55000 points, 10x shopping, 70x shopping, and a PPM

17

There is so much going on; I don’t know where to begin!

a screenshot of a computer

Sears 10X Points Posted!

Last week I wrote about how it was possible to “buy” 162,000 miles for $500 by double dipping at Sears during the 10X promotion and then selling off what was bought. I ended up not quite going all-in with that, but I did buy $3000 of Sears’ gift cards and just over $2500 of merchandise using gift cards. Well, as the picture above shows, the points posted today! As predicted, I got over 55,000 Ultimate Rewards points in one day! Plus, since I used my Chase Sapphire Preferred account to log in, I will get 7% more points as an end of year bonus!

Small side note: you’ll see a $50 Kohl’s charge above as well. This was for a gift card. This is further proof that, despite Kohl’s terms and conditions, you can usually successfully double dip at Kohl’s (I’ve had one miss where the gift card purchase didn’t take, but the use of gift cards always works).

10 Points per Dollar at Barnes & Noble

a white card with blue text and blue text

Today only, through the Ultimate Rewards Mall, you can get 10 points per dollar at Barnes & Noble. Their usual amount is 8 points per dollar, so this isn’t a huge promotion, but if you need stuff from there you might as well take a look. Don’t forget to search for B&N coupon codes as well. 20% off codes are common. I’ve seen as high as 25% off as well.

If you’re not sure what to get, note that gift card purchases do count! However, purchases made with gift cards do not count. I haven’t tested this yet, but it might be possible to double dip by buying gift cards through Ultimate Rewards and then using them through a different shopping portal. If you try this, check the terms and conditions of the second shopping portal to make sure they don’t prohibit purchases made with gift cards. And, report back your success or failure!

UPDATE (NOON, EST):

I have three B&N purchases to make so I just went to B&N through the Ultimate Rewards mall to buy myself an e-gift card for the full price of all three.  Next, my plan is to make three separate purchases using the gift card: I’ll go once through Big Crumbs (9.6% back), once through EBates (8% back), and once through Mr Rebates (6% back).  The reason for trying all three is to see if any award cash back on purchases made with gift cards.  Of course, I’ll post the results in the future.  Note: If I get charged more for shipping by doing this separately I’ll abandon the plan and just go through Big Crumbs.  If anyone wants to do something similar, please signup with one of my signup links below (I’ll get referral cash and you’ll get my gratitude!):

UPDATE (12:45 est):

I was sitting here wondering why my B&N gift card hasn’t arrived yet so I logged onto my account and looked at the order status.  It has two conflicting messages.  One says “This item is emailed immediately.”  The other says “Expected ship date: December 19, 2011.”  What?!!  That’s four days from now!  Will it take that long for someone to prepare my e-gift card for shipping?  Seriously?  That better be a mistake!

UPDATE (1:15 EST):

The e-gift card finally arrived.  Luckily the “December 19th ship date” was incorrect.

Up to 70X points at Magazines.com

A reader who goes by the name “LoveToFly” posted in Milepoint that he successfully double dipped with Magazines.com through the Ultimate Rewards Mall. Read the post here for more information. He got full credit (35 points per dollar) for the purchase of a gift card, but only half credit for the purchase using the gift card. Still, he made out with over 50 points per dollar! I plan to try this myself and hope to figure out how to eek out the full 70 points per dollar here. I noticed that they sell books in addition to magazines so I think there are some great gift opportunities here. Imagine buying someone a $75 gift and getting over 5000 points in return! That would be awesome!

UPDATE (12:45 EST): I decided to give this a try right away.  I ordered $40 worth of books with free shipping by doing the double-dip (buy e-gift card, then use e-gift card).  I’ll report back in the future with the results.

UPDATE (7:30 PM EST): Well, I ordered some books, but then a helpful Milepointer pointed out to me that the terms and conditions specifically say that books are excluded!  Oh well, now all I can do is hope that they make a mistake!

The OfficeMax Perpetual Point Machine

OK, so a kind reader tipped me off to this, but I haven’t yet had the time to fully research it. Anyway, it appears that if you belong to OfficeMax’s rewards program, you can get in on regular deals in which you buy stuff and get 100% back in the form of OfficeMax rewards. Those rewards can then be used to buy more stuff for 100% back. Rinse and repeat. You can even start by buying a gift card that gives you a bonus gift card on top of that! If each purchase goes through an online mall, you can essentially earn points and office junk merchandise forever, after a single initial outlay of money. I don’t plan to jump on this until I understand it better, so try at your own risk. Here is a link to SlickDeals with more details: http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3694256

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