These points are very valuable because they can be transferred 1:1 to various airlines, hotel chains and Amtrak giving them a higher ratio than 1 cent per dollar.

Chase Sapphire's Ultimate Rewards Mall

10 Points/Dollar

1-800 Baskets

Barnes & Noble.com

Brookstone

Cherry Moon Farms

FTD.com

ICE

Kohls

Lancome

NikeStore.com

Saks.com

Snapfish

Shoebuy.com

Teleflora

Under Armour

12 Points/Dollar

123inkjets.com

Groupon

Restaurant.com

15 Points/Dollar

1-800-Flowers.com

H&R Block At Home

KaBloom

Proflowers

Shari's Berries

Shoes.com

20 Points/Dollar

Magazineline.com

The Wall Street Journal

25 Points/Dollar

Proactiv Solution

40 Points/Dollar 

Magazines.com

Valumags.com

Chase Freedom's Ultimate Rewards Mall

10 Points/Dollar

JCPenney (Only 10/$1 in this Mall)

1-800 Baskets

Barnes & Noble.com

Brookstone

Cherry Moon Farms

FTD.com

ICE

Kohls

Lancome

NikeStore.com

Saks.com

Snapfish

Shoebuy.com

Teleflora

Under Armour

12 Points/Dollar

123inkjets.com

Groupon

Restaurant.com

15 Points/Dollar

1-800-Flowers.com

H&R Block At Home

KaBloom

Proflowers

Shari's Berries

Shoes.com

20 Points/Dollar

The Wall Street Journal

25 Points/Dollar

Proactiv Solution

Valumags.com

Redeem Points with Discounted Gift Cards only at Chase Freedom's Ultimate Rewards Mall (until April 1, 2012)

Discount Gift Cards (10-20% Off) at Ultimate Rewards with Chase Freedom & Chase Sapphire

Chase Sapphire's Ultimate Rewards is offering Kohl's 

Gift Cards at 10% off. You can now receive a $25 Gift Card for 2,225 miles and purchase them in multiples.

Save with Gift Cards only at Chase Freedom's Ultimate Rewards Mall

(until April 1, 2012)

KOHL's 10 points per dollar

Chase Sapphire Invites Members to Experience Three World Class Ski Resorts

This offer includes a 3 night hotel accomodations in one of three world class Ski Resorts at 200,000 points or $2,000. Unfortunately, below you will find only two Resorts listed since the third has already sold out. You can find this Chase Winter Getaway Offer at this link.

What to do with Sears Gift Certificates? 10/$1 tomorrow at Ultimate Rewards Shopping Portal

BIG NEWS

Sears 10 points per dollar at Ultimate Rewards Mall

Tommorow one will be receiving 10 points per dollar for Sears. I plan on completing my 4 CitiCard spends by purchasing $3,000 worth of Sears Gift Certificates, for 30,000 Chase points. In order to use them up, I probably will spend $1,000 or so at mygofer.com, a Kmart online store where you can order groceries and small appliances and pick them up at your local Kmart. I hate food shopping so this really works for me! But that is not all, I plan on going through a shopping portal to accrue more points. I'm not sure if I can go through Ultimate Rewards from Sears to get to mygofer.com, if I can, depending on the points at the time, if they remain 6 points per dollar then I will accrue an additional 6,000 points. If not, then I will go through Mr. Rebates for an additional 6%, giving me back $60+$7.50 (bonus) see below, for a total of $67.50! See below (from evrewards.com)

Then, I will spend an additional $1,000 at Kmart when the Ultimate Rewards Mall increases their rewards for Kmart (maybe next holiday season). Or, just accept the 5 bonus points per dollar spent at Kmart for an additional 5,000 points when I need items from Kmart or when they have a good sale. Plus, now through February 29th, Visa is offering a discount of $25 on Kmart orders of $125 purchased through the Visa shopping portal, see below.

I will spend about $200 at Landsend.com (gaining me 2,000 points.com points (7.3%)), I hope this one works out because you can't earn miles for landsend.com through the Ultimate Rewards Shopping Portal. Anyways, I love the Landsend T shirts, so its worth it for me.

With the additional $800 Sears Gift Cards I will go to Sears and Kmart and exchange them for many Gift Cards to places like Ebay, Barnes & Nobles etc.. I will probably do a combination of selling these gift cards and purchasing items online through Ultimate Rewards for more points.

GIFT CARD WEEKEND January 6-8, 2011

It is not very clear what exactly we will be able to get, but apparently there will be lots of bonus' from lots of retailers. They will be continuously updating the retailers participating, but right now the participating retailers listed are:

JCPenney

Regal Cinemas

Applebee's

Sephora

Subway

and hopefully some of the retailers of the Gift Cards sold at Sears and Kmart!

"Like" them on Facebook for a chance to win free Gift Cards.

I will be writing more about this as soon as more details are given.

