Ultimate Rewards Mall June Edition

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Every month, the Ultimate Rewards Mall has new month-long specials.  Last month, I wrote about the May specials in the post “Ultimate Rewards Mall Awesomeness!”  Today, I’ll show you how things look for June. 

First, though, another thanks to HikerT for staying up late and updating his website that shows the Ultimate Rewards Mall payouts for different Chase cards.  You can find his website here: lakebagger.com/ur/

First the bad news

As expected, the goodies from last month went away:

  • Staples dropped from 5X to 2X (oh no!)
  • Sony dropped from 10X to 2X
  • Overstock dropped from 10X to 3X
  • Lenovo dropped from 5X to 2X
  • Sephora dropped from 20X to 5X (this drop happened in May)
  • QVC dropped from 10X to 3X
  • J-Crew dropped from 10X to 3X
  • Ann Taylor dropped from 5X to 2X

 

June Goodies

While June doesn’t have as many great offers as May, there are some nuggets:

Barnes & Noble: 10X
Double dip opportunity: log in to the UR Mall with your Ink Bold, but pay with your American Express business card to get 5% cash back through OPEN Savings. Yes, you can pay with other cards (see “Ultimate Question”).  There are some really good opportunities with this one.  I’ll post more about it in the future.

Saks.com: 10X (Sapphire & Sapphire Preferred)
The website states “not eligible for gift cards”.

Microsoft Store: 10X (Ink Bold only)
Double dip opportunity: log in to the UR Mall with your Ink Bold, but pay with your American Express business card to get 5% cash back through OPEN Savings.  Yes, you can pay with other cards (see “Ultimate Question”).

Brookstone: 10X (Sapphire & Sapphire Preferred)
Note the fairly harsh Terms & Conditions: Not eligible for purchases on Deal of the Day items, Tempur-Pedic, Bose, Sony, Celestron, SkyScout, Panasonic & Braun, Canon, Cinemin, Optima, Panasonic, Power Plate, Sonos, Tempur-Pedic and TomTom products, gift cards or gift wrapping.

Buy.com: 5X
A while ago a reader reported success in getting 5 points per dollar by going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Buy.com to purchase merchant gift cards (Home Depot was his example).  They do charge a small shipping fee ($2.99 for the first card, $.99 for each subsequent card), but they also give you 1% back in the form of “Super Points” which can be used for future purchases.  Thanks for the tip Pete!

NikeStore: 10X (Freedom), 7X (Ink, Sapphire, Sapphire Preferred)
The Frequent Miler Laboratory has shown mixed results for double dipping with Nike (e.g. buying gift cards & then using them for a combined 20X).  Please let me know the results if you try this.

OfficeMax: 5X (Ink Bold only)
Double dip opportunity: log in to the UR Mall with your Ink Bold, but pay with your American Express business card to get 5% cash back through OPEN Savings as long as you spend $100 or more.  Note that the specifics of this OPEN Savings deal are supposed to change on June 15.

Home Depot: 5X (Ink Bold & Freedom)
In past experiments, buying gift cards did not result in points.  Using gift cards resulted in points only when part of the order was made with a credit card.

Reactions

What do you like or dislike with the June changes?  Do you see any big opportunities here that I missed?

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