This is a quick post to try to clear up one confusing aspect of Chase’s Ultimate Rewards program: shopping
How can shopping be confusing? Well, with Chase you can shop at the Ultimate Rewards Mall or via Ultimate Rewards Shopping. They are not the same.
If you have a Chase credit card with access to the Ultimate Rewards program, then you’ll see a link like this when you log into your Chase account:
When you click through that link you will find yourself in the Ultimate Rewards Home page:
Now, suppose you want to go to the Ultimate Rewards Mall so that you can earn bonus points when making purchases at online merchants. Any reasonable person would think that the next step would be to click on “Shopping”:
But the “Shopping” link won’t take you to the Ultimate Rewards Mall for earning extra points. Instead, it will take you to Chase’s online mall for spending your points. This is where you can trade in points for merchandise. In general, this is a bad idea! Even if you want to use your points to get something, you are usually better off trading in your points for cash and then going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to buy the item at an online merchant. In that way, you’ll earn more points and you’ll probably pay less as well.
So, now that I’ve shown you what not to do, I’ll show you two ways to get to the Ultimate Rewards Mall for earning points:
Option 1: Browse to Ultimate Rewards (as shown above) and then click on Earn Faster… Earn Bonus Points at the Ultimate Rewards Mall:
Option 2: Simply browse to http://ultimaterewards.com/mall.
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