So for $3,000 spend, I will be able to finish my spend on my 4 Citi Cards spend and will have 300,000 American Airlines miles, I will gain at least 41,000 Ultimate Reward Points, I will have lots of groceries from mygrocer.com (Kmart) and hopefully lots of money from the sale of the Gift Cards? Well, this is the plan and you know the plan can always change!

How will you be using your Sears Gift Cards?

Look who has joined Twitter & Facebook? & Today's Deals

Chase has joined Twitter and Facebook, sign up to never miss a promotion!

Sign up for Chase on Facebook
Sign up for Chase on Twitter, type in Chase Sapphire in the search and request to follow. Only approved people will be able to follow.

E-rewards has joined Twitter and Facebook, sign up to never miss a promotion!
This doesn't surprise me at all since one of the questions on an E-rewards survey I took asked
if I would follow E-rewards on Twitter.
Sign up for E-rewards on Facebook
Sign up for E-rewards on Twitter

Today's Deals

NorthWest Territorial Mint 12/9/2011-12/18/2011

Free Silver This Christmas!

Invest in bullion $2,500 with the NORTHWEST TERRITORIAL MINT and receive a seasonal silver coin free (valued at $65)! You can chose from one of two coins, one with a picture of Santa on it and the other with a picture depicting Christ. This coin is one Troy ounce .999-fine proof silver, is sealed in a tarnish resisted Lucite capsule, and is 39mm round, and comes in a beautiful box. It will be accompanied by a document of authenticity and will be shipped out to you as soon as you place your order. by calling or by Visit NORTHWEST TERRITORIAL MINT's online store or call (800) 344-6468.

Chase's Ultimate Rewards Shopping Mall

THIS WEEK:

https://store.nwtmint.com/

Chase's Ultimate Rewards Mall Black Friday/ Holiday Bonus Points & Deals

Ultimate Rewards Holiday Bonus Points

Exclusively for Chase Sapphire and Chase Ink Cardholders:

25% OFF ALL MERCHANDISE

NOVEMBER 28TH AT BEST BUY

EARN 10 EXTRA POINTS/$1:

Best Buy: Nov 25th

Apple Store: Nov 28th

Land's End: Dec 2nd

J Crew: Dec 3rd

Red Envelope: Dec 4th (15)

Target.com: Dec 5th

FAO Schwartz: Dec 6th

Lord & Taylor: Dec 7th

******Sears: Dec 9th******

Harry & David: Dec 14th

Barnes & Nobles: Dec 15th

Auctions starting at 1 point:

Sony Handycam: Nov 21

Sony Cyber Shot: Nov 22

Amazon Kindle Wi Fi: Nov 23

Samsung Galaxy MP3 Player: Nov 24

Samsung Galaxy Tab: Nov 25

Best Credit Card Reward Cards 2011

Cashback Rewards Cards

I am not looking at these cards for the bonus offers, but what they offer per dollar in terms of daily spend. I got the United/Continental cards for their bonuses and probably won't end up keeping them since there are many other Chase cards I would rather have and I dont want to spend the $95 a year fee. But if I can get the fee waived, I might consider keeping them for a while. These 2 cards will soon turn into 1.

Here is how I use these cards:

Capital One Venture Card- Everything Else (2x)

Chase Sapphire Prefferred Card- Dining (2x) and online purchases

Chase Freedom Card- only up to $1,500 on rotating categ. each quarter = 7,500 miles

Penfed Premium Travel Rewards American Express Card- Travel (5x)

Continental/United- online purchases

Click on the links to read reviews I have already writen on these 2 cards:

Capital One Venture Signature Card

Chase Sapphire Preffered Card

Penfed Premium Travel Rewards American Express Card - Some experts don’t think that this is a good credit card, since you need to purchase the airline/travel purchases through their booking tool. But I beg to differ and think it’s a great deal, if you are willing to buy tickets through them when it’s not high season and only are interested in economy seats. When it’s high season the miles you need are astronomical! But if you purchase not during high season, tickets cost much less. When I travel between the US and the Middle East, normally I use 80,000 reward miles. With this card I only need to use up 62,500, plus I receive frequent flyer miles!! I charge this card for all my airline tickets since I get 5 miles per dollar spent ($1 on everything else) and now through the end of 2011 one earns 25% more on all earnings. This card has no transactions fees, no yearly fees and currently comes with a 20,000 miles bonus when you spend $650 in 3 months.

Ticket Cost: $350 : 21,875 points

Ticket Cost: $500 : 31,250 points

Ticket Cost: $350 : 46,875 points

Ticket Cost: $350 : 62,500 points

Chase Freedom Card - I don't have this card yet, but I am looking forward to getting it once I have waited 60 days since my last Chase credit card applications (United and Continental). This card offers 5 miles per dollar spent on rotating categories every 3 months up until $1,500 (and receive 7,500 miles) That's 30,000 miles/yr on $6,000 spend. I would recommend only using this card on the rotating categories up until $1,500. Currently (11/2011) the categories are charities, dining, department stores and movie theatres until Dec. 31, 2011. There is no annual fee and rewards never expire.

