In an earlier post I described how to “triple dip” to earn rewards from Sears’ purchases. In that post, the “second dip” was to use Big Crumbs for a cash rebate. In this post I’ll describe how to earn tons of Continental Airlines miles from Sears’ purchases. The main trick is that you’ll need a Chase Sapphire card (or another Chase card with access to Chase Ultimate Rewards shopping). Until the end of September, Chase is offering 10 points per dollar spent at Sears and they allow gift card purchases!
You don’t really have to spend $2000 to benefit from this approach, I just thought that 30,000 miles might get your attention. However, if you do have a large purchase in mind anyway (TV? New fridge? Washer and Dryer?) this might be the time to pull the trigger (at least on purchasing the gift card — you can take your time with spending it). The following steps assume you’re planning to spend $2000 at Sears, but please adjust to your situation.
1. Browse to the Chase Ultimate Rewards Mall and find Sears. Until the end of September 2011, purchases from Sears via this portal are rewarded with 10 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar. Go to Sears from this portal and buy a e-gift card for $2000 (or whatever amount you need). Make sure to use your Chase card for the purchase or you won’t get credit! Note that it may take an hour or so to receive your e-gift card. From this step alone, you will have earned 20,000 UR points which can be converted directly to Continental Miles.
2. Go to Continental Airlines shopping portal and click through to Sears. Continental is currently offering 5 miles per dollar spent at Sears. Find what you need from Sears.com and add it to your shopping cart. This step will earn you the additional 10,000 Continental Miles giving you a total of 30,000 miles for this purchase! But, wait, there’s still more bonus available:
3. Make sure you belong to Sears’ Shop Your Way Rewards program. When checking out of Sears.com, enter your Shop Your Way Rewards number. For your $2000, you will earn 20,000 Shop Your Way Rewards points! Don’t get too excited, though. Each point is only worth 1/10 of a penny. Still, that comes to $20 worth of points. You might as well take it.
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[…] Rewards mall offers 10 extra points per dollar spent at Sears. See, for example, this post or this one. What I didn’t know at the time was that you do not need to use your Chase card when making […]
Jimgotkp, thanks! You can do even better than 15% back through a variant on this plan in which you use the Big Crumbs portal instead of the Continental portal. See my post on this here: https://frequentmiler.com/2011/09/04/triple-dip-shopping-at-sears-lands-end-kmart-with-chase-sapphire/
Nice post! It can also be converted into $300 which is almost a 15% cash back. It's unfortunate I don't have $2,000 laying around.