I’ve made a bit of a game out of trying to predict Ultimate Rewards Mall changes. For examples see here and here. Well, there is some reason to believe we’ll see some changes in the mall tomorrow. For evidence, see the screen capture below showing multiple offers that supposedly expire today:
I said “supposedly expire” because it has happened in the past that expired promotions have continued on at the same rate, but we’ll see. Anyway, below are my predictions. We’ll score it like this: I get half a point for being directionally correct (e.g. the extra points go “down”, “up”, or “stay the same”) and another half point for exactly guessing the new point awards. Here goes:
Frequent Miler’s Predictions
- OfficeMax will go down to 3X (from 4X)
- Staples will stay at 4X
- Sears will go up to 5X (from 4X)
- Kmart will go up to 5X (from 4X)
- Lands’ End will go down to 4X (from 5X)
- Barnes & Noble will stay at 10X
- The Body Shop will stay at 5X
- Target.com will stay at 3X
- Drugstore.com will stay at 5X
Leap Year Mistake?
According to my calendar, tomorrow is February 29th. I’m betting that the “Feb 28th” expiration is a mistake and that the real changes will be made on March 1st. Someone forgot about leap year! If we don’t see any changes tomorrow, then we’ll keep my above predictions ready for March 1st.
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UPDATE: My Staples.com purchase is showing up today. Score!!
Thank you FrequentMiler and kelly s! kelly s, thanks for reminding me that I’m in a better position since I did make the purchase on my INK Bold card – at least they’ll have something to refer to if/when I need to open an inquiry.
Not to worry..they will “manually” credit the Staples points if they don’t show up. As long as you charged it on your Chase card and they can see the purchase! They like you to wait at least 45 days before they will do a manual credit. I get about 75% of my orders through URM…and 25% I have to call and get manual credits for. Some merchants are better than others.
I made a purchase on Feb 22 that hasn’t shown up yet, when I talked to customer service they said that bonus points only post on statement closing dates. Since my last statement closed on Feb 26 he said wait until next month, but allow 6-8 weeks. This is my first experience with the UR mall, so we’ll see what happens!
Chris: It’s true that points don’t post to your account until the statement closing date, but after a week or so you can usually see the points from Mall purchases in a section of Ultimate Rewards called “Ultimate Rewards Mall & Travel Earnings”. Log into Ultimate Rewards and then look for a menu item labelled “Rewards Activity”. A drop down menu should show “Ultimate Rewards Mall & Travel Earnings”.
Frequent Miler, any feedback on how long Stapkes.com purchases take to show up under Reward Mall & Travel Earnings? I made a purchase on the 20th — still waiting!
My prediction of what you won’t see…
Nordstrom 36x 😀
HikerT: Yeah, I think you automatically get half a point for that one!
CodeAdam10: It is unusual for it to take this long, but I would still wait a bit. The longest time any purchase of mine took to show up was 16 days.