Continental/United Credit Cards- The $95 yearly fee is waived the first year. These 2 airlines are in the process of merging, so when you get your miles for both airlines, you can merge them. Instead of getting 30,000-40,000 miles for the Star Alliance Network you will be getting 60,000-80,000 miles. Earn 25,000 miles after first use, 5,000 after adding an authorized user who uses the card and 10,000 after $25,000 spend. The latest buzz is that in November (still waiting), United will be increasing their bonus miles from 40,000 to 60,000. I applied for both these cards at the same time and got approved for the Continental Card, but not for the United Card, the same goes for my dear husband . So, I just called up and got approved over the phone for myself. Now, I needed my husband to call to ask for the approval on the United Card, but he was out of the country. By the time he came back, I heard about the possible 60,000 mile offer so I haven’t called Chase, because I would like to go for the extra miles. If it doesn't increase to 60,000 bonus miles, I will probably not try to get the card for him and instead go for the Chase Freedom card for him instead. Generally one only gets one miler per dollar spent with these cards so I only use them for online shopping through their MileagePlus Shopping when they reward more than Chase does or have a store that Chase doesn't. This card offers priority boarding and a free checked bag each time you fly Continental or United and charge it to your card. My husband has become a Gold Elite so this doesn't help him, so therefore I don't charge this card for his travel.

Ultimate Rewards Offer Special Holiday Deals

If you have a Chase Sapphire or Ink Card you are in luck! There are three ways you can earn extra points.

1- November 28th is Cyber Monday and you can redeem points and receive get 25% off all merchandise.

2- Shop and earn extra points when you buy through:
a) Groupon- 20 extra points per dollar, on November 1st

b) Kohls- 10 extra points per dollar, on November 21st

c) Best Buy- 10 extra points per dollar, on November 25th

d) Apple Store- 10 extra points per dollar, on November 28th

e) Target- 10 extra points per dollar, on December 5th

f) Overstock- 10 extra points per dollar, on December 12th

3- From November 1st through November 25th you can bid on different electronics using your Chase points. Some of the items include, a Nintendo Wii, Amazon Kindle and a Sony Playstation 3. Each day there will be another item up for bid. Bidding starts at one point.

Where To Buy Airline Tickets

1-  Cheapoair.com is a great website that has some amazing prices.
2-  Chase Sapphire Preffered offers 3X the miles if using their traveling tool.
3-  Bigcrumbs gives you $3.20 cash back for airline tickets. In my opinion
     this is not a great value, but certainly better than nothing.

I have searched tons of travel websites to find out where I can buy my airline tickets for the best prices. I first check out kayak.com, just to see what the prices are and what's out there. Then I go to the cheapoair.com website and see what kind of deals they have. Sometimes they have better deals than Travelocity, expedia and kayak. They have a lot more options than lots of travel websites. I’ve gotten $200-$300 off a ticket that I couldn’t find anywhere else! So it definitely is worth checking with them first. With the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card you can use Chases traveling tool which is a good option since they offer 3 miles per dollar; the only catch is, is that you have to use one of their credit cards.  Then you can transfer your miles to British Airways, Continental, Hyatt, Marriort, Priority Club or Amtrak. I usually pay for the ticket using my Penfed Amex Credit Card since I get 5 miles per dollar spent on travel with this card. They are running a special from October 1, 2011 until December 1, 2011 where you receive an additional 25% bonus miles on all purchases including travel.

Chase Sapphire Preferred Credit Card Review

Chase came out with a great card for the frequent flyer and restaurant goer this year; it's called the Chase Sapphire Preffered Credit Card (don't confuse this with the Chase Sapphire Card which always has no annual fee). This card gives you a whopping 50,000 bonus points after you spend $3,000 within the first 3 months. This card comes with a $95 annual fee which is waved the first year. Pay no foreign transaction fees when you use your card on purchases made outside of the United States. You get one point for every dollar spent and two points for travel and dining. When you use their online booking tool you get 3 points for every dollar spent on travel and hotels anduse 20% fewer points. For 50,000 points you get $625 towards airline tickets. You also get 7% back towards points earned, even those you have already used, including the bonus points. So, in actuality you are getting 50,000 + 3,000 (spend requirement) + 3500 + 210= Total $57,710 points.

Redemption
This is a great card because of its flexibility in redeeming miles. However, using the 50,000 bonus points on travel rewards through Ultimate Rewards may be fine if you just want to fly within the US in Economy class. But if you want to fly internationally or use these points for hotels, you will get a better value by transfering the points to select partners (1:1 ratio).
You could transfer 50,000 miles to:

• British Airways
• Continental Airlines
• Hyatt
• Mariott
• Priority Club
• Amtrak

      
Redemption Option                  Redeption Value
Cash/Gift Certificates                       $500
Ultimate Rewards                            $625 (always get 25% more for your points)
Transfer to Select Partners               $800-$2,000