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Note: Most of the following post was written yesterday morning. Since then, I learned about some additional related issues, so I added information about that to the end of this post. It’s like getting two posts for the price of one!
One of my favorite quadruple dips involves both the Ultimate Rewards Mall and Kohl’s and makes use of intermittently available Kohl’s 30% off discount codes and Kohl’s Cash offers. I reported the latest such offer via my QuickDeals page: “Kohl’s charge card holders get 30% off everything plus Kohl’s cash.”
The quadruple dip goes like this:
- Go through Ultimate Rewards Mall to Kohl’s to buy physical gift cards. Earn 10 points per dollar (10X) from the mall and 1X from your credit card.
- Go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Kohl’s to use gift cards. Earn 10X.
- Apply 30% off coupon (if you are a Kohl’s charge card holder) or 20% off coupon otherwise.
- For every $50 worth of purchases (after discounts are applied), you’ll earn $10 Kohl’s Cash to be used for future purchases.
Through the above process, I have many times earned 21 points per dollar (1 point from my credit card, 10X for buying the gift cards, and 10X for using the gift cards). On top of that, I’ve saved 30% and earned up to 20% in the form of Kohl’s Cash (which I value at about 10% due to Kohl’s Cash limitations).
Full details about this quadruple dip can be found here: “Extreme Savings at Kohl’s.” If you’re interested in the quadruple dip, please read that post.
Chase Freedom
This quarter, Kohl’s is one of the Chase Freedom 5X categories. So, if you haven’t already maxed out your bonus ($1500 5X spend), you can actually earn up to 25 points per dollar by following the above steps and paying for the gift cards with your Freedom card.
Flaky recent results
Since August, shopping at Kohl’s through the Ultimate Rewards Mall has been problematic. For a while, almost all purchases were underreported by Kohl’s to the Ultimate Rewards Mall. For example, a person might spend $300, but only $100 was reported for the sale. Chase will always award mall bonus points based on the sale amount reported to them by the merchant. So, in this example, the shopper would earn 1000 points (10 x $100) rather than the expected 3000 points.
More recently, most of the portal problems seem to have been resolved, except for one big issue: purchases of gift cards are still being frequently underreported. As far as I can tell, it seems as if $100 purchases are fine, but larger purchases are underreported. It may only be an issue when you buy multiple of the same gift card. I don’t know for sure. All I can say with confidence right now is that you cannot be sure of earning 10X from physical gift card purchases (and you will never earn points for e-gift card purchases, in my experience).
The faster and safer Ink option
There are two big problems with the quadruple dip I described above. One issue is the flaky results of recent transactions (see above). Another issue is that gift cards by mail can take quite a while to be delivered (expect at least a week, if not more). And e-gift card purchases are known not to work. Waiting to receive a gift card in the mail might not be a viable option if you’re in a hurry to buy something, or if you’re trying to buy during a soon to expire sale.
A faster and safer option is to buy Kohl’s gift cards at Staples and pay with a Chase Ink card. Go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Staples.com, buy a Kohl’s e-gift card, and pay with your Chase Ink card. By going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall you’ll (currently) earn 3 points per dollar, and by paying with your Chase Ink card you’ll earn 5 points per dollar (since this will be classified as an office supply purchase). In my experience, you’ll receive the Kohl’s gift card sometime the next day. In total, you’ll earn 8X for the purchase of these gift cards.
If you’re really in a hurry, you can go in person to an office supply store and buy Kohl’s gift cards with your Chase Ink card to get 5X for the purchase.
Once you have the Kohl’s gift card(s), follow steps 2-4, above to complete your savings and point earnings. With this faster and safer option, you’ll earn a total of 18X points (or 15X points if you buy the gift cards in-person) and the same 30% savings and up to 20% Kohl’s cash.
Summary
It is possible to earn 21X to 25X for Kohl’s purchases, but the approach takes time and may not work as expected. If you have the Freedom card and haven’t maxed out its quarterly bonus, this is still probably the best way to go (for the chance of earning 25X). Even if you’re in a hurry, you could use your Freedom card at Kohls.com to buy e-gift cards (or in person at Kohl’s to buy gift cards) and get a total of 15X.
If you don’t have the Freedom card or have already maxed out its quarterly bonus, your best bet (for speed and reliability) is to use a Chase Ink card as described above, and earn 15X to 18X on your purchases.
