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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.
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smitty06: That’s freaking awesome.
my double dip points just posted today. Overall, I got 18,700 points for purchasing a new TV. No my greed makes me wish I had purchased another giftcard to use on a laptop I need. 12x would still have been pretty awesome.
What did u end up buying on Sony?
Mark: headphone ear-cushion replacements