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Today, I have a number of miscellaneous things on my mind regarding portals, credit card offers, and mortgage payments. Read on…
ShopDiscover caution / question
In my opinion, ShopDiscover is a terrific online portal. They frequently have the best cash back rates. And, Discover Cash can sometimes be used for better than 1 cent per penny value (see “Rediscovering Discover Rewards” and “Maximizing Discover rewards: real value from merchant gift cards”). I’ve mentioned in many posts that the ShopDiscover portal works even if you don’t pay with a Discover card, but recently a few readers have told me otherwise. They said that Discover sent them emails congratulating them with the message “You’ve Earned Additional Cashback Bonus Through ShopDiscover,” but then no cash back has appeared on their statement, or that it appeared and then was reversed out.
I tried to look at my own experience with this. I’ve used ShopDiscover many times, and I’ve received emails acknowledging the cash back each time. And, the Discover Cash has stayed in my account as far as I can tell. However, I can’t find any way to view my cash back earning history other than by viewing my individual monthly statements. To make things more difficult, I haven’t received a statement since late last year since I haven’t actually used my Discover card since then. So, here are a couple of questions for readers:
- Do you know of any way to view your ShopDiscover earnings other than “Recent Shop Discover history” shown under ShopDiscover, and whatever shows up on each statement?
- What has your experience been in getting ShopDiscover rewards when not paying with Discover cards?
SwagBucks pending, uPromise not yet
In my recent post “Best ways to buy $200 Visa gift cards” I mentioned that SwagBucks is currently offering 6 points per dollar for Staples (thanks to reader hdawg), but that I’ve never used the portal before. After writing that post, I went ahead and clicked through SwagBucks to Staples and bought a $200 Visa gift card. Good news: I received an email from SwagBucks yesterday saying that my 1242 SwagBucks were pending (6 x $207 = 1242). I don’t know how long it will take to move from pending to confirmed, but once it does I should be able to redeem those SwagBucks for gift cards or even PayPal cash. I’ve added SwagBucks to my Sign-Up Links page (which can always be found under the Resources menu on my site). However, please consider using hdawg’s link. He’ll earn 10% of any SwagBucks you earn.
Other recent Staples orders I’ve made have been through the uPromise portal for 5% cash back. Historically, I’ve seen it take anywhere from 3 days to well over a week to receive confirmation of pending cash back from uPromise. So far, I haven’t received any notifications about my April 29th orders, but I’m not at all worried since historically all of my purchases have been credited.
UPDATE: My uPromise April 29 orders appeared as pending on uPromise as of May 6th.
New and improved credit card signup offers
I’ve updated my Best Credit Card Offers page with the following new cards:
- Marriott Rewards Premier Business: This is the business version of the Marriott premier card. 50K point signup bonus. The only obvious long term benefit to this card that I could see is for those who seek Marriott elite status. Both the business and personal versions of this card offer credit towards 15 elite nights, so if you have both cards you’ll be just 20 elite nights each year from Gold status (which requires 50 nights). If you want to get really crazy, get the non-premier personal and business cards as well which each offer 10 nights towards elite status. If anyone tries this, please let me know how it turns out. Keep in mind the annual fees that would be due after the first year: $85+$99+$45+$45 = $274. Ouch. For Gold status, it would be easier to signup for the new and improved Ritz Carlton card.
- Wells Fargo Propel World American Express® Card: 40K signup bonus. Its nice to see banks besides Amex, Barclaycard, Chase, and Citi with big signup bonuses.
In case you missed my Quick Deal last week and have also kept away from every other blog in the world since then, Chase has temporarily increased the bonuses for their Ink cards by an additional 10K each. These are terrific offers, but the usual Ink offers are great too. I wouldn’t recommend dropping everything to signup for these unless you were planning to signup for an Ink card anyway:
- Chase Ink Plus and Ink Bold: Now, for a limited time, 60K points after $5K spend in 3 months.
- Chase Ink Cash: For a limited time, 30K points after $3K spend in 3 months.
And, last but not least, the Lufthansa Miles & More card has hopped back up to a 50K bonus (as it does every few months):
- Premier Miles & More World MasterCard: 50K bonus.
Evolve Money mortgage payments
In the post, “Best ways to use $200 Visa gift cards” I said that you can get mortgage payments applied to your monthly payment (rather than to principal) by making multiple small payments through Evolve Money, all in one day. I still believe that this works in most cases, but a couple of people have reported that they had to call their bank to persuade them not to apply the payments to principal. Each bank is different in how these payments are handled, so keep an eye on your account and call your bank right away if the payments aren’t being handled the way you want them to.