Recent problems using gift cards
Now that I’ve described a solution to the problem of getting points for Kohl’s gift card purchases, another problem has surfaced: people have experienced problems when trying to use gift cards with the 30% off codes. Some people have reported being unable to complete the order online and others have reported that their orders have been cancelled before delivery. One reader was told that you must put at least some of your order on the Kohl’s charge card for it to work, but even that didn’t seem to fix things. Personally, I’ve had mixed results. Yesterday, one order seemed to go through without any trouble, but of course it could still get cancelled before shipment. A second order wouldn’t go through at all. The screen showed an incomprehensible error message.
I’m hoping that Kohls is experiencing temporary technical issues, but more likely this is a continuation or evolution of the flaky results we first saw in August. Either way, I hope Kohl’s fixes their systems soon!
Have you experienced problems placing Kohl’s orders? If so, what discount codes did you use? Also, did you pay with gift cards? Please comment below.
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I have a 1,000 purchase I want to make a Kohls. What would be the safest method to earn the most points? Since staples sells only a 100 gift card, and from what I understand I can only use 4 gift cards at check out, that would only get me to 400. Should I just put the remaining 600 on a credit card?
If I was guaranteed I would get 10,000 points from UR mall portal I would be even ok with that, but if there’s a safe way to earn more I don’t want to miss out since I have such a big purchase.
You’re right that you can only use 4 gift cards at check out. It’s technically possible to get merchandise credit larger than $100 by returning stuff, but that would be pretty complicated. So, your best bet is probably:
1. Go through UR Mall to buy 4 separate $100 Kohls physical gift cards (do 4 separate transactions, and click thru from UR mall each time).
2. Once cards arrive, go through UR Mall again to Kohls to buy merchandise. Use gift cards and whatever coupon codes you qualify for. Pay the rest with credit card or Kohls charge card (if you use coupon code only available to charge card holders).
If I went to Chase portal and then Staples to buy Kohls GC, should I choose physical GC instead of electric GC to get the UR point?
No, at Staples you can get points even for e-gift cards.
Dave: No. Kohls’ registers won’t allow you to buy gift cards with Kohl’s gift cards.
Hey – can you buy other gift cards at a Kohls store and pay for it with a Kohls gift card?
s.h. That’s correct.
For one of your quick options if you have the chase freedom you mentioned buying the e-card from Kohls then shopping with it going through the portal to get a total of 15x. Does that mean we can get the 5x category spend on egift cards and just not the portal bonus?
Someone should get fired at Kohls for the horrendous technical issues they’ve had over the past few weeks. It must have cost them tens of millions of dollars. I just stopped shopping there since it was utterly painful to place an order with them. I’m actually very surprised they didn’t address the issues in their Twitter feed or anything else; it was a very well known issue!
Did your orders end up going through?
Barry: My first order went through fine. I haven’t tried again on the other. I just hope that Kohl’s fixes their computer issues soon!
@Sheryl,
Tell them you want to charge $1 onto your Kohl’s charge and put the rest on the gift card. I am 100% sure they are able to do this.
I was in store earlier this week, attempting to make a puirchase using gift cards, with a portion of my order payment going onto the Kohls charge to get the additional discount. Cashier informed me I can no longer use the 15, 20, or 30% discount associated with using my Kohls charge if I paid any portion of the order with a gift card. It seems that they are implementing some new rules.
Orders shipped
JetSetterFL: I’ve seen that happen in some stores, but never online. Good idea to call and have the sales tax reversed!
Chris: That’s the same error I got with my second order.
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John: you can use up to 4 gift cards at once. I’ve never had to put any of the amount on my (actually, my wife’s) Kohl’s charge card, but maybe they’re trying to enforce that now. You can pick just one credit card and up to 4 gift cards.
I took the other approach and ordered Kohl GC from Staples – except, I was charged taxes on my GC purchase! Never seen those before. Called Staples and they reversed the taxes, but it was wierd. Anyone else seen these?
OK, help me to understand.
I buy 5 $100 GC’s with my freedom thru the ur mall. I get 7500 UR (5x freedom, 10x ur mall)
Once I receive the cards, I go back to the UR mall, and purchase and get another 10X. I get all that. How many gc can I use at a time, and do I also have to use a kohls charge at checkout to get the 30% in addition to using my gift cards? How many different payment types can I apply?
When I tried yesterday and today to make purchases using the 30% code and all gift cards I get a strange error on the top of the page something like “Order XXXXXXXX Payment Group not calculated correctly.” Then I get an email confirming my order but the order total, tax, discount numbers are blank. Then I get an email a few min later saying that my order was cancelled. This has happened every single time.
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Also, if you use a combination of gift cards and Kohls Charge but then in the confirmation email it shows $0.00 charged to Kohls Charge, it will definitely get cancelled.. just a helpful tidbit from a CS rep.
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I think I’m done with Kohls for a while.