40,000 AA miles for $2000 Sears spend!

Last week I posted a way to earn 30,000 Continental Airlines miles by spending $2000 at Sears. Now, there's an even better opportunity.  Through the Aadvantage shopping mall, you can now (for a limited time) get 10 miles per dollar spent at Sears.  On it's own, that means that a $2000 spend at Sears would get you 20,000 AA miles.  However, if you follow this plan, you can get 40,000 miles!

1. Browse to the Aadvantage Shopping Mall and find Sears.  Currently, purchases from Sears via this portal are rewarded with 10 miles per dollar.  Go to Sears from this portal and buy a e-gift card for $2000 (or whatever amount you need).  Note that it may take an hour or so to receive your e-gift card.  From this step alone, you will have earned 20,000 Aadvantage miles.

2. Return to the Aadvantage shopping mall and click through to Sears again.  Find what you need and add it to your shopping cart.  This step will earn you the additional 20,000 miles giving you a total of 40,000 miles for this purchase!  But, wait, there's still more bonus available:

3. Make sure you belong to Sears' Shop Your Way Rewards program.  When checking out of Sears.com, enter your Shop Your Way Rewards number.  For your $2000, you will earn 20,000 Shop Your Way Rewards points!  Don't get too excited, though.  Each point is only worth 1/10 of a penny.  Still, that comes to $20 worth of points.  You might as well take it.

Chase Sapphire: 43% off Land's End Purchase + Free Shipping!

For those of you who love to get stuff from Land's End, here's an outstanding deal.  If you shop Land's End online by going first through the Mr. Rebates shopping portal, you can get 30% off the highest regular priced item, free shipping, AND 5% cash back.  But it gets even better (much better):  If you have a Chase rewards card with access to Chase's Ultimate Rewards Mall, you can get an additional 12.5% back (in travel rewards).  Then, you can get another 1% back through Sears' Shop Your Way rewards!  That means, if you purchase a single regular priced item, you will get back 30% + 5% (of 70%) + 12.5% (of 70%) + 1% (of 70%) = 42.95%!

Follow these steps:

1. Browse to the Chase Ultimate Rewards Mall and find Sears.  At the time of this writing, purchases from Sears via this portal are rewarded with 10 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar.  With UR points worth at least 1.25 cents each when redeemed for travel, that's equivalent to a 12.5% rebate.  However,you want to buy from Land's End, not Sears.  So, go to Sears from this portal and buy an e-gift card in the amount you need at Land's End.  Sears owns Lands End, so a gift card from Sears will work at Land's End.  It may take an hour or so to receive your e-gift card.

2. Go to Mr Rebates and log in (if you don't already have an acount with Mr Rebates, you can do me a huge favor by signing up via this link.  Thanks!).  Find Land's End, and notice they are offering a 5% rebate.  Also notice, there are some links for special deals.  The best deal, at the time of this writing, is one that says "30% off Highest Regular Priced Item + Free Shipping on $50+ Order".  Click through that link to shop at Land's End.  When shopping at Land's End, make sure to pick a large item that is not on sale in order to get 30% off that item.  Before you checkout, though, read step 3:

3. Make sure you belong to Sears' Shop Your Way Rewards program.  When checking out of Land's End, enter your Shop Your Way Rewards number.  You will earn 1% back.  Note: you won't earn Shop Your Way Rewards for the e-gift card, but you will earn for your final purchase.  Don't forget to use your e-gift card to make your final purchase.

If you bought just a single regular priced item from Land's End, you should now have the equivalent of 42.95% off! 


To make things clearer, let's walk through a scenario:


Suppose you see a nice jacket at Land's End listing at $259.  Here's what to do:

STEP 1: Figure out how much Sears credit you need.  $259 - 30% = $181.3 + tax.  I don't think they will let you buy a gift card for exactly that much, so instead, buy one for $200.  By going through the Ultimate


 Rewards mall, you have now earned 2000 UR points worth at least $25 in travel.
 
