Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
Lowes, Office Depot and more move to 10X!
Every month, the Ultimate Rewards Mall has new month-long specials. Last month, I wrote about the May specials in the post “Ultimate Rewards Mall June Edition” Today, I’ll show you how things look for July.
Thanks again 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
As expected, some of the goodies from last month went away 
- Barnes & Noble, which was at 10X, has disappeared completely. I expect that this is a temporary change and we’ll see them reappear soon. A similar phenomenon happens regularly with Groupon.
- Saks.com dropped from 10X to 4X
- Microsoft Store dropped from 10X to 4X
- Shoebuy dropped from 15X to 10X. So much for the 30X double dip!
- Yves Rocher US dropped from 15X to 8X
- ProFlowers dropped from 15X to 10X
- Brookstone dropped from 10X to 6X
July Goodies
There are some terrific positive changes for July:
Lowes: 10X (Ink Bold, Sapphire, Sapphire Preferred)
According to the T&C, buying gift cards from Lowes won’t work (but you never know!). When using gift cards, make sure that at least a part of your purchase is made with a credit card. One reader reported getting no points when using gift cards for the entire purchase. Another reader reported getting full points when using a combination of gift cards and a credit card. If you snagged Lowes gift cards at 20% off last month (see “20% off Lowes and iTunes gift cards”) you should now be in a great position to leverage those cards! Another T&C to watch out for is “Not eligible using promo codes that aren’t listed on this site.” I’m assuming this means that 10% off movers coupons will invalidate the points, but I’d love to hear from readers regarding their experience with this.
Office Depot: 10X (Ink Bold only)
This is nice to see again! By using your Ink Bold, which gets 5X at office supply stores, you’ll get a combined 15X for Office Depot purchases! If you’re considering double-dipping, note that the website says “not eligible on gift cards”. I don’t know if that means not eligible for purchasing gift cards or using gift cards. If anyone tries buying or using a gift card, please let me know the results.
Staples: 5X (Freedom, 4X other cards)
It’s nice to see Staples rebound back up from a low of 2X!
JC Penney: 10X through July 3rd (Freedom only, others are 6X)
The website states “not eligible on gift cards”. I don’t know if that means not eligible for purchasing gift cards or using gift cards. If anyone tries buying or using a gift card, please let me know the results.
Bloomingdale’s: 10X (Sapphire, Sapphire Preferred)
Not eligible on gift cards.
Magazines.com: 30X
Despite initial partial success in 2011, I have found that double-dipping with Magazines.com does not work.
Others of note:
- Avis: 5X
- Blue Nile: 6X
- Drugstore.com: 10X (Freedom, Sapphire, Sapphire Preferred)
- eBags: 15X (Freedom)
- Lancome: 12X
- Land’s End: 5X
- Restaurant.com: 15X
- Snapfish: 16X
- 123InkJets.com: 17X
Reader Experiences
Do you have any experience with taking advantage of the big payouts of any of the merchants listed here? Please comment below!
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[…] Deals of the Week” section confused me when JC Penney was first 10X. On July 2nd I wrote that JC Penney was at 10X, but only until July 3rd. In reality, JCP stayed 10X throughout the month (and beyond). The confusion reappeared […]
[…] Home Depot, Sears, Best Buy, and Lowes. Lowes was where we hit the jackpot. They were offering 10 bonus Chase Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent during the month of July. Score! We focused our appliance hunting on Lowes. We found most of […]
[…] Rewards Mall has new month-long specials. Last month, I wrote about the July specials in the post Ultimate Rewards Mall July Edition.” Today, I’ll show you how things look for […]
How do you combine the Mover’s Coupon with UR 10X? Is the coupon used online or do you ask them to apply it in store?
[…] As I reported earlier this month, Office Depot is currently offering 10 bonus points per dollar for Chase Ink customers who shop through the Ultimate Rewards Mall. When you add on the 5 points per dollar that the Ink gets for office supply purchases, that leads to an awesome 15 points per dollar for Office Depot purchases! […]
JCP is still 10x for Freedom as of July 4th. I suspect this is a month long deal.
McAfee FAR. This is mail in, 1 per household, 8-10 wks for check, etc. Anyone have a work-a-round for this limitation?
OD 15X update
Purchase of gift cards failed, even house brand. On the plus side I went to the store, explained I was running an experiment so they didn’t think I was nuts or worse, bought a $50 OD card then used it to buy a $50 Vanilla reload card. Success. Of course this doesn’t get us any points other than the 5x to buy the gift card
Next attempt will be to make a normal purchase or two along with the OD card but playing with firecrackers and BBQ comes first. Happy 4th y’all.
@dreaming of points. I was so focused on my experiment I didn’t see the FAR. Great catch. What kind of rebate, how long to get check, etc. any limit on how many you can buy?
I bought $65 McAfee 3-User ($65 rebate) from Office Depot. This is 975 UR points for a penny (no tax in my state). Are there any other free after rebate deals? Where do you normally go to check for stuff like that?
@FM, that’s correct. I’ll buy a $100 GC and let you know how it goes. Another data point for your lab…
Lowes 10x update
I made a purchase using a combination of Lowes GC’s, 10% movers coupon and a small amount ( less than $25 ) on the ink bold card and received 10x points for the full purchase amount
anonymous.hacker: Sweet!
Paul: I think that your plan to purchase UR points is dependent upon being able to get UR Mall points when buying gift cards at Office Depot, right? I’m not so sure that will work…
Paul: yes log in with your Freedom account and pay with Ink. Good plan — that will work
Rick: last year it was possible to double dip at magazines.com by buying gift cards to get points and then getting points again when using the gift cards
For Staples, I noticed that it’s 5X for Freedom but 4X for others. Assuming one has both the Freedom and Ink cards, is it possible to go through the Freedom UR portal and pay with the Ink Bold card, resulting in 10X? That’s 5X for the UR portal and 5X for using the Ink card at an office supply store.