One of the best things about Chase is the Ultimate Rewards mall which allows one to get valuable Ultimate Rewards bonus points when shopping through that mall. You must however have an Ultimate Rewards earning credit card to get access to the portal.
There has been previous discussion on whether or not you need to complete your purchase through the mall with a Chase credit card to actually get the points. The clear answer to this “ultimate question” as answered by the Frequent Miler is NO, you do not need to use a Chase credit card to get the points. Others on flyertalk and myself have used non Chase credit cards and even gift cards to checkout through the mall and get the points. Of course, there are people that didn’t get the points either. Clearly, you take on a risk when using non Chase cards as the points may not post, and you would have a hard time arguing for those points since Chase has no record of the transaction.
One question that went through my mind when thinking about this is that if you can get points even when using a non Chase credit card, does the card you use even have to belong to you? For example, can I use my brother’s credit card to make a purchase through my Chase account’s Ultimate Rewards mall and still get the points? I was curious, so I tried out a couple of experiments.
Experiment 1:
In January, my brother bought a US to Asia economy ticket for $1023.68. Notice the break down below.
However, for experimenting, I made my brother’s purchase for him through my Ultimate Rewards account via Travelocity which was offering 2x bonus points at the time. Payment was made using a Citi AAdvantage Visa card in his name.
I wasn’t expecting to receive any bonus points since I wasn’t even using a card that belonged to me. I thought that if I did receive points, it should be 980 points ($490 x 2 since Travelocity doesn’t award points for the taxes and fees). To my surprise, I received 912 points. Why 912? I’m not sure, but I was pleasantly surprised to see this.
Experiment 2:
For a recent stay, I used Hotels.com to book a hotel which was offering 4x bonus points at the time. My wife wanted to pay since it was my birthday. So, I logged into my Ultimate Rewards mall, clicked through to Hotels.com, made a purchase for $320.82, but paid with her Barclays issued US Airways Mastercard. Guess what, I earned the full points for that transaction.
This is fantastic news!
This just further proves the fact that you don’t need a Chase card to earn points through the Ultimate Rewards mall, but also that the card you use does not even have to belong to you!
Clearly, this opens up a new opportunity for earning points by booking or buying stuff for other people that may not care about points or are too lazy to go through shopping portals. Even though the charges go on the buyer’s credit card, you get the points.
This could also be good for families where only 1 person has an Ultimate Rewards account. For example, the wife has one, but the husband doesn’t. The wife can go through the Ultimate Rewards mall to earn points for purchases using her husband’s non Chase credit cards.
Keep in mind that if you do this and the points don’t show up like you expected, you will have no chance or basis to argue with Chase at all since the card you used wasn’t even in your name. I have no idea if Chase has someway of tracking which card was used or if they will frown upon this sort of practice. Use your own judgement.
Will you be trying to convince your family to book all their travel and make all their purchases for them through the Ultimate Rewards mall? 🙂
Thanks for this posting, I’ve been wondering since the Amex mall shut down.