One of the best ways (aside from credit card sign up bonuses) for earning award miles is through bonus points with an online shopping portal.
One of my favorite places is the Ultimate Rewards Mall where you can earn some serious bonus miles.
What do I need to do to be eligible to earn points?
You must have a credit card that gives you access to the rewards mall. This includes:
How do I get to the Ultimate Rewards Mall?
There are two easy ways to get to the mall. (The one is obviously more direct than the other.)
- Visit ultimaterewards.com. To sign in, you would use the same username and password as you use to get into your Chase online account.
- Go to chase.com and sign into your account. From there, you can scan down to your credit card that has Ultimate Rewards earnings, and you’ll see a link to “Go to Ultimate Rewards”.
5 Tips for Earning Extra Ultimate Rewards
Tip: Yes, it does matter which card you use to access the Ultimate Rewards site.
Right now, I have both the Ink Bold and the Sapphire Preferred card. If you only have one card, then you can skip this step, but if you have more than one card, you’ll want to check out this site. The website has an updated list of how many bonus points you can earn at each store according to your card type.
As an example, if I were shopping at Kohl’s and I entered the Ultimate Rewards site with my Sapphire Preferred account, I could earn 10x per dollar spent. However, if I were to use my Ink Bold account, I would only earn 4x.
Tip: You can typically pay for any card and earn the bonus points.
You do need to access the Ultimate Rewards account with the specific card to earn the bonus, but you can pay with any credit card you wish. Also, some sites will allow you to earn miles for buying gift cards, and then earn more miles when you use your gift cards to pay for merchandise.
A helpful site I highly recommend is Frequent Miler. He closely follows the Ultimate Rewards mall to discover the best earning possibilities
Tip: Be sure to read the terms and conditions.
I know that sounds like a lot of fun, eh? However, certain stores won’t give you credit for gift cards, and others exclude categories like “outlet” or “clearance” items. You want to be sure going into your shopping session that you’ll earn the points you expect.
Tip: Make sure your cart is empty.
If you enter a store website via ultimate rewards and you already have items in your cart, you won’t get credited for your purchase. So if you go to a site and there is something in your cart, empty it, sign out, and close the browser. Then go back to the Ultimate Rewards Mall again.
I’ve had very good experiences with the tracking at the Ultimate Rewards mall. Usually, within a few weeks you’ll get an email saying you’ve earned bonus points. The points should automatically post.
If you have a card that allows you to earn Ultimate Rewards, then you should definitely take advantage of the UR Mall. If you don’t, why not?
If you’ve got any questions about the Ultimate Rewards Mall, just let me know, and I’ll be happy to help.
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About Craig Ford
