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Thanks to Big Habitat for pointing this out…
Today, the Alaska MileagePlan Shopping portal is offering 8X at Sears (no word yet on whether this will last beyond today). This is stackable with other offers…
MileagePlan Shopping holiday bonus miles (7X):
- Spend $100 earn 700 bonus miles
- Spend $200 earn 1,400 bonus miles
- Spend $300 earn 2,100 bonus miles
Gift cards, double the bonuses
Sears allows you to earn points on both the purchase and use of Sears’ gift cards. In fact, the portal encourages it (see photo):
NOTE: This does not work with partner gift cards in which you click through from Sears to giftcardmall.
NOTE 2: After placing the order for a gift card, call 1-888-396-5299 to verify your order in order to expedite processing.
By buying gift cards and then using gift cards, you can essentially double the shopping portal 8X bonus and the holiday bonus miles! So, the portal click through bonus becomes 16X and the holiday bonus can become 14X (by buying half as much “stuff”. Example: to get the $100 bonus, buy a $50 gift card through the portal, then go through the portal again to buy $50 worth of stuff using the gift card to pay).
Quarterly credit card bonuses 5X
Both Discover and Chase Freedom are offering 5X this quarter at department stores. When buying Sears’ e-gift cards, they count as Sears department store purchases.
You can also buy Sears physical gift cards to get the Discover bonus, but they will not count for the Freedom bonus since they are sold by Kmart.
With either option, you can also reload an existing Sears gift card (physical or e-gift card). That will process from Sears.com and will give the 5X bonus. Gift cards can be loaded up to a maximum of $500.
35X Example:
- Go through MileagePlan portal and buy $150 e-gift card. Earn 8X = 1200 miles.
- Pay with Chase Feedom or Discover It card. Earn 5X = 750 points (or $7.50 cash back).
- Go through MileagePlan portal again and buy $150 worth of merchandise. Earn 8X = 1200 miles.
- Qualify for MileagePlan holiday shopping bonus: 2,100 miles.
- Total points/miles earned on $150 spend: 5,250
- Points/miles earned per dollar: 35!
Even better:
Big Habitat reminds us that you can use your gift cards at Sears to buy items that return nearly 100% back in points (see his post for a couple of current options). In this way, you can theoretically get another 8X miles on top of those shown above!
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Is there a limit on how much you can reload existing (physical) sears gift cards and still earn full points? Also, any limits on how many gift cards you can redeem per online transaction?
I’m considering a big Sears appliance purchase and want to maximize points, once the next big portal bonus hits.
I believe that gift cards are limited to $500 total value each (although one person told me he was able to go higher). Yes there is a limit to how many you can use at once. If I remember correctly, its something like 15.
The miles from my purchase have already posted to my Alaska account. Does it typically really take 6-8 weeks for the bonus to post?
Wow, that’s really fast. Yes, with most mileage portals, I think that you can expect it to take at least a month for miles to actually post to your account.
[…] few days ago, I published a terrific one-day deal: Up to 35X Alaska MileagePlan miles at Sears! I’m pointing this out not to rub your face in it if you missed it, but rather to show how […]
So technology if you spend $1500 it can net you 40K points do I read that correctly?
Well, let’s see:
$1500 x 8X to buy gift cards = 12,000
$1500 x 8X to buy merchandise = 12,000
$1500 x 5X (credit card bonus) = 7500
Max portal holiday bonus = 2,100
Total = 33,600
[…] 8x today (like it was yesterday), there is still time for it to go back up. BigHabitat and FrequentMiler have more details about how the math can be upwards of 35x. Of course, there are plenty other […]
I was able to get my egiftcard verified, and have been experimenting with some of the items giving more in points than they cost. It looks like for some of the items there is an 18 dollar cap on syw bonus points that can be circumvented by buying a single 15 dollar item each transaction. Does anyone have experience with this technique that can vouch for the fact that you do get the syw points each time? it’s showing that they’re going to apply each time, but have yet to show up in my available total and I don’t want to do this 10 times and only get paid for 1.
I thought I already posted this question, but I’m not seeing it listed in the comments … so if this double-posts, forgive me …
The gist of my question was … will I get “credit” for this (buying these Sears gift cards on Sears.com) as a 5x purchase on my Chase Freedom, as I see that it is showing up as a pending charge as “Kmart.com” (not Sears). Is there any way to make sure that I get the 5x credit for this? Thanks.
I received credit from Chase for 5x on a physical GC purchase on Oct. 6th. I had forgetten the advice that a physical GC rings up as KMart (and mine did), but when I look at my recent activity on my account, it shows I received 5x.
I’m really surprised to hear that, but that’s great!
What about buying Sears gift cards through the ShopDiscover portal? Will that yield the 10% Discover bonus?
Yes
Southwest is offering a bonus, too, but the terms “exclude” gift card purchases. Has anyone still received the bonus from Southwest even when the terms are excluding GCs?
I’m pretty sure that you can earn the shopping portal holiday bonus when buying gift cards as long as the gift cards earn points (which they will with Sears).
I noticed on my Chase Freedom online account that these purchases (of Sears gift cards via Sears.com) are showing up as Kmart.com. And I don’t think Kmart is on the list of 5x bonus merchants for the Freedom in the 4Q (https://creditcards.chase.com/freedom/activate). Does anyone have experience with this. Since my order is already pending on my Freedom as Kmart.com, is there any way for me to make sure I get credit for this as a 5x Sears purchase with Freedom? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!
In the past, Kmart purchases have not qualified for 5X with Freedom. The way to ensure that it shows up as Sears is to buy e-gift cards or reload existing gift cards (physical or e-gift cards).
Thanks for the reply. Now that I’ve messed up and bought physical gift cards that are coded as “Kmart” on my Freedom card, does anyone have any advice how to maximize my chance at getting the 5x (if it doesn’t come through the way that FullMoonMadness reported)? All I can think of is maybe to contact Ultimate Rewards somehow and show that that I have an email receipt from Sears, but for some reason it’s getting coded as Kmart. I haven’t even checked to see if there is such a thing as UR support??
That might work. You might be able to get a courtesy adjustment. Wait for your statement to close and if you don’t have 5X, call the number on the back of your Freedom card.
I know you’ve covered this before, but can you remind me : can sears gift cards be used to purchase other gift cards (like amazon)
Yes you should be able to. Buying other gift cards like Amazon, Staples, Shell etc is relatively easier than buying (if found) Visa or MasterCard GCs. As always your cashier should let you do that.
Yes, but only in-store and only if the cashier doesn’t object.
I just reloaded $100 to my existing gift card and had to do the verification. It’s been about an hour and still the funds haven’t transferred.
Interestingly the same happened to me. About an hour after the purchase, I got a call from Sears and after answering security questions, the purchase went through. As far as I know, this is a new thing where you have to go through ID verification twice!
Has anyone had success using an AMEX gift card to make purchases of Sears gift cards through the Alaska portal and earned the portal points? And if so, can you make this purchase with a non-personalized gift card?
Ok I actually need to buy a $3k range. Well obviously I don’t “need” to buy it but I am buying it anyway and Sears has it at a decent price. Is the Holiday bonus a one off or can I get it multiple times? i.e. can I do 10 x $300 gift cards and get 8x plus 7x on each, then get the other 8x on spending them? (Can Sears checkout handle ten gift cards on one order?)
The holiday bonus is a one time thing. You could, of course, earn the bonus once for yourself and once for each family member, but the miles then will be in their accounts not yours.
@bryanport
In my experience yes–
In fact the Portals track reload gift card purchases much faster than buying new ones!
I have had UR track 3 days after I reloaded–even on large