STEP 2: Via Mr Rebates, click through the 30% off link to get to Land's End.  Find the jacket and add it to your shopping cart.  Thanks to the 30% discount, you save $77.70 right away.  The checkout amount should be approximately $181.30 (I say "approximately" because tax isn't accounted for in this example).   Because you went through Mr. Rebates, this purchase will get you 5% cash back ($181.30 * .05 = $9.07 cash back)

STEP 3: Checkout.  Use your Sears e-gift card to pay.  Make sure to enter your Shop Your Way Rewards number to get an additional 1% back ($1.81)

So, let's look at the final tally:

• You spent $200 to get a gift card
• You received $25 + $9.07 + $1.81 = $35.88 back in cash and travel
• Your total outlay for the $259 jacket is $200 - $35.88 = $164.12
• Depending on how much tax you were charged, you still have some Sears' credit to spend!

30,000 Continental Airlines miles for $2,000 Sears spend!

In an earlier post I described how to "triple dip" to earn rewards from Sears' purchases.  In that post, the "second dip" was to use Big Crumbs for a cash rebate.  In this post I'll describe how to earn tons of Continental Airlines miles from Sears' purchases.  The main trick is that you'll need a Chase Sapphire card (or another Chase card with access to Chase Ultimate Rewards shopping).  Until the end of September, Chase is offering 10 points per dollar spent at Sears and they allow gift card purchases!

You don't really have to spend $2000 to benefit from this approach, I just thought that 30,000 miles might get your attention.  However, if you do have a large purchase in mind anyway (TV?  New fridge? Washer and Dryer?) this might be the time to pull the trigger (at least on purchasing the gift card -- you can take your time with spending it).  The following steps assume you're planning to spend $2000 at Sears, but please adjust to your situation.

1. Browse to the Chase Ultimate Rewards Mall and find Sears.  Until the end of September 2011, purchases from Sears via this portal are rewarded with 10 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar.  Go to Sears from this portal and buy a e-gift card for $2000 (or whatever amount you need).  Make sure to use your Chase card for the purchase or you won't get credit!  Note that it may take an hour or so to receive your e-gift card.  From this step alone, you will have earned 20,000 UR points which can be converted directly to Continental Miles.

2. Go to Continental Airlines shopping portal and click through to Sears.  Continental is currently offering 5 miles per dollar spent at Sears.  Find what you need from Sears.com and add it to your shopping cart.  This step will earn you the additional 10,000 Continental Miles giving you a total of 30,000 miles for this purchase!  But, wait, there's still more bonus available:

3. Make sure you belong to Sears' Shop Your Way Rewards program.  When checking out of Sears.com, enter your Shop Your Way Rewards number.  For your $2000, you will earn 20,000 Shop Your Way Rewards points!  Don't get too excited, though.  Each point is only worth 1/10 of a penny.  Still, that comes to $20 worth of points.  You might as well take it.

Triple Dip shopping at Sears, Lands End, KMart with Chase Sapphire

If you have the Chase Sapphire card and are interested in buying anything from Sears, Kmart, or Lands End, consider the following opportunity to earn Chase Sapphire points, cash back, and Sears' Shop Your Way rewards.  Altogether, you will receive the equivalent of between 16.7% to 18.3% rebate!

1. Browse to the Chase Ultimate Rewards Mall and find Sears.  At the time of this writing, purchases from Sears via this portal are rewarded with 10 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar.  With UR points worth at least 1.25 cents each, that's a 12.5% rebate right off the top.  However,you can do even better.  Rather than buying what you want from Sears, go to Sears from this portal and buy a e-gift card in the amount you need.  Note that it may take an hour or so to receive your e-gift card.

2. Go to Big Crumbs and log in (if you don't already have an acount with Big Crumbs, you can do me a huge favor by signing up via this link.  Thanks!).  Find Sears, Lands End, or Kmart on Big Crumbs and click through to buy what you want.  Currently, Big Crumbs is offering 3.2% cash back for Sears and Lands End, and 4.8% back for KMart.  Let's say you go with Sears, you now have another 3.2% back for a total of 15.7% rebate!  Before you checkout, though, read step 3:

3. Make sure you belong to Sears' Shop Your Way Rewards program.  When checking out of any of the 3 stores, enter your Shop Your Way Rewards number.  You will earn 1% back.  Note: you won't earn Shop Your Way Rewards for the e-gift card, but you will earn for your final purchase.  Don't forget to use your e-gift card to make your final purchase.  You now have a 16.7% rebate if your final purchase was from Sears or Lands End, or 18.3% rebate from KMart!  This is in addition to any discounts or coupons you use anyway.

Note: if you need to earn a few more airline miles, go to your favorite airline's shopping portal instead of Big Crumbs in step 2, above.  This could be a great opportunity to earn a US Airways "Hit".