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nick says:
May 6, 2014 at 8:11 am
Okay just to follow up on my last months comments, I received all points they said I would for my mid April to May statement.
However for my mid May to June statement I had received emails for incorrect amounts that were far below what I expected. For this statement I was due to receive about $500 worth of cash back and actually only received about $300. There were some days that I ordered and never got a confirmation email for it.
I have heard rumors lately that shop discovers payout has been spotty lately.
I have not gotten cash back from UPromise on my 5/2 staples GCs order. It is my first time to use UPromise. I am not sure how long I should wait.
If you log into your account, does it show anything under “recent transactions”? It should by now.
I just wrote to Swagbucks for missing points on an April Staples Visa card purchase. Never used them before and my future use depends on the outcome.
Just got my UR points posting today from staples as well! (only it posted for 1 of the orders, not the other one…)
FYI, still no barclays portal posting for 4/24 AMEX order.
@Gabriel, I got my Barclays miles on 5/7 for 4/4 order, so you probably have to wait for a while for 4/24 order.
Has anyone gotten cash back pending from Upromise for orders after 4/30?
Yes, I have pending cash back from a 5/3 order
Made several Shop Discover purchases through the month and got my statement today. A few points:
1. Staples purchases (office supplies): 4/9, ShopDiscover email 4/12 saying that I’ve earned cashback. Did not use Discover Card. DID receive cash back.
2. 1800Flowers/Amex promotion 4/16, ShopDiscover email 4/23 saying that I’ve earned cashback. Did not use Discover Card. DID receive cash back.
3. Staples purchase (office supplies) 4/27, ShopDiscover email 5/1 saying that I’ve earned extra cashback. Did not use Discover Card. DID receive Cash Back.
4. Three additional Staples purchases (4/27, 4/28, 4/29) for Visa Gift Cards. Received all 3 email confirmations that cash back was pending. Did not use Discover Card. DID NOT receive cash back.
Interesting! It’s still possible that cash back for the gift card orders will appear next statement, though. Fingers crossed.
@Gabriel I purchased the giftcard on 0429 and it posted on 0505.
Has anyone received Barclays 4X bonus for early April’s order?
I just received an email yesterday with acknowledgment of points for my early April orders.
I show my points for one giftcard through UR mall as pending for Staples.
@Maury…what date did you purchase through the UR mall? I bought the evening of 4/29 and it’s still not showing up as anything in my UR Mall activity…
A data point: I received an email on 5/5 that the cashback for my 4/29 Staples GC purchase, which I paid for with an Ink through ShopDiscover’s portal, had tracked and was pending.
To clarify, the 5/4 transaction shows up nowhere on Upromise. The 5/29 shows as Pending but for only $5, which is clearly wrong.
On 4/29 I ordered 5 gift cards from Staples via Upromise. Upromise is only showing $5 pending cashback for the transaction. I wonder if that’s the end of the Upromise cashback? On 5/4 I ordered one more to see what would happen and the transaction is not even showing up as pending on Upromise…
Where can you see the transaction shows up as pending on Upromise? Thanks!
Rephrase myself. Where can you see the transaction shows up as pending on Upromise before cash back is shown as pending? Since you ordered on 5/4, cash back has definitely not shown as pending yet.
I been getting discover confirmations emails You’ve Earned Additional Cashback through out the week 4/10, 4/11, 4/12, etc…
But strangely enough on 5/4 i got several You’ve Earned Additional Cashback emails for the same days (4/10, 4/11, 4/12) I was already confirmed to have received cash back for. Except the amounts in these new emails are significantly lower for the 4/10, 4/11, 4/12 dates..
I had been purchasing with out paying with my discover.
I did not get a letter that they will be reversing my points.. but now I am worried to as which why they would send me these emails.. I wonder if they are in addition to what I should receive? or are they reflecting the new amounts of my cash back for those dates.
I feel like it might be the latter since the cashback in the first set of emails was fairly accurate with what I bought.
Strange. Let us know once it gets sorted out!
Just as a data point, I ordered 5 each for my wife and myself on 4/28. They showed up today (5/3) as pending on my upromise account. Not sure if it is funny or scary, but the ad in the CAPTCHA box below is for Visa Gift Cards from Staples 🙂
Let’s go with funny 🙂
Has anybody tried ordering through the UR mall? I ordered on 4/29, got my gift cards in the mail on SAT, but I haven’t seen any UR Mall activity yet.
Speaking of which…when is the last time *anybody* got paid out for purchasing a Gift Card through the UR Portal? The T/C’s say “not eligible for gift card purchases”…so I’m wondering if I’m wasting time by ordering through the portal.
I’m willing to bet that it still works, but I don’t have recent evidence.