The United MileagePlus Shopping Portal is offering 10 miles per dollar today at Sears.com.
The same portal is offering a “back to school” shopping bonus for purchases made through August 12, 2015 at 11:59:59 pm ET as follows:
- 500 bonus miles for qualifying purchases of at least $125
- 1,750 bonus miles for qualifying purchases of at least $600; or
- 4,000 bonus miles for qualifying purchases of $1,500 or more
Important notes:
- Any credit card may be used for payment through this portal to earn miles
- Sears explicitly allows gift card purchases to count for earning miles
- The Discover It card is currently offering 5% cash back for Home Improvement and Department Store purchases. Sears counts as a Department Store.
NOTE: Some readers have been told by Discover that Sears.com will not count as a department store, whereas others have been told it will count. Based on past experience, I’ll assume that it will count, but there is some risk. - The Discover It card is currently offering a Double Cash Back promotion for new cardholders (and existing cardholders who signed up before they stopped allowing it)
If you haven’t already maxed out the back to school offer and the Discover It 3rd quarter bonus, then you can combine all of these opportunities as follows (assuming you have $300 in real purchases to make at Sears):
- Log into the United MileagePlus portal and click through to Sears
- Buy a $300 e-gift card (or reload an existing gift card with $300). Pay with your Discover card which is enrolled in the 3rd quarter 5% cash back promotion.
- Wait for the gift card to be funded. You can speed things up by calling. Please see: Complete guide to Sears gift cards
- Return to the United MileagePlus portal and click through to Sears again
- Buy $300 worth of stuff and pay with your gift card
With the above procedure, your $300 purchase should earn:
- 3000 miles when you buy the Sears gift card
- $15 from Discover. If you are enrolled in the Double Cash Back offer, you will eventually get a total of $30
- 3000 miles when you use the Sears gift card to buy merchandise
- 1750 bonus miles from the back to school offer (note: the offer’s terms say that gift card purchases do not count, but in past experience as long as the portal offers rewards for the gift card purchase it will also count for bonuses like these)
Total: Up to $30 cash back (10%), plus up to 7750 miles (25.8 miles per dollar)
Miles vs. Cash Back
Note that the Discover Deals portal is currently offering 10% cash back for Sears. With the Discover Double Cash Back offer, that equates to 20% cash back. Personally, I’d take 20% cash back over 10X United miles any day. That said, for those who don’t have the Discover Double Cash Back offer or who prefer to earn miles, 10X United miles is a good deal.
Questions?
Please see: The Complete guide to Sears gift cards
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Anyone know how long it takes for the shopping portal to post the miles from Sears purchases?
Mine always posted within a week. That is until the little snafu I am experiencing right now. See above.
I am having issues with Sears and both the United and Southwest shopping portals. I reloaded physical Sears gift cards via both sites and received my miles back in May. Problem is in July, all the miles were reversed. Cartera says that Sears “is aware of the problem” and was going to post the miles back into the accounts. For United, I was supposed to see the miles go back by the end of the week (this was two weeks ago) and nothing. For Rapid Rewards, they said two to three weeks.
That has happened to a lot of people who made Sears purchases in May (I think it was May 22 or something like that). Hopefully they’ll figure out what went wrong and fix it!
Yes, that was the day that I ordered.
Last week, I had to submit all of the Sears receipts via email.
Received an update from Cartera this morning that they are going ahead and approving my small order ($100) but are investigating the three others with Sears because “since they are rather large amounts,
it is our policy to investigate with the merchant to find out why they were reversed and attempt to obtain payment for the order in order to pass it back to you.
Therefore, I am sending these orders to be investigated immediately. Because a third party (Sears) will now be involved, we ask that you please allow 4-8 weeks for a definite resolution. However, we hope to have this issue resolved much sooner than that.A representative will follow up with you periodically to let you know the status of your case.”
How do you use an old gift card to reload? I can’t seem to figure it out on their site?
I assume it would be best to have a physical gift card in had if I wanted to try my hand at buyting gift cards with my gift card?
Also how much can one do in a day with Sears not rejecting orders?
Thanks in advance!
1) On Sears.com, click Gift Cards; then look for “Check Balance and Reload” (something like that)
2) Yes, physical gift cards are a bit easier to use in-store
3) I don’t know
Hi there! I am a newbie at this game and am glad I found your site. Thank you so much for all the wonderful information you share with your fans.
I just placed a gift card of $300 in my cart via the sears portal, and there’s a note next to the gift card which states the following:
Not eligible for points redemption
Is anyone else having any issues?
I think that just means that you can’t pay for the gift card with Sears Shop Your Way points.
Based on your Discover IT posts I recently got the card….$50 back….then 10% back on restaurant GC before July 1……then Sears GC…….then Sears tires essentially at 50% off………FM if you had a nickel for every dollar you have saved me you would be rich!
Be careful here. I did this a few months ago when the AA portal was offering 8X. Bought $1000 of Sears gift cards, the 8000 AA miles posted as they should, and then (for unknown reason) AA reversed the 8000 miles! I called AA customer service, and they insisted that I have to go to Cartera, which manages the portal, for resolution. I filed a query and Cartera is being relatively helpful but my miles have not been credited, as they properly should be. Like Julian of Devil’s Advocate, I’ve received unsolicited followup emails from Cartera, but still no miles have posted. So I think it’s risky to rely on the UA portal to actually credit the miles and not claw them back. Anybody have any suggestions for getting my miles?
Thanks for the post… im looking to buy my GC through Discover 20% then going through the united portal to use those cards for the 10x. Im looking at an ipad sold from sears.com but through a different seller. Do you think they will pay the miles on that or must the item be sold BY sears alone.
thanks
Sorry for the very late reply. Yes, marketplace items earn portal rewards too.
I need to purchase a TV at Sears for $1,200.
If I buy $1,200 Sears gift card thru Mileage Plus ( 4 times of $3-00 in your example),
will I quadruple the awards?
Thank you..
The back to school bonus will not be quadrupled but everything else will.
Does Sears still sell $200 GCs in-store?
some do. some stores also allow purchase of visa gc with sears gc while others don’t. If your only plan is to buy visa gc’s then you may get stuck with a $200 Sears gc you can’t unload. Come up with a plan B. The stores in my area are hit/miss.
The one that definitely allows gc purchases doesn’t stock Visas. But they do stock Amazon and Southwest, so it isn’t a total loss.
If you buy an appliance with gift cards you don’t have the same protections as buying with a credit card right?
Correct
How is this better than using the DD portal for the gift card at 20-30%?
It’s not. Its just another option for those who prefer to earn miles (or for those who don’t have the Discover offer)
I think it is difficult to equate these two. 20% of 2000 (through Discover deals) is $400. However, 10X through United shopping portal is 20000 points (plus 4000 bonus points). For folks who fly often, the 24000 easily beats the $400 (not for me).