I have been running a bit of an experiment this past month (or two) by using different cards, etc. through the Ultimate Rewards mall. Mostly I have been spending with my own Sapphire Preferred card, but I made two purchases with my wife's new SPG AMEX as we're working towards meeting the min. spend. Here are my results:
Item, Cost, Date(ish), Card Used, PPD offer
1) Nail gun, $90, 4 weeks ago, SPG AMEX, 5 ppd
2) Wash machine hoses, $15, 3 weeks ago, SPG AMEX, 10 ppd
3) Dust Mask, $25, 3 weeks ago, Sapphire, 10 ppd
4) Lots of stuff, $198, 3 weeks ago, Sapphire, 10 ppd
etc...
Results - no points for anything.
I know I have received points from the UR Mall for purchases in the past, so I finally broke down and sent Chase the following secure message today:
Dear Chase,
I have been waiting for some bonus points to post for purchases I have made with my Sapphire Preferred card through the Ultimate Rewards mall and they do not appear to be posting. I am wondering if there is some sort of a problem.
Two transactions I specifically remember purchasing through the UR portal there have been several over the past 30 days were made from Home Depot which was offering 10 bonus points per dollar. The purchases were for $24.97 on 3/9/2012 and $192.87 on 3/12/2012.
Would you please investigate why these bonus points have not posted? Thanks!
Best Regards,
David Lux
And the response from Chase (this is the interesting part):
Dear David Lux,
I have received your e-mail about bonus points.
Upon review I found that you followed the correct steps to
make the Home Depot charges through Ultimate Rewards Mall.
However, due to the Microsoft Windows issue you did not
earn the bonus points. Please be assured that as a
gesture, I have credited your account with 2,179 points.
Please allow a minimum of one billing cycle for these
rewards to be reflected on your statement. For your
reference, I have explained below how the Microsoft
Windows issue prevented you from earning the bonus points:
Please note that using Microsoft Windows 7 may not receive
bonus rewards for purchases made via the Ultimate Rewards
Mall website.
?Microsoft Windows 7 provides the ability to launch
multiple windows in Internet Explorer during the same
session.
?You may encounter this situation when shopping on highly
utilized websites.
?If you opens the Shopping mall tab in the first window
and completes the ?checkout" process in a new window, then
the bonus
points earned will not transfer from current window to new
window.
?You should use the same window/session while completing
the checkout process in order to receive the bonus points.
If you have any further questions, please reply using the
Secure Message Center.
Thank you,
******* ******
Email Customer Service Representative
1-800-493-3319
Account is owned by Chase Bank USA, N.A. and may be
serviced by its affiliates.
I know now I won't be seeing any of the points for the AMEX purchases I made through the UR Mall but that is OK - I accepted that risk up front and I made my largest purchase for 10 ppd from Home Depot with my Sapphire (and Chase made good on that today). However, I have my own theory (and I'd be curious to hear yours) about why these points didn't post - I have been using Google Chrome equipped with the ....... add-in which I suspect maybe is causing this not to work. I learned about ....... maybe a couple of months ago (Feb 6, 2012 to be exact) and that seems to be about the same time I saw my UR Mall bonus points cease to be credited. Also I should note that I always clear my cache and only run one tab for the merchant (the UR launched tab) when making purchases.
My test on this theory will be to make my next purchase (hopefully soon) using Chrome again, but this time I will pause ....... before making the purchase and resume it once I am done. I'll report back here to let everyone know if that makes a difference.
Anyway, I would also be curious to hear from others on whether you have encountered this issue before (and/or what you think of Chase's explanation).